September Blue

WEDDING ALBUM: PART TWO

This is the second post in a two-part series sharing the wedding album I made for Dustin & Becca using the Southern Weddings Core Kit from Project Life as a gift for their one-year Wedding Anniversary. If you missed it, go back and read it here first and then come back and read this post!

Today I pick up where we left off yesterday–layouts showcasing the wedding ceremony and reception:

"Divider." I used this spread as an introduction to the ceremony and reception. Mainly because, as you'll see in the next spread, I wanted the wedding processional to a cover double-page spread that contain all vertical pictures. These photos are of wedding details such as flowers, the program, favors and table decor.

Wedding Party Processional. See what I mean? The photos are in order of how everyone walked down the aisle going across the entire top row first and then second row (I hope that makes sense!).

Bride & Groom. I used the prompts on the journal cards "How I felt when I first saw my bride/groom" as the topic for this spread. Just like I did on some of the pages in yesterday's post, I did make a flippy card on this page.

Ceremony/Vows. One of the first things Becca said to me after the ceremony was "Did you see Ryley crying???" Actually, more than one person mentioned that to me. The photographer captured that moment and I thought the "Tears of Joy" filler card was perfect and placed it right above his head. On the right side of the spread there are journal cards for "Favorite Lines From His/Her Vows."

Rings/First Kiss. I didn't have any vertical photos to place in the pockets on the left so I used two 4x6 filler cards that have lace on them. I think it makes a nice border. The "First Kiss" 4x6 filler cards is actually digital Southern Weddings 4x4 Card that I printed on 4x6 double-sided matte photo paper. 

Introducing the new Mr. & Mrs. Sill/Bridal Party Photos. The Mr. & Mrs. card with the two bows on the left is from the Southern Weddings Specialty Card pack (silver foil <3). The photo in the top left corner on the right is of Dustin, Becca and their officiant. The journal card below prompts them to write why they chose her.

Family Photos. No vertical photos here so I inserted 3x4 cards of the same pattern into those pockets. 

Cocktails on the Green. After the ceremony while the Bride & Groom were having their photos taken with the photographer, their guests enjoyed cocktails and appetizers on the lawn in front of the Inn. Like I mentioned in yesterday's post, Becca's sister can use her artistic skills to pen the title on the title card.

Reception: Introduction of Wedding Party. My favorite patterned paper in the Southern Wedding's Core Kit is the one with the gray background and strings of lights. It's so light, airy and romantic to me!

Best Man/Maid of Honor Speeches. The Southern Weddings Edition of Project Life does a fantastic job of providing journal cards for every aspect of the wedding you can think of. But there is one exception: The Best Man and Maid of Honor Speeches! I was really surprised that I didn't find a card that touched on that subject! But no worries as there are PLENTY of other journal cards that can be used to document this part of the reception.

Bouquet/Garter Toss. The above layout and some of the following may be out of sync as far as the order of events went at the reception. It was the orientation of the photos that was making things go a little out of order. No worries though! At least each event at the reception is being documented, right? And by the way, the bouquet/garter toss is another topic not covered in a journal card.

First Dance. Swoon. 

Father/Daughter and Mother/Son Dance & Cake Cutting. Becca is a manatee fanatic. Her sister sculpted a bride & groom manatee cake topper! (I love the wedding cake chipboard sticker!)

Dancing. The album contains several double-page spreads of family & friends having a good time on the dance floor. I'm not sharing all of them here, but know that I alternated between Design A and Design C protectors for these photos. The only journaling cards in this section (there are about four double-page spreads of dancing) are the ones you see here. There is no need need to journal on every single dancing page, but I did send Becca & Dustin lots of extra journal cards just in case they wanted to remove some photos and add some of their own thoughts instead.

Professional Photos. This spread contains some of my favorite photos the photographer took! Just so you know the page protector on the left hand side (Design D) is taped to the previous page (Design C). The orientation of the photos were not going to work on the back side of Design C, so I just taped the two pages together using double-stick tape. Worked like a charm.

