As promised, here is how I’ve been putting all those bits and pieces of life that are collected into my Project Life albums. I am a collector of little pieces that have meaning but just can’t throw out: ticket stubs, tags, post cards, shopping lists; but my previous weekly layouts left no room for me to add them in.
My solution was to utilise the We R Memory Keepers 9×9 baseball card page protectors. I first used these in Lauren’s 21st album for small photos, and again in Jane & Marc’s 25th wedding anniversary album. Here is a look at those (sorry for the bad photo on the left! It was taken on the kitchen table at Mum’s and the flash flared):
I have quite a stash of these page protectors and knew they’d be perfect for those bits and pieces I gather in my wallet and on my desk! Here is what I did last year:
I started this in about May last year. I created my own cards for each month with a little ‘bits & pieces’ logo in InDesign and have one for each month from May to December. As you can see, a mix of things we were doing, our interests, even the coffee I drink! This worked really well for me, to cull what was important and not feel guilty when I threw things out! It was great to be able to see a snapshot of the month as well – July was our trip to New Zealand and the December page is more Christmas related.
I wanted to keep things going for 2012, even though I am adding more things into my weekly layouts. I collect A LOT of stuff, as Simon will attest to! I wanted more colour in my month cards, which I did by adding in some backgrounds from the Clementine and Cobalt digital packs in InDesign. Here’s a look at how I set the file up:
I printed these on my inkjet printer at home (I use a very old but incredibly reliable Canon i865) on gloss photo paper. They really pop in the page protectors. Here’s a look at the start of my January page:
Because I am adding things into my weekly layouts, this time around I have more space so I’m adding in quotes and Instagram photos that don’t appear anywhere else. This is working really well for me and I like the look of this already.
I’ll post these at the end of each month when they are complete. I think I can switch things up a bit more with this one if there are things I want to add in and if I do, I’ll repost it at the end of January, which is next week!!!
If you are interested in my monthly template, leave a comment and if there is enough interest I might post the file as a PDF to print.
