Week in the Life 2014

Welcome, December. You are quite possibly my favorite month of the year.

Today begins December Daily, an annual practice I've come to love, in which I snap at least one photo a day from now until December 25th. 

It's all about documenting the stories of my life leading up to Christmas.

Today, Brian, Noah and I unpacked all of our Christmas decorations, and I had so much fun flipping through my previous December Daily albums, reminiscing and laughing and reflecting and "awwing" at how little Noah was (in 2012 & 2013).   

Usually by now, I have a December Daily album started, but not this year.

The good news is that I've ordered bits and pieces from Simple Stories' Snapbooking Christmas Cozy line, and I'm super excited to bring it all together later on in the month. (Simple Stories also has a December Daily kit available in case you're interested.)

Before I embark on my December Daily, though, I want to share my Week in the Life album.

In this album, I used Simple Stories' SN@P everyday collection, which I serendipitously discovered at Michael's recently.

Seriously, it was love at first sight. 

I was drooling over the bright colors, the hearts, the stripes, the polka dots, and the chevron patterns. They are SO me.  And of course, the camera graphics are awesome, too.  

SN@Pbooking is similar to using Project Life, but on a much smaller scale. You buy the divided page protectors (they come in a variety of sizes), stuff them full of photos + journaling cards + ephemera, and place them in an album.

Scrapbooking simplified. #totallyrad 

Here's a look at my Week in the Life 2014 album:

I learned a really quick and easy way to create a 4x6 layout that includes (1) 4x4 photo and (2) 2x2 photos without using Photoshop.  

Using the PicFrame app (which costs 99 cents), I was able to quickly create 4x6 layouts, fill them with photos from my camera roll, save them to my iPhone, and then upload them to Costco's website for printing. 

(If you need step-by-step instructions, check out this awesome tutorial!)

This process was so much faster than PS, and I loved that I could do it all on my smartphone.   

 As you can see, I kept the journaling pages super simple. I didn't want to spend extra time decorating them; for me, it's all about the words.

About one-third of the photos were taken with my Canon 5D (examples: the four 4x4 photos above) and two-thirds with my iPhone 5S.

 I adore that "winking" photo of Noah.

That jack-o-lantern photo above is just screaming for some word art down the left side. Definitely want to add that in and reprint.  

Again, a super simple journaling page with lots of words.  I used the "some days" prompt to include a look at our daily activities.

 Celebrating Halloween with two toddlers: In a word, magical.


I wrote this letter to Zoey (above) detailing the happenings of her birthday party (since she won't remember it), and I'm also planning to print out this blog post and slip it into the album.   

Another week in my life lived and documented.  Feels good.