Last Page. Just like on the first page, I used a card from the Southern Weddings Specialty Card pack. I printed the patterned cards on double-sided matte papers using the patterned paper from the digital version of the Southern Weddings Core kit. I love this picture of them. 

At the back of the album I did include several empty page protectors for Dustin and Becca to insert honeymoon photos. I also included 2 large envelope pages for them to place cards and other memorabilia in!

And that's it. What do you think? 

I can't even begin to express how much I enjoyed using the Southern Wedding Edition of Project Life to create this album. It makes me want to go back and do one for my own wedding! Are you considering making an album with this kit for you or a loved one? If so, here are a few helpful hints:

1) Before you go off printing photos, sift through all of the journal cards, separating them into their various topics. Granted the kit is full of generic journal cards, but there are many in the kit that are theme-specific such as dating, engagement, wedding planning details, etc. 

2) Once you have the cards divided up, put small sticky notes on them noting what section they are for. 

3) Lay their individual piles in the order in which you want you pages to flow. 

4) After you do the above steps, then go through your photos and choose the ones you want to place in the book and print them.

5) Do not, I repeat, DO NOT get hung up on embellishments!!! Let the photos and journaling speak for themselves. Those who view your album should be ooooing and ahhhing over the bride's beautiful gown, not the sticker you placed on the page.

6) If the pocket configuration on the right hand side of the page doesn't work with the photos when you flip the page, just tape a pocket page protector of one that will work to the back of it!

7) If you creating a physical album, but savvy with Photoshop I highly recommend purchasing the digital version of the kit! I found that the 6x6 pad of paper didn't have enough of the same papers that I liked. It was so easy to print extra paper or journal cards from the digital kit and insert them into the protector! 

Questions? comments? I'd love to hear from you! Thanks for reading!

 

 

 

A WEDDING ALBUM: PART ONE

Just a few days ago our son Dustin and his wife Becca celebrated their one year wedding anniversary! Can you guys what I gave them for an anniversary gift?

You can only imagine how thrilled I was when Becky Higgins released the Southern Weddings Project Life Core Kit earlier this year. I knew this was the kit I would use to create their wedding album. Now even though I am on Becky's Digital Project Life Creative Team, I wanted to make an album using the physical product. Why? Because I am not the one going to be doing the journaling in this album. It will be up to Dustin & Becca to tell their story in their words. Sure I could have left all the journal cards blank in a digital album that was printed and bound. They could have written directly on the page. But that doesn't leave room for mistakes. In a physical album they could easily use another journal card if they mess up!

Even though Project Life makes scrapbooking a whole lot easier (It does! It really does!) I found I needed to collect my thoughts a do a bit of organizing before I dove into this project. The journal cards in this particular kit really helped me do that. Many of the cards have specific topics that correlate to the wedding as a whole. From the couple dating to becoming engaged to wedding planning to cutting the cake. The kit has journal cards for everything. Once I sat down and divided up the cards by "topic," I was able to organize the album in a chronological manner, print the photos I needed and put it together with ease!

I want to share about 30 photos I took of the album. To save you from what will seem like a lifetime of scrolling, I am breaking up this post into two parts. Part one covers pages of Dustin & Becca dating and the events leading up to the ceremony. Wanna take a peek?:

Starting with the picture at the beginning of this post. I really wanted to use a plum album by We R Memory Keepers, but no one, absolutely no one has them! I looked at the big box stores and online and they seem to be sold out everywhere. So I went with a classic black album by Recollections. Still has a nice feel, BUT getting the sticker labels off of it was a royal pain.  30 minutes of my life I will not get back. Anyways, I cut a small piece of patterned paper from the Southern Weddings 6x6 Paper Pad to fit in the bookplate and then attached one of the Southern Weddings Chipboard Stickers to it. 

Title Page. Although the Southern Weddings Core Kit has cards in it that suggest first and last page placement, I went rogue and used the cards from Southern Weddings Specialty Cards Pack. I love the gold and silver foil on them. They complimented these golden silhouette photos perfectly!

