Week in the Life Part 4

Hi Everyone, I have the final installment of Week in the Life from the SAG team. Now I have to admit, mine is not quite finished yet, but the main part is, so I still have lots to show you. I have never done WITL before. I have to admit I'm not great at projects like these, I tend to leave them unfinished! So I was very aware of that when I was coming up with my album plan. I did the plan before the week as I wanted to have the layout in my head. I've gone mainly digital (which is different for me!), with a few hybrid elements thrown in. I wanted it to be an easy to complete project. I loved doing it, but I'm glad it was only a week. I was very conscious of trying to have enough photos everyday, but I did forget a little about actually taking a decent photo! So some of my photos are average, but they tell the story and that's what it is about! The other thing I loved about it was that my kids really got into it. They would suggest photos that should be taken and by the end of the week were taking photos of every meal, movement and more!!! Even though alot of their photos weren't the best, I loved that they were fully involved. I also wanted to make sure I got myself in the album as I rarely have photos of myself. I'm happy with how my album has come together. Next time when I do it I will put a bit more thought into the journalling aspect at the time.

With the album design, I have done completely my own thing. I had an album that I purchased on sale, probably 2 years ago, that I had never used. I love the album, its totally my colour! It is a 6x9 inch album which is kind of an odd size, so I thought it would be perfect for this.

So whilst I am not a digi scrapper, I have lots of Photoshop experience from working for a photographer for 6 years. So I decided to create my own template. It was easy to do and I wanted to make sure I had room for a fair few photos.

I've used both 6x9in and 6x6in page protectors in the album. The first page of each day has a slim (6x3in) black and white photo on one side and then some strip journalling (had to throw a bit of hybrid in!) documenting the weather, breakfast, lunch, dinner and the highlight of the day. Then I have a large photo 6x6 inches.

Then the next page is the journaling and the collage of photos. When you turn the page, I designed it so the b&w photo was still completely visible. I wish I'd thought of that when I designed the collage page and made the daily timetable that side. It would have made the whole thing neater.

So most of the collage page is digi, just the patterned paper is a real life strip!!!! From there the pages continue in the same format. I've put a few more below.

So I just need to finish my title page and conclusion page. I did keep some receipts from the week and I will put them in a pocket at the back I think...I haven't completely worked that out yet. I will post the completed album on my blog tomorrow afternoon.

I hope you enjoyed our week of WITL. I love that we all did something different. It shows you just how versatile the project is. I definitely recommend doing it.

Don't forget to stop by tomorrow as I will be doing a new discussion.

Emma

Week In The Life Part 3

Morning fellow scrappers/memory keeps/WITLers.

I followed a pretty simple approach. I used Ali's 2011 WITL templates. I am pretty happy with the result. I did prefer the way Ali used them and in hindsight I might have done the same but using them they way I have has forced me to add a bit more detail. It has (well still is) taking me a bit longer that I had thought but I am pleased with the finished product.

I did drop the template into an 8x10 canvas in PSE. When I got a few trial pages printed there wasn't enough white space around the edge and as a result I lost some of the white border. Once the pages where printed there was a few mm strip I cut off.

I stuck the page on cardstock, Bazzil Java. And popped it in an AC album :)

In hindsight...I wish I started this a few years back. I love the concept. I am even thinking I might do it again before this time next year. I would like to do a Summer or school holiday version. And I totally subscribe to Sharons thoughts for next time. Some shopping dockets would be a cool addition.

Thanks for dropping by. Please say hi, we love to know who visits :)

Diane
I have posted my digi versions here.

A Week In The Life: Part Two ...

Hi everyone, it's my turn to show you how I approached WITL this year. This is the second consecutive year I done this project and after feeling a bit scared by the whole prospect last year, I have decided it is probably my favourite scrapbooking project of all.
I think it is very easy to get caught up in the enormity of the potential effort involved with WITL, it is true, if you decide to go ahead you need to make a commitment to take a few photos each day and jot down some of the stuff you did ... but, you know what, it doesn't need to be more than that - a few photos and a few words.
There are two things I had to remind myself of, one, find the format that suits you and two, just chill out - if you take on WITL when Ali runs it, it is easy to get caught up in what she shows each day and what lots of other people are doing, working to your own format and at your own pace is really important.
Here are some of my pages.

