Wednesday 10 February 2016

Project Life - January

I've been thinking a lot about Project Life lately... will I - won't I do it?  Do I want to?  Do I want to change how I do it?  Can I get enough photos each week?  Do I want to tell more 'story' about what is going on in our lives? Do I want to cut down to one page protector per week?  Digital vs hybrid?  You get the picture??

Anyway, as I was thinking, pondering and wondering about all these things... and as January was quickly going by... Cathy Zielske posted something to her blog that made me go... YES that's how I want to do this!  Here's a link to Cathy's POST.

I loved what she'd done for several reasons:
  1.  I LOVE Cathy's use of white space, wide page margins and her signature 'clean' look
  2. It was completely digital which makes it easier to share online because I don't have to try and take photographs of my finished pages in low level lighting in winter
  3. Instead of having two heaving albums I will have one photo book
  4. I can change the layout of each individual page without having to buy special page protectors and trying to match up the back and front sides of each page protector
  5. I don't have to buy new albums (which I'm fast running out of room to store)
  6. I don't have to buy more page protectors and inserts
  7. I don't have to go and get photos printed off each week
  8. I REALLY liked the monthly layout Cathy used
I already knew that I liked working with Cathy's templates because I've purchased several of them over the past few years and used them in other projects so, with all that in mind, I decided to go ahead and purchase a couple of the templates Cathy used for her Project Life book and give it a go... and here's what I've come up with for January:
 
I've decided to use my favourite black, white and red colour combo for my album but I'm also adding in a little bit of light and dark grey, limey green and dark turquoise as well just to add some visual interest.  Since Nivea was brand new to our family she features quite heavily in the photos :) 

Michael got busy making Nivea her own little dog kennel which she totally loves... although she still prefers to sneak up to the bedroom and get on our bed at every opportunity.  Michael also spent quite a  bit of time making our backyard 'Nivea proof'.  She's a great jumper and has proven that she can also dig holes!  At one stage she disappeared and we had no idea where she was until we spotted her coming back under the neighbours fence from the park.  Turns out she'd jumped the fence between us and the neighbour and then dug a hole under their fence and was quite happily playing in the park!  The fence has now risen to 1.8 metres and further unsupervised trips to the park have been stopped!


Krystal moved home in early January, complete with a portable cabin.  It fits perfectly on our patio and gives her... and us... some privacy while also being close enough to hang out together on a daily basis.  Michael managed to 'break' the washing line in half... it had three loads of washing on it at the time!  There wasn't a lot of point in repairing the old line as the whole pole had rusted so we headed down to Bunnings to get a replacement.  He got it all set up and concreted in place... and then it rained for three days so it was a little while before I could try it out but it works great!  Esther and Liam came to visit for a few days and Esther and I spent some time in the art studio... good fun and we enjoyed playing around with paint, stain, ink and stamps!


The herbs in our front garden were coming to an end so I decided to have a go at preserving some sage.  I made sage butter and sage oil and they both turned out great!  Nivea and Toby have discovered that when Michael leaves to go to work they can watch him from the bedroom window.  As soon as he goes out the front door they rush down to the bedroom, hop on the bed and watch him as he goes up the road... super funny!  I've been going to an osteopath for a few weeks now and it's made a HUGE difference!  You might not recognise Miss Mikayla... she's dyed her hair bright purple!  Actually I think it really suits her :)


Nivea inherited a pink piggy toy from Toby.  Mikayla gave it to him when she was up in October but he just didn't take any interest in it so when Nivea liked it he pretty much just let her have it.  Turns out she's as good at de-stuffing a toy as Toby used to be and we had 'piggy fluff' all over the lounge for days on end!  Mum and I had a little bit of photo fun when we took the dogs for a walk in the forest.  On January 17th a new phase in my life started... a signed up for boot camp!  It all started off with being weighed, measured and pinched... and the numbers were not in the least bit impressive!  I now attend boot camp on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and I'm LOVING it!  


Each evening we get put through our paces... and there's a LOT of us!  More than 400 people signed up for boot camp and there's people from all different walks of life... we're all on our own journey towards health and fitness and it's one of the best things I've done for myself in years!  No we didn't buy another car... the purple car is Miss Mikayla's new pride and joy... and it matches her hair!  I did get the opportunity to go up to Whangarei for a few days to visit Dad and Jan.  Miss Nivea thought she was going to come for a car trip too but she was sadly mistaken.  Dad, Jan and I spent lots of time just hanging out, catching up and chatting.  I even managed to go walking separately with both Dad and Jan which was great.  On the way home I was a bit heavy-footed and managed to get myself a speeding ticket which Michael has taken great joy over teasing me about!


I added some journaling to my album... nothing too heavy, more just a brief overview about what had happened during the month.  Little things to make it all more interesting.  I also figured out how to take a screenshot from my phone and upload it into my page... just a little bit of evidence about my steps, water and active minutes for my journey towards health and fitness.


For my final page for January I did a 'snapshots' page.  Some of the photos had already appeared in the previous pages (like my shoes, the berries and the blanket box)... and some of them are photos that didn't really fit but which I like for one reason or another... like the cool handwash bottle I bought in Whangarei... or the fact our herbs are growing so well... or the HUGE tomatoes Dad grows so one slice fits an entire piece of toast!  I also included a quote and a piece from my Move More Eat Well class.

I like that I can tell a bit of story but I can also let the photos do the talking.  I love that it was 'time manageable' to put my pages together. I also like that I can easily move things around if I want to.

At this stage, the idea is to complete 4-6 pages per month and then do a 'snapshots' page with some of my favourite photos.  

I've downloaded the personalised photo book app from Vistaprint to my desktop and as I complete my pages I'm simply putting them in the order they will go in the book... that way at the end of the  year all I'll have to do is wait for a good deal (they come up all the time) and order my book.  

One thing I've discovered with the Vistaprint app is that you can have more than one book being created at a time so I'm currently working on Mikayla's overdue 21st album as well.  

Thanks for visiting and any feedback would be greatly appreciated xx