project life - how to create interactive layouts

Are you doing Project 365/Project Life? This is my fourth year in a row and as time consuming as it is and no matter how far behind I am in my blogging, I still take my photos every single day. It is a project that has consumed me and I just can't seem to stop.

Every once in a while I insert iPhone screen captures of current favourite songs or weather forecasts to fill some gaps or make note of a significant event. The result is a pretty fulsome snapshot of a year in the life.

Despite the number of photos I take, I still beat myself up for not taking more video of the kids. I find myself wishing I had more footage of them as babies, the problem is that ripping videos to DVD and creating menus is time consuming and I have a big enough job processing photos and creating layouts for my photo books. And most importantly videos can't be incorporated into my photo books.

Or so I thought until I came across a brilliant pin on Pinterest. A pin that will revolutionize my photo books and bring them to life.

Instead of taking a photo of that moment where your beautiful child skates up to the boards at hockey practice and waves to you and journaling about it, capture it on video, create a QR code and insert it into your layout. Relive that moment with a quick scan with your smartphone instead of digging through a pile of unlabeled DVDs (because let's face it - you're not going to do it).

Here is the moment I will be using for today:

day 50 - the justice league

Long time no post! It's been a crazy couple of weeks getting ready for the boy's fourth birthday party. The party was great and I am finally ready to get back into the posting groove.

Here's a shot from the superhero photo booth on Saturday:



Have you seen this awesome freebie for Project Life? I don't post status updates very often but I had a very important one to post on Valentine's Day so the timing was perfect.


Have a wonderful Family Day everyone!

well this is unexpected

Quick! Your house is on fire and you only have time to grab one item to take with you (aside from children and pets of course)! What is it?

My one thing would be my 1 TB external hard drive. It has every picture I have taken over the past two years, sitting perfectly organized and sorted by date.

Well tonight I was having some problems with it. I unplugged the USB cable and when I plugged it back in, the USB connector snapped off and fell inside of the totally sealed box which doesn't have any screws.

Now what?!

Please keep your fingers crossed! In the meantime I'm going to focus on staying calm and not crying and I'm going to leave you with the dividers for my new book. The dividers in my first book too no time at all and the ones in my last book took way too long.

This new layout is a happy medium:









I'd still love to hear how your Project Life is going. Are you liking it? I like it but I will be looking for something different to use for 2012. I'd love to hear your recommendations!

the month of april

My favourite month so far and I finally feel like I'm getting into a groove.

I find that scrapbooking by month makes the process easier. It helps me move through the layouts faster as I don't have to reinvent the wheel every time.

Thanks so much for your kind comments on my recent layouts! Here are the answers to the questions you asked:

Q. ABC asked how I get my layouts so bright.

A. They are bright because I gravitate to brightly coloured scrapbook kits and due to the processing I do on my pictures. I really like saturated colours and use a series of actions when I process my pictures that pump the colour up. With that being said, there's a threshold. You want to give them a bit of pop but you don't want to overdo it. The challenge is knowing where that threshold is and that's easier said than done when you edit on a laptop screen like I do.

Q. Bentonflocke (who correct me if I am wrong is also on her fourth consecutive Project 365 project - congrats!!!) asked which manufacturers I use aside from Becky Higgins.

A. The answer is whatever grabs me. This kit is by Miss Tiina. I gravitate toward doodles and bright colours so her style works for me. My layouts from March were from the BYOC series from The Lilypad. Each month multiple designers create elements using the same colour pallette. The result is a collection of beautifully coordinated elements and papers.

Looking around the various digital scrapbook stores, journaling cards are all the rage now so they are easy to find and pair up with other accessories and papers.

Q. Georgia and Darla asked what I do with my layouts when I am done and asked about Blurb books.

A. I work full time, so unfortunately I don't scrapbook much outside of my Project 365. With that being said, my 2010 Project 365 Blurb book was 130 pages, so that's a lot of scrapbooking in itself. Because it's sequential, it's a bit easier to bind into a book. The best advice I can give is to create your pages in photo editing software like Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. Build the pages to size so all you have to do is download the Blurb software and pop the pages into place.

So that's it! It's a lot of work, but words can't begin to describe how nice it is to have a book at the end of the year.

Or the next year.

*sigh*

Hopefully I can catch up soon. In the meantime, I give you April 2011:

the month of march

Moving along and slowly catching up. Project Life is going well and I find myself moving away from Becky Higgins's kits at this point. There are plenty of other designers who have kits with journaling cards so I have decided to mix it up a bit. Step away from the usual and do my own thing.

So here's March. Moving on to April.....

the month of february

Thanks so much for the kind comments on my Blurb book! I really appreciate it. It was fun and it's nice to look back on an entire year of photographs and stories.

I find the stories are the most important part of Project 365. In almost every case I remember taking the picture, but I frequently forget the story behind it. The crazy things the kids said or other important things happening on a particular day. They are stories that I never would have remembered had I not documented them.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Thoughts on Project Life so far? Liking it. It's easy and the coordinated sets are nice. Not totally diggin' the Clementine set I used for these layouts though. It had less elements than the Cobalt set I used for January and it's just not my style.

But that's okay. It's done and I'm moving on to March. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that one day I might even catch up. Maybe one day I'll send a book to print in the year it was photographed and scrapbooked.

Highly unlikely, but a girl can dream.









Are you doing Project Life? I'd love to hear how it's working for you!

project life - january 2011

While my blogging fell apart towards the end of the year, I did complete my third year of photos. And since I'm only just putting the finishing touches on my 2010 book, I have a lot of work ahead of me putting 2011 together.

I've been looking for a system on and off for the past year as anybody who has scrapbooked their 365 can tell you, it's a monster job. I needed something I could do quickly and efficiently and the past two books have taken hundreds of hours to put together.

The problem is that well thought out and consistent looking systems are few and far between and they the majority of them involve me starting from scratch and reinventing the wheel on every spread. I don't have the time for that.

I had heard about Project Life by Becky Higgins, but all of the samples I had seen were paper-based and I'm not returning to that. The mess, clutter and the idea of printing out my pictures and going back to that method makes my head hurt. It would also mean that I would have to revert to thick binders on the shelf with no easy way to make a copy for each of the kids.

But...I looked into it again and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that there is a digital version. That makes me happy.

What I like most about it is that it's pretty standardized and there's lots of room for journaling. I also like the idea that there's limited white space for me to play with. As much as I love white space, I always find the need to fill it.

So here we go. January 2011 done with Project Life.









So what are you doing? Are you doing project 365? Are you scrapbooking it? I'd love to hear about what system and supplies have worked for you!