Spread One: I did several spreads of photos taken during the time Dustin & Becca were dating (I am not including all of them in these posts). Click on the photo to make is slightly larger and you can kind of read the journal prompts on the cards. These prompts are why I didn't do the journaling! Only they know this information!

Engagement Spread. They got engaged while we were still living in Latvia. Again, only they are the ones that can fill in the cards! 

Wedding Planning. The above photos and journal cards document the planning of the wedding. The pictures are those of the venue where the wedding/reception would take place. Because there are several journal cards that can be used to document this part of the event, I made some of them flip! I love interactive pages!

Wedding Dress and Rings. Unfortunately I wasn't able to go wedding dress shopping with Becca, so the photos on this spread are actually from the wedding day itself. I'm sure she has photos of her trying on dresses and she is more than welcome to print those and put them in the places where the 4x6 filler cards are. The photos of the rings in the upper right corner is from the wedding day and the one in the lower left is from the morning after.

Bridal Shower. By the time the bridal shower was scheduled we were already living in Florida and I was able to fly to Virginia for the party. Becca's sister, Rachel, is a very talented artist. I figured Becca can enlist her services and write on "Bridal Shower" in a pretty, scripted manner on the title card. You may not be able to tell from this photos, but some of the journal cards on the right-hand side flip.

Bridesmaids/Maid of Honor/Groomsmen/Best Man. Because I didn't have individual photos of all of those standing up with them on their wedding day, I decided to use pictures from the day itself. I did use these photos again later on in the book. If Dustin and Becca have other photos they want to put in the pockets besides these, they are more than welcome to!

Rehearsal. Although I do love the physical version of the Southern Weddings Core Kit, I did make use of the digital version, too! The 4x6 patterned filler cards you see in the photo above are actually printed from the beige bokeh paper that is in the digital kit. I wanted the pattern to match the one from the card in the upper left-hand corner. Since this pattern wasn't available in a 4x6 card in the physical version, I just cropped the digital paper into a 4x6 and printed three cards on double-sided matte paper.

Wedding Day Morning. Some of the prompts on the journal cards refer to how the bride and groom spent the morning of the big day. You can see from above they were totally chill. Becca spent a good amount of time looking for 4-leaf clovers in front of the Inn, while Dustin spent it in the hot tub with a few of the guys and getting advice from dear ol' dad on the large front porch. They also gave gifts to their Bridesmaids & Groomsmen.

Getting Ready. The above layouts show everyone getting ready for the big event! You can see I used various pocket page designs for these spreads. I know it drives some people crazy that there can be so many copies of the same card in the Project Life Core Kits. But I like them. I use them to my advantage. You can see that I used multiples of the same card in the first two layouts above. Repetition is good. 

This is a good stopping point for today! Tomorrow's post will focus on the ceremony and reception! Thanks for reading!

 

 

 

 

 

 

PROJECT LIFE PROGRESS: A FEW FEBRUARY PAGES

Just a quick post today! If you've been following September Blue since the beginning of the year, you know that I am documenting our stories and photos the Project Life way in a monthly format. I have two layouts completed for February and I thought I would share them with you today. 

Those who follow are also aware that I am sharing my album in progress in a more interactive way through ISSUU.com. If this is your first time visiting, ISSUU is an online digital publishing platform where you can read thousands of free publications created by enthusiastic publishers from all over the world. While this platform is meant for those publishing online magazines, I thought I would use it as a way to share my Project Life album in progress. I do this by placing my completed layouts in an InDesign file, then exporting it out to a PDF. I then upload the PDF to ISSUU and badda-bing-badda-boom, they spit out this pretty cool online flippy book. I LOVE THIS WAY OF SHARING!!! You get a more realistic feel of what the album looks like rather that scrolling through all of the photos in a blog post. Plus, you can zoom in on the pages and read the text more clearly. Personally, I like to send the link to family living far away so they can see what has been going on with us down here in Florida. 

