My Project Life snippets week 16

One of the threads in my project life this year is to record my first sighting of the different flowers in my garden – this week I said hello to the fabulous bright tulips in one of the smaller ( 3 x 4 inch) pockets.

I like to add text to the photos before printing and using colours that I extracted from the photo.  The ‘hello’ in the circle is from Ali Edwards.

Another smaller pocket has a photo of my nephew who I saw on Sunday – again I extracted colours from the photo for the presentation – a square crop seemed to work best for the photo.

The ‘dude’ flag is from a set by Cathy Z and particularly appropriate as we called his dude as a child.

I’ve been doing Project Life for 18 months now (I didn’t feel the need to wait for the start of the year to start the project) and I realise that I rarely share its content here on my blog – because I don’t think seeing every spread every week is interesting and because there will always be at least one item on a page that I’d blur for privacy.  But then I thought I could share one or two inserts every week or so – to share bits of life and how I approach project life.

Summing up October

Joining Julie again for a numerical summary of the month and an insert for my Project Life album.

A day in Dhaka

Last week (27th) I tried to take pictures of the full day so that I could have a 'day in my life' collection.  While I'm in Dhaka I'm staying with some Australian friends who are posted here - makes a nice change from a month in a hotel. 

 

 

The frames are derived from Ali Edwards handrawn frames - I really like how they look for this series and will be using the idea again.

I've printed each out as a photo and put them in my Project Life album as one of the components for the month in Bangladesh.  I decided not to follow the weekly format for the visit and instead have a page for the workshop and a page for 'home life' and now this day in life

September adds up

I'm still in Bangladesh and having internet problems which means I have not been able to access blogland since 17th of September.  Looking forward to catching up on what everyone has been up to when I finally get good access and some time to browse.

Popping in now to post my numerical summary of September - both the week at home and the 3 weeks in Bangladesh

 

Thanks as ever to Julie for starting and hosting this monthly meme.

Photo Scavenger Hunt

End of summer and time to wrap up Rinda’s summer photo scavenger hunt.  With this photo of me holding a cushion with the Scottish flag I have captured all items on the list, using a sub for the hanging swing.

And here is the double spread in my Project Life album showing all of the items

I really enjoyed hunting for the items and looking at the variety of images that were found for simple things like a washing line. And I love how these photos tell some stories about my summer as well as collecting the items.  Thanks Rinda, looking forward to the next one.

Counting August

As its the end of the month I have another summary in numbers for inclusion in my Project Life album. Thanks to Julie for creating this monthly ritual and linking up all of us who love to count things.

I’m liking the prominence of hounds tooth pattern in clothes and decor for the coming autumn/winter season.

July & al that jazz

Another month captured in numbers for my Project Life album – I’ll cut it in half and place in 2 of the smaller pockets.

When I noticed I have 3 items with number ‘2’ I decided to separate them out and play with the layering of ‘two’, which I’d seen on a layout a while ago and had been wanting to use on something. 

Thanks again to Julie Kirk for prompting us to record each month in numbers and share them in blogland.

Counting June

The end of the month heralds another round of ‘my month in numbers’ hosted by Julie.  I love this ritual – how could I not?  I love numbers, I love summaries, I love playing with Photoshop Elements.

I’m enjoying the chevron fashion although the ones as the top are messing with my eyes – I think they look smaller on the left than the right but I know that they are all the same size.

Have you fallen for chevrons?

photo walk around the harbour

the 3 villages to the east, along the coast, are holding their annual art festival which includes a photo walk.  My Dad and I went along on a rather blustery Sunday and snapped away at

seagulls and

bunting on boats, on houses and in gardens

sculpture

a lively sea

the twin chimneys of the power station (and related tower like shapes)

various colourful and picturesque components of a harbour.

My third photowalk, all in different places and organised differently.  Each one a lot of fun.  Now looking forward to my other favourite photography task – the scavenger hunt – Rinda has promised to unleash hers soon.

counting May

The end of another month and time to join Julie Kirk in her month in numbers.  As with the previous 4 summaries, this will go into my Project Life album.

 

I went back over previous summaries and made a point of using some of the same categories to provide some comparison over the year. 

April in numbers

Really enjoying this monthly summary – thanks to Julie   for the idea and collecting them each month.  I’m finding from mine and reading others that some stories are told through this project that would not otherwise we told.

PAPER PAISLEE PRESS, FILE BRUSH AUDREY NEAL, TITLE ADAPTED FROM K PERTIET

FONT 1942 REPORT, APRIL FONT J.D.

