Five days in and still going strong…
I heart this project.
Archives for 2011
A Week In the Life 2011, Nettio Style
Welcome to A Week In the Life week, Nettio style!
If you’re a fan of Ali Edwards like I am, you probably know that today marked the first day of Ali’s 2011 A Week In the Life project.
For those of you who haven’t heard of A Week In the Life before, AWITL is a seven-day documentary project designed to capture your everyday life through words and photos. The idea is rather than focusing on the big moments like birthdays, vacations and holidays, you spend a week focusing on all the little details that make up your everyday, regular, routine life.
I’ve attempted A Week In the Life twice before, once in 2008 and once in 2010 and in both cases I took photos and notes for a few days, got bored/burnt out with the process and never made it to the scrapbook album portion of the project.
2010 was especially difficult for me because Adam was deployed at the time which meant my days, evenings and weekends tended to blur together in one big pile of sameness. Some people would argue that the whole point of AWITL is capture those same routines and while I’d agree to a point, there were only so many days I could handle taking yet another photo of myself emptying the dishwasher, haha.
But the truth is I LOVE this project. L-O-V-E.
The completed albums I’ve seen from other scrapbookers make me want to complete an album of my own in a bad, bad way. There’s something so magical in embracing the everyday and especially because Adam and I are at a point in our lives where a lot could change in the next few years, I love the idea of taking this time to document our life right now.
So when Ali announced a few months ago her plans to do AWITL the last week of July, I made a commitment to myself that THIS would be the year I complete this album.
And this weekend, I came up with a plan…
1) Focus on documenting this week, album next week
Ali recommends separating your documenting from your album process and I’m going to follow her advice.
Originally I liked the idea of working on the album while the stories were still fresh but I also know myself well enough to know that it would be WAY TO MUCH for me to do everything at once.
So this week I’m taking photos and notes and next week I’ll be putting my album together.
2) Begin with the end in mind
In the past when I’ve done AWITL, I went into it figuring that once I had all my photos, I would work out the design.
This time around I decided to do things differently and sketched out a design plan for my album already. Right now I’m liking having the constraints of a planned design because it’s giving me a better idea of the types of photos I need to take throughout the day while still giving me the flexibility to the capture the stories I want.
As far as my design plan, right now I am to planning to do an 8×10 Portrait photo book through Blurb which I’m going to design using Adobe InDesign. I’ve never done a photo book before so that part kind of scares me but I’m excited to have the chance to brush up on my InDesign skills, haha.
It’s definitely going to be a much more clean, magazine style design than you usually see from me but I am really really excited about the design.
It’s all about the words + photos.
3) Break my daily documenting into chunks
One of the more overwhelming aspects of AWITL for many people (myself included) is the idea that you’re trying to document every day for seven days in a row. Can we say burnout by day three?
I made the decision this time that rather than trying to document my entire day every day like I have in the past, I would break my day into four chunks: Morning, Midday, Afternoon, and Evening and focus heavily on one or two of those chunks each day.
My reason for doing this is two-fold:
One, it will allow me to really focus in on capturing certain parts of my day without feeling the pressure to capture everything.
And two, since my weekdays tend to be pretty similar from day to day, I’m hoping this will keep things fresh throughout the week as I won’t be documenting something I’ve documented the last four days already.
There are a few things I will be documenting every day like clothing and food, but since this decision was partly influenced by my album design, I’m comfortable knowing that while you won’t see everything everyday, you will get an idea of our daily life over the course of the week.
4) Use Evernote to document my week
I’ve recently jumped on the Evernote train and will be using it to capture my journaling/notes for this project. I love that I can add notes from both my computer and iPhone and they automatically sync.
In Evernote, I have an A Week In the Life notebook that has eight notes in it: one note for each day of the week for documenting those day specific notes (schedule, routines etc) and a note named Weekly Faves where I will be documenting ongoing themes throughout the week. Right now my Weekly Faves list is broken up into these categories:
- Food
- TV Shows
- Places We Go
- Technology
- Brands
- Clothing
- Websites/Apps
My plan is to compile the Weekly Faves lists into a two-page spread that will serve as a round-up of the week.
I have to say this may be one of my favorite aspects of my album design not only because I was able to fit my “faves” obsession into this project, haha, but because I love the idea of mixing daily and weekly themes. If my lists become really long, I may limit them to a top-ten list for each category but for now I’m writing down anything we do that falls into these categories.
5) Download my photos off my camera every day
While I’m not going to be focusing on creating my album this week, I am going to upload my photos to my computer every night/morning. Not only will this give me a better idea of any photos I still need to capture but it should help me avoid the OMG-too-many-photos moments that always come when I work on a large project.
