Write. Click. Scrapbook.

A Week of Tutorials | Paper Saving & Stash Busting Tips

Hi again! Today I am sharing two paper saving and stash busting tips. The first one is for saving paper when using the Slice die-cutter. I know that the big thing these days is the Silhouette machine, but I am still in the "dark ages" with my little Slice, and I figure if anyone else is too, you would find this tip useful. The second tip is one that can help you use up some of those older papers, and should come in very handy if you do Project Life!

 

1. Saving Paper When Using the Slice cutter

Whenever I have to cut a lot of the same shapes with my Slice digital cutter, I find it frustrating not to know exactly where to put my paper for the least wastage possible. I finally came up with a way to save myself that little frustration (yes, it is indeed the little things).

Here's how!

1. Use scrap paper to cut the shape you need. Make sure to line the cutter up exactly on the edges of the glass cutting mat when cutting.

2. Leaving the cut out design on the mat, turn it over and use a permanent pen, like a Sharpie to draw around the shape.

3. Remove the paper and you're good to go!

Now you can position your paper over the shape and maximise your paper use! Just remember to always line the cutter up on the glass mat edges and it will cut in the same place. Since there are a few shapes I cut regularly, You will see that I used a different colour for each one.

Oh and the reason it is drawn on the back is so that it's not lost when you need to clean and reapply the adhesive. I learned that one the hard way! You can always do it that way if you'll be using one shape for just one cutting session though.

So what do you think? Will this help you when using your Slice?

2. A Quick Stash Busting Tip for Project Life

Here's a way I found to save some money and use up my stash. After I downloaded a bunch of printable journaling cards for Project Life, I realised that I didn't have any cardstock weight printer paper. I really didn't want to purchase anything, and then I had an idea: why not use the backside of older patterned papers?

If you're like me, you probably still have some older single sided patterned papers in your stash. I quickly rifled through and found that the back of the papers from BasicGrey were perfectly white, plus I still liked many of the patterns. So I chose the colours and designs I liked, cut them down to letter sized and printed away.

Front

 

The patterned back of one sheet

 

 

The great thing about this (apart from saving money and using up older stuff) is that if I want to I can leave the backside of my journaling cards empty on the following page. Or I can use it as a mat for the other side.

Here's a look at how that worked for me in my album

 

On this side you can see the Details journaling card and on the back

 

You can see that I stuck two smaller cards to the patterned paper side. 

I hope you found these tips helpful!

give.away.day. featuring ELLA PUBLISHING (Digging Deeper Day 4)

It's Day four in our week of Digging Deeper as we discuss ways to dig deeper into your project life albums to help you create better scrapbook pages. We found the perfect addition to our week and our learning, and it is Thursday which means...

We are so very excited to be able to offer three copies of this new and amazing eBook to you, our favorite readers!! It is another great eBook from the Ella Publishing team (that is now under the BCP umbrella) and it is full of helpful and useful tips on how to Dig Deeper in your Project Life.

Here are a few words from the sponsor:

Project Dig Deep eBook: Becky Higgins' Project Life system, which is built around the idea of scrapbooking quickly inside divided page protectors, has revolutionized the way thousands of people approach memory keeping.

 We're thrilled to unveil the first eBook to dive deep into the Project Life system, revealing seven amazing strategies that could revolutionize the way you approach Project Life!

 This is your chance to join seven avid scrapbookers as they get inspired by their own recent scrapbook pages and then "dig deep" to tell seven types of expanded stories within their ongoing Project Life albums.

 Whether you scrapbook chronologically or in a story-based format, you'll love these concrete strategies for discovering and sharing meaningful stories. You'll be inspired to expand on a loved one's personality, flash back to the past, show off a photo tour of a beloved place, create a tribute page to a loved one who has passed on, explore an important relationship, and more!

 Meaningful, story-based scrapbooking has never been easier—or more fun!