100 FOODS MEME

I’ve seen the list of 100 foods on several blogs recently and thought it looked fun, seeing as I enjoy food and trying different things.  There is some variation in the lists but I decided to go with the one here.

The instructions are to mark the ones you’ve eaten but my love of categorising led me to use 3 big categories – yum, yuk and not tasted and then to divide again within each.

[The paper is Neutral Cardstock from Audrey Neil; the cup stains are by P Springman]

I was pretty pleased with the divide between yum and yuk.  I was surprised there were so many that I was not familiar with, some because they are American and others are Asian dishes. And the 12 I’d like to taste also have a strong American contingent – is this the basis for a trip?

I’ve put this into my Project Life album – my intention is to use it to corral all the different things that I create.

have you done the list – what is your yuk to yum divide?

My Project Life–linking smaller photos

One of the techniques I’m liking for my Project Life album at the moment is having a title go across two photos in the 3 x 4 slots.  Particularly if I have several photos of the same thing – in this case two examples of our twice-daily workshop energizers. Or the next with two of the workshop posters. [Sorry about the poor photo quality with the light showing – no good daylight today].

I create the 3 x 4 photos in PSE by placing two onto a 4 x 6 canvas so adding the title across the two is easy – and then I cut the photos apart after I print them.  For these examples I added a background shape to make the words easier to read and to accentuate the strip across the 2 photos.

In this next one I used the white frame around the photos for the title that crossed across both

And last week I got carried away and have this waiting to print

3 photos to show that we had 3 days of beautiful, unseasonal weather.  The banner is from Katie Pertiet and I lengthened it to reach across all 3.  The hand written words are from Ali Edwards – I removed the segment I wanted from the square frames and then lined them up so the pen line seems to continue from one to the next.

This one I’m having to print on two 4 x 6 photos. 

While I’m at home near my paper supplies I must remember to try this using stickers too.

My Project Life

I’ve been ‘doing’ Project Life since the beginning of the year but only consolidated all of the pieces into an album last week.

Back in December, when I was deciding to embark on this project, I knew that I would not be able to create the album each week.  For one I was in New Zealand throughout January and did not intend to carry the whole kit with me.  And then the page protectors were not available to purchase in the UK in December.  In the end I was away from home for another 5 weeks in February/ March so I needed a system that meant I could partially create each week on the go.

Creating the photos ready for inclusion was easy because I always travel with my laptop and I have PSE loaded onto it.  So each week I would choose the photos to use, add words and decoration and make any 3 x 4 items that I wanted. I wrote most of the notes that I wanted onto the photos or created a text piece digitally. I also took some 4 x 6 and 3 x 4 cards with me so that I could write some on the go.

I took my favourite elements from Ali Edwards and Cathy Z to use on these pieces. The top one uses Ali’s  Hand drawn thick frames and Cathy’s word art.  The bottom one uses Cathy’s tiny templates.

When I was sharing a story on this blog that I knew I would also include in Project Life, I created the Project Life image to use on my blog – rather than writing the blog and then incorporating it into the Project Life format.  One example is the glimpses of Bangladesh images which I created as square collages and then put into the Design E page which has 4 square pockets.

And I had a big envelope to collect ticket stubs, menus, brochures etc for inclusion too.

I used a rough sketch in a notebook to record what I intended to cover on each page and to note which I had already created, ready for printing.   

Putting it all together once I was back home was easy and then I added some decoration here and there – like these foam letters I stuck on the outside of the pockets.

Mostly I have one side per week, rather than the 2 sides of a double spread that most people do.  But I don’t always stick to the week divide, depending on what I am doing.  So when I was visiting friends in New Zealand I have a side per visit, whether it was 4 days or 8 days. For the two week workshop I used 2 sides but had no chronological order across the pages.  I have also included some inserts for traditional scrapbook layouts and to include full documents, like my e-ticket.

I don’t intend to share each week as I create it, because most of the items appear as posts anyway, like the last 2 posts – March in numbers, and Storytelling Sunday.  Instead I think I’ll post on techniques or subjects that I’m enjoying using – look out for my next project Life post on using banners across several photos.

a day in my life

When Ali Edwards suggested recording details of a normal dat, I thought it was my kind of thing

When she created a free word overlay saying ‘day in the life’ in her signature handwriting in a box – well I was sold and added it to my todo list for this week.  This is a digi artists representation of what it will look like in the Project Life pockets.  I used Ali’s thick boxes and 12x12 day frames to create the Tuesday overlay.

As you can see my day included putting together a flatpack, taking the bus, collecting together things on my packing list, going to the supermarket , relaxing with a book and eating breakfast, lunch and dinner.