Project Life: Week 1

Before I continue, I know I have mentioned Project Life quite a few times.  I just want you to know that I am in no way being compensated for that.  It is just something that I am doing that I am totally convinced about and love. 

Here are the photos that make up the first week of our Project Life album.  I am loving this laid back take on scrapbooking.  I feel like I have truly captured the most important moments of our week and the stories that are held in those moments. 

The overlays are from Ali Edwards. Although they are meant for 5x7 photos, I resized them in Photoshop to fit my 4x6 photos. (Again, no compensation.)

Below each photo is what I have written on the journaling card that corresponds to that day.

Saturday: At the Lightning game, before game time.  Great game, good time, wonderful people, jammin' to the music, and the Lightning won in overtime 2-1.  The perfect way to start the New Year.

No journaling for this photo.  It is a 5x7 that has it's own page protector (order 2 packs of 5x7 page protectors online).  I love having photos and other stuff that just stands alone in my album(s).

Sunday: Restful day. Relaxing day. Sleepy day.  Came home after midnight last nght so we decided to stay home today.It was a good day as a family. And the Bucs won, too :)

Monday: Oh, Monday. Back on the schedule.  Back to reality. But it was a good.  A part of our routine is meeting Grandma to go grocery shopping and then to McD's for lunch. It is a good routine.  I like it.

Tuesday: I think muffins have to be one of Addie's favorite foods.  She wanted one so badly that she lay infront of the oven just waiting for them to be done.  I guess she thought they would bake faster.

Wednesday: We took a little road trip to visit with Faye today.  In the courtyard of the Wiregrass Mall, Mr. Tommy was performing.  We sat and watched for a bit and then headed out looking for other adventures, including pizza & Publix.

Later that same evening, Brian got a call that the Fantasy football trophy that he had had to give up last year was going to be returned to him (see here for the original loss).  Another story needed to be told, so I made a quick and easy layout with this 5x7 photo + words + a small bit of patterned paper.. Here is the journaling:

This is a story that begins 4 years ago when Brian first began the Gridiron Fantasy Football League. Because of his incredible knowledge of football, the players, probabilities, and teams, Brian won the league trophy two years in a row. However, last year, Brian had to relinquish the trophy to Dan. Despite a losing season, Brian made trades and drafted the team he would need in order to get the trophy back. And he did. On Wednesday night, Dan stopped by to turn the trophy back over to Brian. My man is very happy now that the trophy is back in its “rightful home”.

Thursday: Nap time. It is a good thing.  Addie is able to get her rest, and I am able to either do things around the house or other things that I enjoy. Nap time keeps us both from being cranky.

Friday:  Because of how far out of town we live, and because the price of gas keeps rising, I try to run as many errands as possible in one morning. Thank God for my mom-in-law who watched Addie for me so I did not have to rush.

One of my stops on Friday was to pick up the pictures that Addie had taken on December 1, 2010! Oh, I know! How bad is that! This was the best picture we got that day, and because the photographer really worked hard trying to get at least one good shot, I bought this pose.  This was one of the 8X10s that came in the package.  Because I knew I wasn't going to put it up anywhere, I placed it on the back of the page I made for the trophy exchange (8.5x11), added a little tab of white cardstock, put an initial "a" sticker, and the dates under the sticker swirl.  Now I have a place for the photo and a memory of my errand running day.

Somethings I am already learning from this project are:

1. to look through my photos daily and weed out the ones I am not happy with or do not tell the story I want to relay.
2. upload my photos as soon as possible, Photoshop them, and send them to my photo processing store.  I wanted to see what a completed layout looked like, so I developed my photos almost every other day.  I certainly don't plan on making that a habit, so as long as my photos are waiting for me, I can print them out at my leisure.
3. price checking helps.  I have gone to and called several of the photo servicing stores in our area for prices.  I have decided that, for me, Walgreens has the best price for 4x6 photos at 19 cents a print... or I can wait until they have one of their many photo sales where prints can be any where from 10 cents to 12 cents a print depending on how many I buy.  Sam's Club by far has the best price on 5x7 photos at 38 cents a piece.  Because I will need at least 365 4x6 photos for this album (not including special photos for 5x7 blow ups), I am really looking for dollar stretching deals.
4. sticky notes are my friends.  Because I won't be printing out my photos immediately, placing sticky notes in the respective places where my photos are going to go helps speed up the process when putting my photos where they go when they are finally developed.

Happy Monday!