Meet the talented ladies whose stories compose the eBook:
Amy Schubert
Annette Haring
Elisa Blaha Cripe
Jessica Turner
Kam Altar
Megan Anderson
Melanie Britt

 

And now to the easy rules of the giveaway. Comment on this post. Yes, that is it :) Leave us a comment telling us how your project life albums have helped your scrapbooks and scrapbooking! Comments will remain open throughout the evening and three lucky numbers will be drawn at random and posted tomorrow morning. Please remember that it is your responsibility to check back and claim your number before Saturday at midnight!

Thank you, Ella Publishing for sponsoring our give.away.day. and thank you, dear readers for stopping by! Bon chance!

Digging Deeper Day 3

Today I am sharing two examples on how I have used a story in my Project Life album and made scrapbook pages with them. But first I want to show you what Celeste shared with me.

 

She says: Here is week 12 of this year and here is a layout that expands on one of the photos.

I have tons of examples. I tend to include a photo and a sentence in my project life album then elaborate later.

Here is a photo of a page in her PL album. She chose to highlight the story in the upper right corner, like so.

Awesome, right?!

 

 

Here is a look at my 14th week of PL this year. In the following layout I took the story about how I love that I could plant some seeds and that they already sprouted (down in the right corner).

 

Saved my Instagram photo to my computer and simply printed the photo after sizing them in Word. 

 

Gardening is a very big deal for me so it is clear that I will take every opportunity to include stories about that!

This one is an insert I made to hold a few more stories in my PL album for week 14. (Yes, this is the same insert as I showed Monday!) This was the week when my new love got up super early, made me breakfast, walked me to work (at 6.15 am) and we found a heart on the ground :) Turns out he would do that more than once that week!

I really wanted to make a layout that recorded what kind of man I think he is. Our relationship is new and I love the thought of me going back and read about my feelings later.

 

Ok, that is it for today! Be sure to come back tomorrow for an awesome giveaway that has something to do with my theme for the week!

 

 Lisa O

Digging Deeper Day 2

Hi there! Did yesterday's post inspire you to look through your own Project Life album and see stories that needs to be recorded a little deeper or just one that needs its own scrapbook page? I hope so!

I will continue to show you a few examples on this theme today.

I turned 34 in February (and by the way I totally claimed to be 33 in March still!) and I had a few of my favorite people with me for the entire weekend.

It made it into the PL spread for that week. In there I told more the story of that weekend, but I usually make layouts each year to capture more of who I am right then. 

On this layout I shared about how I thought this year was going to pretty much suck (I am going through a divorce) and that I didn't have high hopes of a happy birthday, but that life moves quickly and in happy ways sometimes :)

I think it would be awesome to make an extra insert in your PL album whenever you or a loved one celebrates a new year of life and just jot down somethings about them that tells the story of them right now! 

Christine shared a page she did with inspiration from this PL spread in her album.

She says: I went to an Amy Tan class at my local scrapbook store last year on Week 21. I loved learning and scrapbooking with other women. I made a page at the class that was inspired by that love of crafting.

This is a perfect example of how the story doesn't have to be the same both in the PL and in the scrapbook page you do.

My daughter has a best friend that she has known since they were 2 years old. I printed a photo collage she made with photos of a day they spent together and quickly added a few words about that day in my PL spread. That sparked me to make a layout about their friendship.

One thought that has come up while I was writing these posts is that this has been such a good lesson for me. I feel like I have recorded memories, stories and relationships that I hadn't done before.

At one point a few years ago I said to myself, I am done. I am all caught up on scrapbooking. And while I still think that it was true at the time, I feel like I learn something all the time and my scrapbooking has changed through the years. At first I made pages and pages just to be able to have something to show. Next I did it as a kind of therapy and those pages were focused on me and our everyday life. I believe that it was during 2012 it changed for me. Changed is perhaps the wrong word, evolved is a better way of putting it. I lost both my grandparents during last year and while it was hard times, it got me thinking of all the things I would have wanted to know about them and how lucky I was to be able to hold my grandmothers hand while she passed. I went home that night and wrote everything down, the events that led up to her last breath and my feelings. I am so grateful I did. I will forever know that story because it is written down! Perhaps I would either way, but I am sure the details would fade. 