I am including pics of what the double-page spreads look like. But if you really want a nice, close up version, click the button below to flip through the actual album!

 

With the exception of the frames and the "bedtime" & "am routine" word art on the photos you see on some of the pages, all the products are from the Coral Edition of Project Life. Many times I do not use Becky's products in their original state. I will manipulate them to create other journal cards or change the color of a paper from one kit to match the kit I am currently using. The word art mentioned is from Ali Edwards AM/PM Story Kits. If you have questions about any product you see on the pages, or how I did something, let me know and I'll be happy to answer!

How is your album coming along?

PROJECT LIFE PROGRESS: JANUARY IS COMPLETE

Yay! Let's hear it for hump day! Better yet, let's hear it for keeping up with Project Life! I am loving the monthly format! A few weeks ago I shared some of my January pages in this post. Today, I am sharing the rest of them! You may recall from that post just mentioned, I published my album in progress through Issuu.com. I think it is a pretty damn cool way to view a digital photo album. I updated the album with the additional pages from January and you can view the album with the new pages by clicking the "click to read" button" below. It will start from the beginning of the book. 

For those who aren't fans of this super-duper-neat-o way of viewing pages, I am including the double page spreads of what I just added to the album over the weekend. But really, check out the flippy album– you can zoom in and flip through the pages like a book. You can even "Pin" pages from it! It's just a better experience!

 

 

 

 

 

With the exception of the frames and flair buttons you see on some of the pages, all the products are from the Coral Edition of Project Life. Many times I do not use Becky's products in their original state. I will manipulate them to create other journal cards or change the color of a paper from one kit to match the kit I am currently using. If you have questions about any product you see on the pages, let me know and I'll be happy to answer!

Have a happy hump day!

NEW DIGITAL PROJECT LIFE® RELEASES + FREEBIE FROM ME!!!

Happy Monday my friends! There is a lot of eye candy today in the Digital Project Life shop! Check out all the new releases below. I created a page using the Be Bright Kit and another using Becky's Quotes!

 I am LOVIN' all of these kits with a little bit of gold sparkle, aren't you?

I have always loved Becky's "Cultivate A Good Life" quotes. I am so glad she made them into 3x4 and 4x6 filler cards! How cool would it be to create a 6x8 album with the cards and a photo to match the quote? I think I want to do that! The journal card on the page above is from the Dazzle Mini Kit.

Other digital goodies release today include:

 How sexy-swanky are those "Be Fearless" cards? LOVE THEM!!!

Click on any of the product previews to be taken directly to the Digital Project Life Shop! 

And now for a freebie:

Every so often I'll come across post on one of the various digital scrapbook groups I am a member of where a fellow memory keeper is searching for a product and can't seem to find it or wishes some sort of digital scrapbook product existed, but doesn't. On Saturday I came across a post just like that.

Nanette from the FB group "Project Life Gone Digital" posted the photo you see below and was looking for a template where she could create the same thing:

I responded, letting her know I can create the template for her and have it on my blog as a freebie. So here it is!

I not only included a 12x12 template, but made templates for 8.5x11 and 6x12 sizes as well (6x12 pages are totally trending now!). Each little square is 1". The 12x12 template has 81 squares, the 8.5x11 has 63 squares and the 6x12 has 36 squares. That's a lot of little Instagram pics!

Because there are SO MANY squares on each of the templates, I included two versions of each: One for Photoshop users and another for Photoshop Elements users.

Those who use the full version of Photoshop will find their 1" photo place holders in groups by rows.

Because PSE doesn't support groups in the layers palettes, you will find that your layers palette is organized by rows and I distinguished one row from another by naming the layer of first square in each row as "Row 1, Row 2, etc. I hope that helps all my PSE user friends! Gosh I wish PSE would support layer groups!!!

You may download these templates for free TODAY ONLY (February 9, 2015) until 11pm EST. After that they will be available for purchase in my shop. 

These templates are no longer available as a free download. You may now purchase them in my shop by clicking here.