Project Life 2013: Weeks 4-6

There's a lot to Project Life to catch up on this week!  I've got three weeks to share at once.  The second two are not recored in a typical two page spread and I'm excited to show you the slight adaptation I made to make Project Life work for me.

First is a more traditional way of doing Project Life, for January 20-26 with a two page spread and an insert made out of a trading card sheet.  Here is how it look in my album.

I've got daily life recorded, things like LB trying his first bean burrito - another thumbs down from him, and of him "reading" at the table just like Mommy.  Then there's a miniature polar bear painting ER made at school.  She said she made a baby bear so it would fit in my album!  Guess I've got her trained to think Project Life style ☺  There's also a sweet one of her having a tea party in my bedroom with her American Girl dolls. 

The leftover box is how I included that I went to a Mom's Night Out with friends, my acutal friends were feeling camera shy.  At the bottom is a quote card and the black you see at the top is the back of the tab I used on the previous side.  Written on the reverse of the quote is a list of the guests at my Great Aunt's funeral luncheon.  I liked the quote card and didn't want any extra bulk so I decided to use both sides this way.

This week's insert had all iPhone pictures and is about shopping for ER's new bedroom furniture.  We make any purchases on this day but ER had a ball looking.  To help us remember what we saw and where I took cell phone pictures of our favorites and it just seemed natural to include her and turn it into an insert.  The journaling cards are all double sided Simple Stories Snap cards.

I didn't think I'd have enough to fill the second half easily but as usual, it was no problem.  The top right picture illustrates exactly why we had to rush out and look for furniture.  LB figured out how to climb out of his co-sleeper.  Brad weighted the legs against the wall down so he can't tip it and suprisingly he doesn't climb out of it anymore.  We told him no and he stopped.  Shocking.  That hasn't worked before! 

The Be Your Self card is from Pebble's Love You More line and I sure do love it.  They were just beginning to put it out when I picked up the journaling and quote cards pad and I hope they get more of it.  On the bottom is a cute Tiny Prints personalized gingerbread card from the set we used this year.  ER wrote her last one and there was one leftover so I snagged it for PL. 

Now for how I combined two weeks into the space of one normal week spread.  It's nothing earth shattering but it was a departure for me and a lightbulb moment that I can make PL work for me anyway I want to.  It was kinda freeing.

Here is how Jan 27-Feb 2 and Feb 3-9 look combined in my album.  At first glance it might look like one week with an insert.  When I went to put these weeks together I found I didn't have very much to include. Yet, if I squeezed each week into one side then I didn't have enough room for journaling.  What to do? 

My solution was to incorporate half a page protector, sandwiched in between the weeks.  One one half is the rest of the first week and on the reverse is part of the next.  I made sure I put the dates a couple places to make things clear, like on the tab attached to the insert.  I think it really works.

Here is January 27 - February 2, during which we brought up the little table for LB in the hopes that he's stop climbing up on, and then often falling off of, our kitchen chairs.  It didn't exactly work out how we planned.  Now he just climbs and stands up on both.  Then I used a combination of rub-on letters and stickers onto of the snow day picture of ER.  When I messed up transfering one letter o, a round snowflake sticker took it's place.  I liked the look so much I did it with more than one.

The other major story is of Brad getting the first piece of dry wall up on a day he took off to work in the basement.  Then his mother and Ray came over on the weekend to help move the projecess along more.

February 3-9 was the week I got really sick and was bed bound for several days, making it necessary for Brad to take off of work.  Needless to say, not many pictures got taken.  Just enough to pull this together, but on the upside, it gave me room to include recipes for two new ones we tried.  I'm going to continue to do this for ones we life because too often we try one I've found on Pinterest or through my weekly linky A Crafty Soiree and then when we want to make it can't figure out exactly which one it was. 

The Super Bowl card is a free printable from Made from Pinterest. I used elements from the kit Get Well Soon from Louise Franks Designs to make the sick themed card.  I got that one when I was on her Design Team.  Louise isn't actively designing kits anymore and has gone back to her first love - blog design.  She's really good at it, if you haven't been to her site lately, here's the current one.  I really miss the DT, it was fun and streched my creativity and skills a lot.

Last thing I wanted to do in this long PL post is to give a shout out to Melissa at A Vegas Girl at Heart, which is where I got the Favorite Photo card.  It was part of her enormous Retro Themed Freebie Kit, that she so generously shared along with all her other fabulous freebies.  The space on the poloroid was perfect for the date. 

Update 4/9/13: I was out of town last week, so even though this posted as scheduled I'm just getting a chance to link it up to the The Mom Creative now.