Do you have stories of your childhood friends? Like detailed stories of how you met and hung out? I don´t, but I love the fact that my daughter now will. 

The Project Life way to record our lives has helped me see the small everyday stories, but has also sparked some really interesting thoughts about what I (since it´s me making the spreads) choose to see as valuable to memorykeep. I, of course love both the smaller, shorter stories and the longer ones that come out of them!

 

Stepping down from the soapbox now ;)

Go do some memorykeeping!

 

Lisa O

Digging Deeper Day 1

Hi and welcome! This week I am going to talk about how I have used my Project Life to make scrapbook pages. I hope that you will be inspired and do some yourself!

I have been doing Project Life since January 2012, so I am currently on my second year of recording life this way. I do love it and feel that these albums are so treasured. Every Sunday I sit down with my computer and decide on which photos and stories will be recorded that week. Since space can be an issue when scrapbooking in pockets and limiting your stories to one spread per week can be hard sometimes. Some weeks there is no problem and I feel like I have captured what I want and other weeks there are stories that need a little more attention. Now, I do add inserts to the spread sometimes, but once in a while the story needs its own scrapbook page. 

It was last year that I realized that I needed to make "regular" scrapbook pages even though the stories are recorded in my PL albums. When I first started PL I almost was set on not making "regular" scrapbook pages, but when my grandmother passed I just felt that I needed to make a page that went into my scrapbook album also. This was early in the year and I had done just a couple of weeks of PL and wasn't entirely sure that I would continue that format. 

 

The journaling on this layout is taken straight from this PL page. 

It made it super simple since words on these kinds of pages can be hard. I have done more of these pages where I have used journaling that I already written it for a PL pocket. 

 

I still do scrapbook pages that feature stories that I have already recorded in a shorter format in my PL albums, even though I know that I will continue to memorykeep with PL. 

 

This next one was inspired my the above insert I made telling the story of how my new love and I keep finding natural heartshapes during our walks. 

I have actually been doing this for years and it is so much fun sharing this with him! That of course sparked me to finally making a page about it. 

See you back here tomorrow for more examples!

 

Lisa O

Ask & You Shall Receive

Hi there! It's Celeste back again for another week of blogging. This week I've decided to tackle a few jump start ideas for journaling on pages. Sometimes I seem to have loads of photos that don't really tell a story, but I want them in my books with some meaningful journaling. Hopefully you'll gain some ideas for future pages. I'll be sharing layouts from the team and have a few downloadable freebies to share. So let's get started.

Interviews are a great way to learn more about your subject. An interesting idea would be to ask the same set of questions over time. Maybe on a birthday or New Year's or at the beginning of the school year. The questions will really tell a lot about your subject's interests as time goes by.

But where to get lists of questions? I find that if you ask on your favorite forum there is invariably someone who chimes in with a list or page they've created. I've used the sites below before as well.

Back to School Interview

New Year's Family Interview

Memory Jar Prompts

New Year's Questionnaire

Birthday Interview Questionnaire

Half Birthday Interview

I used a combination of prompts from the sites above to create a couple of Q&A type pages. The first of my son...

 

And the second about my niece. I actually called her on the phone and asked her the questions!

 

Paula Gilarde asked her kids a series of questions. Some of their answers will make you go AWWW!

 

Another thing you can do is expand on just one answer and create a page around that. You could even put together a whole mini-album using the answers.When asked what his favorite book was, my son regularly answered the Percy Jackson series. I knew I had to devote a whole page to this in my books and the result was this page.

I promised freebies, didn't I?

DOWNLOAD

ALTERNATE DOWNLOAD

 

This week five designers from One Story Down have generously provided downloadable journaling cards that you can use digitally or print to jump start your journaling on a page! Today's designer is Kathryn from the Edits. Kathryn not only designs fabulous digital scrapbooking products, she is a fabulous photographer who also has come up with some amazing actions and other tools to make your photos just pop. Be sure to check out her store!

I tasked the lovely ladies from the write. click. scrapbook. team to use these cards this week on a page. Paula Gilarde used the cards in her Project Life album. I always seem to come up a photo or two short each week. An interview is a fabulous way to fill one or two of the blocks on your spread!