So that’s my current plan for tackling A Week In the Life. I’m sure some things will change as the week progresses but after today I’m feeling really good about my design and plan for this week.
Anyone else doing A Week In the Life project of your own this week? Do you have a plan or are you winging it as you go? Feel free to share your plan or lack there of in the comments!
Announcing the NettioDesigns Creative Team!
First up, a big HUGE squishy hug to each and every one of you who applied to my Creative Team call!
Adam will be the first two tell you how nervous I was about doing the call and how even up to the moment of posting it, I was convinced no one would apply and I’d have to slink away in a flurry of digiscrap embarrassment, haha. So the fact that so many of you wanted to be part of my little ol’ team seriously means more to me than you know.
I had such a fun time reading through all of your applications this week and getting to know a little bit more about each of you and your motivations for being a part of this amazing hobby of ours. I can’t even tell you the number of times I laughed or giggled or nodded along with you because I totally get where you are coming from. You definitely made my decision tough!
But as we all know, there are only so many slots on a team and ultimately a decision had to be made. So with that I am here to announce the lucky ladies who will be joining my first ever Creative Team. And by lucky, I really mean that I am the lucky one to be able to work with such awesome scrapbookers!
I know these ladies are really excited to get started and I have no doubt they’ll be scrapbooking amazing pages to inspire you! Lots of good things are coming so I hope you’ll all stick around for the fun!
Can I take Levitra if I am taking other remedies at the same time
Documenting My 29th Year with Project Life
Back on May 24th when I turned the big Two-Nine, I wrote out five personal goals to complete over the next year, one of which included documenting my 29th year.
At the time I wasn’t quite sure what type of album I wanted to create so in order to help me get a better idea about what type of album would be best, I made a list of exactly what I hoped to get out of my 29th year album. You can read more about my reasoning behind the list in this post but here is the short version of the list I wrote:
- Daily Life – Document what our everyday life looks like – similar to P365 but less structured
- Memorabilia – Create a home for all the little bits and pieces of paper/things I love to pick up
- Adaptable – Ability to adapt to the story – with more or less photos/story
- Easy upkeep – Needs to be manageable to maintain throughout the year
At the time I was leaning heavily toward Becky Higgins’ Project Life since it seemed exactly what I wanted but since it was SO trendy and I try to avoid anything too trendy, I decided to wait.
Flash-forward to July 1st rolling around and me realizing that if I was serious about making an album to document my 29th year, I needed to get this party started. So over the 4th of July holiday I took the plunge and ordered this:
An American Crafts 12×12 Faux Leather album in Graphite, Project Life Divided Photo Pocket Pages Design A and Project Life 100 Pack of Journaling Cards. I debated about ordering a larger variety of pocket pages but ultimately decided to keep things simple until I was sure I actually liked Project Life.
As is often the case with projects around here, my Project Life stuff sat sad and unused for another week or two before I decided to finally get down to business earlier this week…
And have since turned those pages above into this…
A completed two-page Project Life spread documenting Week 8 of my 29th year – July 12-18. Woohoo go me!
One of the mistakes I made when I did my Deployment:365 project back in 2009 was trying to get caught up on my layouts by starting at week 1 and working forward. Which meant no matter how many layouts I did, I was always several weeks behind. I do not recommend this plan. At all. It is a BAD idea.
So this time around I decided that although I’m now eights weeks after my birthday, I would start with the most recent week, July 12-18 and scrap that first and then while I’m keeping my book current going forward, I’ll work on filling in the weeks going back to May 24th. This way I can stay focused on the current stories rather than forever being lost in the past.
Here’s a closer look at the left side of the page:
Yes, that is Adam and I holding goblets of beer (at hopdoddy’s), haha. For anyone lucky enough to be in the Austin area, you should check out hopdoddy. It’s awesome. Delicious burgers made with local ingredients and tasty local brews.
Since the Project Life kits aren’t available anymore, I made my own title card to label each two-page week spread. Here’s a close-up of the title card:
For all my fellow font lovers out there, the tall font is Bebas and the smaller font is Museo Sans, both of which are available for free. For the patterned paper top, I used a digital paper from Zoe Pearn’s awesome Zoom Zoom kit and printed the whole card on Epson Premium Presentation Matte paper using my Epson printer.
Here’s a closer look at the right side of the page:
Since one of our big activities this week was the start of our quest for a new dining table and chairs to replace our sad dining table and folding chairs we’ve had since college, I included some photos of our trip to Crate & Barrel as well as a clipping from the front of a catalog we picked up at West Elm.
