WRAPPING UP 2017

I finally took the time to finish my 2017 Project Life album. As soon as I saw these In Review journal cards by In A Creative Bubble, I knew that's how I wanted to end the year. That is why it's taken me a bit longer to wrap up my 2017 album. Here are the last three pages of December plus my Year In Review page.

In Sweden we celebrate Christmas on December 24th. We had a quiet family Christmas this year, just the four of us. In the morning the kids each got a gift that would entertain them until lunch plus some candy in their stockings. We had a delicious buffet style Christmas lunch with lots of veggie dishes, which I love.

For these pages I've used the Northern Lights documenter kit from Studio Calico, plus several Holiday themed digital sets by In A Creative Bubble.

After lunch Santa knocked on our door and delivered the Christmas gifts. Me and the kids watched A Christmas Carol before bedtime. They used their new sleeping masks to hide behind when the ghosts were too scary!

In the week before New Years we celebrated Christmas again with our extended family. For this page I added in pieces from the SC Homestead documenter kit. The stamp I used on the bottom card is from Studio Calico but I don't know what set it came in. Sorry!

And last but not least, here is my Year In Review page. I chose to not use all the cards in the set, because all didn't apply. I really love this review idea and plan to be ending my future albums using the same cards.

How about you? Are you done with 2017? I still have a few pages left of my 2017 December Daily album. It feels great to have wrapped up Project Life for the year though. On to new creative adventures!

/Magdalena

PROJECT LIFE 2018

So, new year - new album, right? Are you sticking to last year's format or will you be changing things up? I'm staying with the 9x12 format. I've been adding in quite a bit of digital products lately to go with my monthly Studio Calico kit. Templates are my favorite digital product but I also use journaling cards and digital stamps. 

I don't have a formula that I follow when it comes to what and how often I document things. I use the photos I've taken and just go with the flow. On a slow month I may only end up with three pages, and a busy month I may fill up ten pages. This approach to Project Life suits me and I'm able to stay caught up throughout the year. 

I went really clean and simple with my intro page for this album. The handwritten 4x6 card was a freebie from Paislee Press at the beginning of the year. The middle card is from the Hello 2018 digi set by In A Creative Bubble. The heart card is from the Studio Calico Candyland Documenter Kit.

The rest of my pages for January is part of the Candyland Documenter Kit workshop, which means I cannot share them with you here on my blog.

The flu has been crazy this year! It seems almost everyone catches it and they get really sick, too. Our whole family was down for the count for almost two weeks. 

All products on this page are from the Candyland kit. I've been getting questions about which fonts I use on my pages. For titles I use Arial Bold, and for the text I use Gabriola. I love the contrast of the bold caps and the scripty journaling.

Unfortunately Dante had his 10th birthday during our battle with the flu, which meant that all plans to celebrate had to be cancelled. Instead we've had members of our family dropping by randomly to congratulate him, which is still a nice alternative. He's gotten to celebrate his birthday for two weeks straight now! Here's a cousin visiting for Legos and playing in the snow.

For this page I added in the Candyland Documenter Kit printables plus a heart card from the brandnew Messy Beautiful Journaling Cards set by Paislee Press.

I always have a hard time putting together pocket pages with random photos. The photos are much harder to match and all the different stories make the page feel like a hodgepodge to me. Sometimes that makes me cheat, and I convince myself that I don't really need to tell those stories. I will make an effort this year to include the random stories as well, because I think they will matter to the kids in the future. 

I'll be including bits about One Little Word in our PL album too, not only in my designated notebook. I put my bitmoji at the top and journaled underneath. I'm thinking this will be fun to keep up throughout the year, letting the bitmoji change with the seasons and the feelings I'm having.

Another cousin visiting Dante for his birthday. Hearted for privacy! The heart template and the notes journaling card are both from the Messy Beautiful line by Paislee Press.

Week 8 is "Sports Break" and we're off from school. It's been a great week with amazing weather. Dante finally got his birthday dinner at the restaurant of his choice. He'd heard me talking about Pinchos, which is my favorite place to eat, so that's what he picked. Both kids loved the crazy drinks and the tiny dishes!

There will probably be another page or two for February, plus I'd like to make a few layouts for the month as well, but that's it for now.

/Magdalena