I'll be back tomorrow with another idea for you! Until then, happy scrappin'...

And now, the fun stuff.

That’s right, the fun stuff as in the products we use (or plan to use) in Project Life.

Thanks to recommendations from Christine and Deb, I’ve started using Oh Life. It’s perfect for me! I have it set to email me every night at 8pm. My kids are in bed, the day’s pretty much over, and I can sit down and write about anything memorable that occurred that day.

I love my Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher! I bought it shortly after starting Project Life last year and have used it often, both for PL and regular scrapbooking pages.

I often use My Mind’s Eye label stickers like these. They come in many colors and themes. I love Jillibean Soup's Alphabeans. The small font is the perfect size for PL and I would love to get them in almost every color – five down, four to go! And I can’t forget Ormolu and Martha Stewart file folder labels.

My week 18:

 

Deb recommends the Uni-ball Signo 207 gel pen. She loves them so much I had to try them for myself. And she’s right. They’re great. I picked up the micro and bold and should’ve gotten the medium while I was at it.  I mentioned Deb’s template yesterday, and here is a direct link to the template for you to download.

Deb’s weekly spreads using Studio Calico's Project Life kit:

 

Lisa likes Marcy Penner's weekday printables, the For the love of: conversation digital kit, and Crystal Wilkerson's color combo #4 card set. You can read more of Lisa’s post on her favorite products here.

Lisa’s last pages for PL 2012:

 

Celeste likes these cards by Deena Rutter and these date stamp brushes. You can see more of her favorite products and other tips as well here on her blog.

Celeste’s PL 2013 title page:

 

Christine’s weekly go-to products are BIC Mark-Its,ATG Tape Glider, and Tombow Mono Multi glue.

Christine’s week 23:

 

So we’ve had confessions, to-do plans, great products and inspiration. What more could you want but…more inspiration! Write.click.scrapbook. is on Pinterest. And I’m always adding to my Project Life board, as well. I’ll also be posting my weekly spreads on my blog.

If you’re new to Project Life, you can go here to learn more straight from the creator, Becky Higgins. And you can read more of write.click.scrapbook.’s posts on Project Life here.

If you’re participating in Project Life, we’d love for you to leave a comment with a link to your blog/gallery so we can check them out. I’m excited for Project Life 2013 and I hope you are too!

My plan for Project Life 2013, AKA I will complete this album!

Hey there! I'm back today with my plan for Project Life in 2013.  After I figured out what didn’t work in 2012, it was easy to figure out what would make Project Life work better for me in 2013.  Warning: some of these things are really obvious. They’re also things I should’ve done from the beginning with 2012’s album. But I didn’t so I’m making a point of them this year.

• Weekly title cards. I’ve decided I’m going to create one simple title card I like, then replicate it for each week of the year. It'll be easy to tweak each week's card to fit the color scheme.
• Journaling cards. As I mentioned yesterday, I got way caught up in downloading all these super cute journaling cards. I was left with a giant pile of cards I’d printed, plus the cards in the Clementine kit. When it came time to choose my cards it took way too long to pick the ones I wanted to use. This year, I’m going to use the Seafoam core kit (I can’t wait for it to go on sale!) and then supplement it with some carefully chosen journaling cards. There are some cards I printed last year I turned to time and again and between those and the core kit, I should be set.  No more searching for cards.
• The receipts. And notes. And artwork. This stuff was out of control. I keep everything. I was excited to include it in my PL album last year except that I didn’t. I just let it pile up. So this year I’m going to be more careful about what I keep and then instead of throwing it in the file in my kitchen, I’m going to bring it down to my scrapbook area and stick it that week’s page protector so it’s there when I work on that week.
• My handwriting. I haven’t solved this one yet. Hmm, search for a typewriter at garage sales this summer? Until then, I’ve gotten some new pens and I’m hoping they magically improve my penmanship.
• My plethora of pictures. There’s really nothing I can do about this. I take many, many pictures. I’m always going to want to include them all. That’s what inserts are for, right?
• Use stamps. I've got plenty. I need to use them on my journaling cards.
• Taking notes/writing down quotes/journaling. I didn’t do a great job of writing things down this year. Combine that with a lack of blogging and it was a disaster when going back and completing weeks. This year I’m carrying a notebook, leaving one out in the kitchen and in my bedroom as well as on my scrapbook desk. I’m also journaling about my day each night (more on that tomorrow). My memory is not great, and while most of the time I can see a picture and remember what we did, I’ve come across too many where I couldn’t and I don’t want that to happen in 2013. I plan to include my children and husband more, too.
• Keep it simple. Stop trying to make it someone else’s style. My kids don’t care, they just want to see stories + pictures. That’s all.
• Keep up with it. This one is obvious but it’s also obvious I failed at it. I need to make a point to sit down each Sunday and work on my album.