This year I chose a digital format and I used Cathy Zielske's School Album templates which are available at Designer Digitals. I chose two pieces of digital cardstock from Oscraps and I used Arial font in varying weights.
I had all my pages printed professionally at 8x10 size, I picked them up yesterday and popped them in the album along with last years WITL.
Last year I wrote a lot and I included screen shots from online news sources and the weather and I also wrote out several recipes I made during the week, nothing fancy, just what we were eating. I didn't do any of that this year and half way through the project I started to wonder if 2011 would have enough detail, it does. What I haven't shown today is my summary page, basically it is a 8x10 text box with some of the cardstock across the middle, anything extra I wanted to journal about fitted in well here and I've ended up with more than enough.

Thanks for dropping by today, let us know if you have any questions and hopefully we can answer them in the comments section. I'll see you here again tomorrow with another SAG version of WITL 2011.

A Week In The Life

Is over again for another year, and over here at Simple Aussie Girls, four of us took part this year. Nicole declared this to be far too big a commitment, and normally I share that opinion, but this year I decided to join in and give it a go. My plan was to keep the whole thing as simple and pain free as possible, so that I could reduce any self imposed hurdles that might prevent this from being yet another un-finished project.

This week we plan to share our respective takes on Ali Edwards Week In The Life, and hope you enjoy seeing a bit of how we've gone about things, and of our daily lives.

Like I mentioned before, my intention was to keep things as simple as possible for myself. I downloaded the PDF's thoughtfully provided by Ali, printed them and kept them accessible on my kitchen counter. With a pen tied to the bulldog clip holding them together so the kids couldn't run away with it. I kept basic notes about each day, and took photos. Not nearly as many as other people, but when it came down to the end, I wasn't able to use all of them anyhow!

I put the album together in a hybrid fashion.  My title page, using some word art from CZ.

I won't share every page as they are pretty much the same, but just give you a taste of how it came together.

I decided on a simple double page spread for each day, facing each other.

The above photos I printed and chopped up, and slid them into divided photo pockets. It looks great and I love the slight see through element of it all, but I am not sure I will do this again! It wasn't as fast as I would have liked it to have been!

And how it looks all put together:

I made a slight error when printing - I didn't "flip" the text - I printed them all the same, however when you flip the page the text doesn't lay at the centre of the main page, which gives a great big ole bit of trapped space in the middle. However, I didn't want to print or re-do those pages again do just left it be and made a mental note for "next time"!

And if you have done the mental math on the pages, you would realise that I would end with a blank divided page at the back - which I intend to fill with photos I didn't use already for the week.

I decided to include the daily pages that I had scribbled on.

  I've put them in a pocket, and as they are a bit messy, simple made a cover to put in front of them in the same pocket.

This has left me with a blank pocket on the other side of those daily pages...which I have filled with a special layout, that you will see more of in a few weeks time, involving Amy's next challenge.

If I do this again? Go into a little more depth, I think. I've skimmed the surface in keeping it so simple. Use some patterned paper, I think. While I don't mind the clean graphic look, a bit of pretty paper would have been nice. But I can't be bothered adding any now its done!  Other thoughts: include the front page of the newspaper, folded in a pocket. Print out some news headlines for one day, from an on line news service. For sure, include shopping dockets (I didn't actually go to the grocery shop during my WITL!) But now, I've done it once, and its pretty much done and away in its album.  I think I might do this every second year, and house it in the same album.

Pop by tomorrow and see how Amy put her WITL together! Feel free to share a link to your own Week in the Life in the comments, or on our Flickr page (just let us know so we know to have a look!)