We also attended the midnight showing of the final Harry Potter movie this week so I dedicated several pockets and a journaling card for Harry Potter. Here’s a close-up of the Harry Potter part of the page:
I included a photo I took with my iPhone of the sign at the theater as well as our ticket stubs. In the bottom pocket I included the front of our Harry Potter-style 3D glasses as well as the top of the wrapper they came in since they included the name of the movie.
In order to make the glasses less bulky, I unscrewed and removed the sides of the glasses so they’d sit flatter in the pocket. It’s still a little bulky but once I complete next week’s page (the back of the Harry Potter card) I’m going to staple the corners of the pockets to hold the glasses inside and I think they’ll stay just fine..
Here’s another detail shot of the right side page:
For the two journaling cards, I wrote my journaling on the computer using my custom handwriting font by Darcy, added some Ali Edwards’ brushes (This One Brushes) and then printed them directly on the Project Life journaling card using my printer.
I didn’t realize you could do this until this week but because my Epson printer feeds papers through the printer without folding or bending them, you can pretty much print any custom size you want. Had I known this back in December, it sure would have made my December Daily album a whole lot easier, lol!
My thoughts on my 29th year Project Life album so far?
I am in LOVE. As in this-album-makes-me-want-to-do-a-happy-dance kind of love. There’s something so cool about seeing daily events and memorabilia like this all in one place. I am definitely very very excited to see where this album goes as the year progresses. I’m so glad I decided to jump on the Project Life bandwagon, trendy as it may be, haha.
So that’s my story from my first week of Project Life. Anyone else doing Project Life? Anyone finished any happy-dance inducing projects lately? Feel free to share in the comments!
Can I take Levitra if I am taking other remedies at the same time
It’s Time! NettioDesigns Creative Team Call!
We interrupt your regularly scheduled edition of Friday Faves for this important announcement…
That’s right! The moment you’ve all been waiting for has finally arrived, haha.
As I mentioned in Monday’s Goal Update post, I’m ready to kick things up a notch here at NettioDesigns. But in order to do that?
I need a team of kick-ass digital scrapbookers.
Which brings me to this…
In case you can’t see the graphic…
I’m on the hunt for some AWESOME • CREATIVE • ADVENTUROUS digital scrapbookers to join my first ever Creative Team!
As part of my CT you would:
- create a minimum of ONE layout per product prior to release day
- post your layouts in TWO galleries
- serve as a passionate ambassador for the NettioDesigns brand & blog
Think you’ve got what it takes to be a part of my team of awesomeness?
To apply, go to:
http://modern-school.flywheelsites.com/ctcall
Deadline to apply is TUESDAY, JULY 19 at NOON aka 12:00PM EDT (9AM PDT). Team will be announced Friday, July 22.
What do you have to lose? Apply today to be a part of the most kick-ass NettioDesigns team ever.
It’s going to be FUN!
Burning Question: Are Your Photos Organized?
Organizing is always a hot topic around the scrapbooking world but today I want to focus on one specific aspect of scrapbook organization: photos.
As I’ve been working my way through Stacy Julian’s Finding Photo Freedom class over at Big Picture Classes, I’ve been thinking a lot about photo organizing, scrapbooking and how the two work together.
Here is what I have realized:
1) Having unorganized photos limits my scrapbooking creativity
As much as I hate the thought of spending valuable scrapbooking time tagging and organizing photos, I’m quickly realizing that being able to find photos to go with my stories is key to getting those stories scrapped.
While a simple keyword search for “red button” may work for my digital scrapbooking supplies, it’s a whole lot harder to find a photo of say “Adam” in a sea of generic photo names like IMG_10234.
If I want to be able to find my photos in a more inspiring way, I need to take the time to make it happen. My creativity will thank me.
2) Simplicity is key
The key to any organizing system: easy maintenance over time. If the system or software is too complicated to maintain, I’m not going to stick with it.
3) I need a better system for tracking ideas
The more time I spend with my photos, the more ideas I have…and the more ideas I forget. I need to figure out a way to keep track of all the story and project ideas so when I sit down to scrapbook I can actually remember them.
It’s Time for a Poll
So where do you stand on the photo organizing home front? Have you whipped your photos into tip-top shape? Or are you drowning in a sea of I-take-WAY-too-many-photos?
I’d love to hear what you have to say and to make things nice and easy, I even whipped up this handy little poll:
[poll id=”2″]
I’d love to hear more about why you voted the way you did, so feel free to comment away with more details.
Aperture photo from Apple.
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