So that’s my plan for 2013. Nothing earth-shattering, but hopefully keeping it simple will work for me. We’ve got a few Project Lifers on the WCS team. I asked them to share a few tips about what has worked for them with Project Life.

 

Celeste

“1. Use stock photography when you don't have a photo. I used movie posters for each movie we went to see in 2012

2. I did PL digitally in 2012. I already started prefilling the weeks for 2013 making a title card and adding a journal card and some filler cards. So I'm at week five. I'd like to do a couple each week to stay ahead.

3. I could not live without Valorie Wibbens stitched pockets. Also, I hope Emily Merritt makes her highlight of the week cards again for 2013! I bought a lot of In A Creative Bubble cards last year too!”

I love how Celeste uses the movie posters!

You can check out more of Celeste’s Project Life pages here.

 

Deb

“1. Printing photos. I purchased an Epson Artisan 837 and started printing my photos at home. I like that when I work on my layouts I can choose the photos, print and keep going rather than having to wait a few days to get the pics back. Before I had the printer, I would order prints every two or three weeks. Once I knew which pics I was using I would write out my journaling so that by the time the prints arrived, I was done except for sliding in the photos.

2. Get your kids involved. I haven't done this too often, but I'm hoping I'll talk my boys into participating a little more.

3. Use a template.  I sometimes print it out and jot down notes about which photo will go where so I'll know how many to print, where they're going and what size I need. The boxes aren't to scale because I made it to fit on a letter size sheet of paper. “

(You can find Deb’s template here, just right-click and save it.)

You can find more of Deb’s Project Life pages here.

 

Lisa

“One big thing I have taken away from this (my first PL year) is that this is my go to way to memory keep from now on. I will do layouts when I have a longer story that I want to record and whenever I just feel like it :) but the PL albums are the ones I will work in mainly in 2013. I am also pondering on just adding the layouts into the album also. “

Lisa wrote an awesome post about all the things she recorded in her PL album in 2012. If this doesn’t inspire you to do Project Life, I don’t know what will!  Check this out!

You can find more of Lisa’s Project Life pages here.

 

Christine

“My biggest learning from doing Project Life is to be flexible. I had all these rules that I made up in my mind and it made keeping up with Project Life really difficult. It doesn't have to be a 2-page spread every week. It doesn't have to be weekly. It doesn't have to be just pocket scrapbooking. I started integrating regular layouts right next to Project Life pockets. And also, do it your own way. I felt the pressure to get really scrappy, rather than try to keep it simple, when I saw what other people were doing. You should really just do it how you really like it, how it fits your style, rather than feel pressured to scrap how you see other people doing it. Because trying to do it other people's way is really hard for a whole year!”

You can find more of Christine’s Project Life pages here.

 

So there you go. A really long post chock full of tips and ideas for Project Life! Come back tomorrow for more weekly spreads from all of us as well as some of our favorite products to use in Project Life.

So how'd the whole Project Life thing go for ya?

