Project Life, or photo pocket scrapbooking that incorporates photos + journal cards, is a perfect way for digi-scared beginners to jump into hybrid scrapbooking! There are so many awesome printable journal cards out there, both free and for a small amount of money. All you have to do is search printable journal cards on Pinterest or on Google to see a plethora of choices. A lot of digital scrapbooking stores have sections just for journal cards, Project Life, or printables now. A few examples are the journaling cards and Project 365 sections at The Lilypad, the Project Everyday section at Sweet Shoppe Designs, and the journal cards, InstaLife, and Project 365/52/12 sections at Scrap Orchard. The American Crafts Becky Higgins branded Project Life products are also now available digitally at AC Digitals.
So how do you incorporate digital items into your Project Life album? Let me give you some examples.
The most basic and easiest form of incorporating digital items is to use them on your photos before printing them out. This can take the form of simply typing out journaling, using digital brushes/png overlays on top of your photos, or using a tablet to doodle on your photos.
For my 2013 Project Life Title Page, I used a very simple font to type out a favorite quote that spanned over all my photos. I lowered the opacity of the font so that you can still see the photos underneath them. I love how it looks all together on the page!
For this photo, I created a banner on a separate layer on top of the photo in Photoshop. I changed the opacity of the banner to around 70% so you can see through to the photo for a vellum-esque effect. Then I typed my journaling and printed out my photo.
For this photo of my cat Noodle, I combined digital handwriting ("Noodle") with typed journaling on top of the photo. I always love to also put the date right onto the photo as well.
I often hear scrapbookers complain about not liking their handwriting, or not being able to fit a lot of journaling. Typing your journaling in MS Word or Photoshop, and then printing them out onto your traditional paper journal cards, is an answer to that dilemma.
I have a video tutorial on my blog that shows you my step-by-step of printing journaling onto journal cards. Liz Tamanaha also has a tutorial on her blog using a different method. There are other tutorials out there too, just google around and see.
If you like typed journaling on journal cards, why not take it to the next step and use digital journal cards? I dragged 6 3x4 digital journal cards onto a 8.5x11 canvas in Photoshop. Then I typed journaling right onto the journal cards in there and printed them out. All I needed to do was trim them and put them into my Project Life album!
Another example.
This is what they end up looking like in my album. I love the ease and how much of the story I can fit by typing them!
You can also create your own journal cards using digital graphics. For the journal card on the right, I used a hamburger, french fries, and a drink from some digital doodles by Kate Hadfield. I created a 3x4 canvas in Photoshop and just dragged my digital graphics onto my canvas, sized them to the proper size, and added my journaling.
I also love to incorporate social media into my Project Life album. Here I took a screenshot of a status update and pasted it onto a 3x4 canvas in Photoshop.
For these pockets about running, I created the photo effect in Photoshop. I also pasted a screenshot of my Daily Mile page onto a 3x4 canvas in Photoshop to print out.
Another DIY journal card. This one is 4x6 and incorporates a movie poster graphic downloaded from the internet, along with my review of the movie.
I know many digital scrapbookers who do their 12x12 Project Life pages completely digital. Then they send the pages off to get them printed. Once they receive the prints, then slip them into regular 12x12 scrapbook page protectors and into their album.
In a similar vein, I thought it would be fun to do a complete Project Life spread digitally. I did this on a 12x24 canvas in Photoshop.
Since I don't have a wide-format printer to print 12x12 pages, I sliced up the pieces in Photoshop into 4x6 and 3x4 and printed them out and put them into my Project Life album. I thought this was quite clever! :)
Closer look. The whole thing was created digitally!
One final way to incorporate digital methods into your Projec Life album is to create photo collages in Photoshop. I love to do a 8.5x11 Month-In-Review page every month to insert into my Project Life album. I type journaling and print it out onto both the front and back of my 8.5x11 cardstock base, leaving room for the photo collage.
Then I print my photo collage out and cut them and adhere them to both sides. The insert ends up looking like this, summarizing my awesome month! I use Lightroom to create my photo collage, but if you are looking for a Month-In-Review template for PS/PSE that incorporates both the photos and the journaling, you can find templates by One Little Bird Designs here and here.
I know this post was long, but I hope you are inspired to give hybrid Project Life a try. It is so versatile and a perfect way to jump into using digital items if you are scared of it.
Hybrid Week header graphics made using digital graphics by Kate Hadfield.
