Finishing up Week in the Life 2015...just in time for 2016

So last year I completed the photos and set up for Ali Edwards Week in the Life (direct link to her blog with lots of resources and tips). I had a great kit and I was using the Project Life App for the actual photo taking. I even kept up to date on the all the blog posts!! But somehow the last little bit - adding the final embellishments and journaling did not happen....fast forward almost 9 months and I finally finished my 2015 album today!!

Without further ado here is my 2015 album and my process...

Here is my cover for the Album.  As I mentioned I used the Project Life app to do all of my documenting....I took all my photos on my cellphone. I love my photos that I take on DSLR but I knew that with work it was too difficult to lug around my big camera at work all week. This year I will do the same since it is also a work week and I cannot carry around a DSLR - people at work already think that I am a bit of a crazy photo geek!  

I used the Memory Pocket Monthly Almanac kit from The Lilypad as my kit for the week.  I am VERY definitely a kit scrapper. I just can't wrap my arms around multiple kits on a single page unless I am just looking for a staple or something small! 

I loaded all of my journaling cards onto my phone using Dropbox so that they were all available to review all of them at once. I picked one font for consistency. This year I might use Just Jaimee's Ready to Go Templates. I really like the May ones. She lets her subscribers pick the color palette each month and in May they picked Black/White/Yellow. 

It's very, very neutral but I think it would be nice to do all Black and White photos.. I will have to see how it looks. Maybe I will keep them in color. We will have to wait and see. 

The one other element I used was Ali's date stamp for 2015. The version had both dated (with 2015's dates) and undated. I will definitely use the same date stamp for the 2016 album. My thought would be to have multiple years in a single week in the life album. In 2015  I started printing in Shutterfly 10x10 hard cover photo books and I am very pleased with the size and portability. 

The only part of my plan that didn't work as I originally hoped was doing the text in a phone app like Phonto. There was too much text and special spacing due to the  journaling cards included in the kit. PS I also used the Sara Gleason Story Cards No. 1 that coordinated with the Almanac kit that were perfect for the Week In the Life theme!

Only 1 of my sons was home at the time as the other had already gone back to college. I got both to take photos for me and my hubby took a selfie even! It was great to have them all involved. This time around it will be the opposite so I will be asking them to take more photos for Mom! Since its Mother's Day I am hoping to get full cooperation...

Obviously any week in the life will need to include lots and lots of food pictures... and I love the current events cards - I had to look up these items and I was very surprised what showed up on the internet....

As you see I have several pages that are in the Design G format...In the Shutterfly books I often add in the smaller size pages so that I can trim the edge and put a little tab.  If I was doing a physical book I loved to mix in several sizes I will do this again with my 2016 book - saving the smaller size pages for the longer journaling since there is not a good option for that on the Just Jaimee's templates..

The highlight of my week was attending the Scrap Expo in Chicago and meeting my idol Becky Higgins!!!! Plus as a bonus her outfit matched my page kit...it was so much fun chatting with her and her team - they were all super, duper nice!

On the last day of the week we had lots of activities including walking around the Botanic Gardens, visiting with my grandmother and mother in law and a BBQ at my sister's house with my little great niece.. it was a perfect way to end a perfect week. I am so glad I followed along this year and can't wait to get started again this year!

My plan for 2016 will also include working on my pages more real time so that I can actually get done in less than 10 months!

Until next time!