For me, not so well. I love it. Oh, how I still love it. But boy did I stink at it last year. I think I was doomed from the start as I didn't begin until I got the page protectors, which I meant I started off 2 months behind. As I mentioned in my last post on Project Life, I just couldn't get going until I had them, even though I had the core kit. Once they arrived, I did the first two weeks of 2012 then skipped ahead to the current week. And then life happened. I got busy. I didn't scrapbook much at all whether regular pages or Project Life. Then I got so behind I'd say, "eh, why bother now." I started to think maybe it just wasn't meant for me. But as 2012 was nearing it's end, I was looking through the pages I had completed and I loved them.  I was disappointed I gave up and didn't complete the year because I truly enjoyed reliving the weeks that were done. I fell in love with the concept all over again. My passion for scrapbooking and documenting our life has come back. It apparently just needed a little vacation.

I'm now renewed. Refreshed. Ready to start 2013's Project Life album. I'm feeling confident this time around. I won't be behind from the get-go, which means I'm instantly ahead of last year. I've got a new plan for 2013, one I think will help me to actually complete the album without being overwhelmed. 

But first, what went wrong in 2012.

• Even without the the whole starting late and immediately being behind and then feeling like I needed to catch-up thing, I set myself up for failure. Anyone who knows me knows how indecisive I am. Like stare at two bookshelves in Target for a half hour because I can't decide which one I want. Only to leave without either because it's too much pressure to choose. So clearly, downloading every printable PL card I thought was cute was a bad move. This meant it took me a loooong time to pick out the cards for each week's spread. I should not have strayed so far from the core kit.
• And that whole indecisive thing also makes it hard to pare down my photos for the week. 
• I struggled with my handwriting. I totally need an old-school typewriter. But until that happens, I'll continue on with my ineligible handwriting. 
• Then there are the weekly title cards. I kept trying to make them different each week. While not terribly time-consuming, it's was time I didn't have to waste. 
• I had a file in my kitchen to collect the bits and pieces of life to use in my album. I'd then bring them down to my scrapbook area, dump them, and then not know what went where. I now have a nice collection of receipts, stubs, pictures, tags and more that I need to sort through.

So I know what went wrong, which means I know what needs to go right. And tomorrow, I'll share my plan for Project Life 2013.

Of course said plan includes completing 52 weeks, versus 2012's 15 weeks. Here are a few of them.

Week 13

Week 14 left, with insert. 

Week 14 right, with insert

Week 17

Week 36

Tomorrow, my plan for 2012 as well as some tips and thoughts on the process by my fellow Project Lifers. And Friday, I'll share pages from some of our WCS team members as well as our favorite products.

See you on Thursday,

CD Case Calendar

Hi there, it's Celeste along with Christine bringing you this year's printable CD Calendar and PNG files! Christine used her mad digi skillz and created the fabulous PNGs that are the basis for the calendar. Celeste put together the easy printable PDF calendar that you can display in an empty CD case. Please download the PNG files at this link and the printable calendar here. The printable calendar file includes blank printable PDFs for each month of 2013. The PNG files are there for digital scrappers who want to create their very own calendar. You can use these and create any size calendar you’d like. 

To start off, Celeste decided to create her calendar digitally. She plans on having it printed at an online photo printer. Celeste started with a 5 inch by 4.65 inch canvas and then added Christine's PNG file. Then she had fun decorating this Christmas-y month with digital supplies!

materials paper (Jolly Holiday by Nerdy Scrapper Studio, Christmas Memories by Tracy Martin, One Story Down) + label (Scrap Your Heart Out, Lauren Reid, One Story Down) + elements (Christmas Memories by Tracy Martin, One Story Down)

Christine made a set of 3x4 printable cards that can be used in Project Life or on pages. AWESOME!

Marnie Flores made this great poster calendar using Christine's PNG files. You may remember she made one with Celeste's calendar files last year. It was so well received that she had to make another! The twelve photo squares represent each month of the year as she tries to capture the activities of the year. I just love the photo collage she made here, so fun! What a great gift for grandparents!

To make it easy for you to make your own, Marnie created a psd file ready for your photos using Photoshop. Just add your photos and clip them to the photo boxes and you have a delightful add on for the grandparents in you life! You can download it here.

If you make a calendar or use the date stamps, be sure to share it with us in the Flickr gallery. Happy Holidays!