Hello Week in the Life™ 2017!

Excited to be joining in with Ali Edwards in documenting a regular week in our life again this year.

The "official" week is April 17-23, 2017. But you can do this project whenever works best for you. 

I thought it would be fun to share a peek at what I'm doing to prepare this year, so I put together a video. The kit is from Ali Edwards, and I'm using the grey striped album. You can find that here.

I'm excited to get documenting and creating this year. And no, I haven't finished 2016 yet. It's in process and I have a video to share soon walking through where I am with that project too. 

A few thoughts about this year:

• For me, it's okay if I haven't finished last year's project. Memory keeping for me is about living in the moment and embracing that I rarely finish when "everyone else" does helps me continue to find joy in my hobby and goal to notice the goodness in my everyday life. 
• I really like that Ali has these kits. It makes it so much easier as my life just seems to get busier. I also like that Ali's designs are simple enough they can be used in different years and it all works out beautifully. Again, check out the 2017 Week in the Life™ supplies from Ali Edwards here.
• I really want a new camera lens. And a new camera. But it's likely not going to happen. I may try to rent a wide angle again. For me, playing with the photography is a joy. But it can also get overwhelming as I play with a new lens and take way more photos than I need for this project. So, I think I'm just going to use what I have. Currently I have my very old Canon Rebel T1i and primarily I use a Canon 24mm 2.8 "pancake" lens. It's super light and small so I can take this with me just about anywhere. I will also be using my iPhone 6plus and my Instax camera. 
• I really love Ali's preparation post here. I particularly like her ideas of focusing on something each day. I may go back and do something similar. One year I focused each main photo on a particular time of day, so my goal for capturing at least one "big photo" was made easier because I had a time to focus on it. Instead of feeling like I needed my big camera out taking photos of everything all the time. Feeling that something like this makes sense to me again this year. 
• I really hope I can get my office cleaned up a bit before this project. It's a hot hot mess right now! 
• I won't be sharing on Instagram or Facebook this year as I'm doing "100 Days of Living Hands Free" for my 100 Day Project. But my goal is that by doing this I might actually keep feeling inspired to blog and might actually finish? who knows! But so far I'm really liking this project and the fact that I wiped the dust off the blog and posted today. Find our more about the 100 Day Project here.
• I'm excited to explore what life looks like in our new home and city this year. I think capturing that will be a focus of mine. And maybe inspire us to get out and explore our town too.
• In the video I share that the white numbers are from the "Numbers" Story Kit™, which was a theme for a monthly kit of story-crafting supplies from Ali Edwards. You can find information about Ali's Story Kits™ here. 
• In the video I also share what I'm hoping to use for tracking my Week in the Life™ by using the Pocket Page Notebook. You can find information about this innovative new notebook here. I'll share more about it as I get using it. Very excited about this tool.
• Excited to get capturing and crafting our everyday life! Enjoy your WITL!

**edited to update this important thought about my WITL plans: I am definitely making plans to use Persnickety Prints for all my printing. Planning to do a post about this soon. Suffice to say, looking back at my past projects has helped me gain some clarity regarding the print at home versus sending out to print dilemma. And yes, so far Persnickety Prints is the clear winner. Find out more about them here.

**edited to also add I am pretty sure I'm going to focus on "A Week in the Life of Me" after reading Ali's post and having a change in our family's plans. Instead of skipping it, I'm going to embrace having a few days to myself and see what my life looks like right now. I'm excited!

To find out more about Week in the Life™ please check out Ali Edwards here.

Currently I do not have any affiliate links in this post. Just sharing things I love and what I'm currently using / wanting right now. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments about the products I'm using.

Hello Again

Just a quick update to say hello…again! If you have stayed with me this long, I want to say thank you!

Life in 2015 has been anything but smooth. I knew it was going to be a bumpy ride, but I had hoped to be able to keep up with things better. But, some things including this blog had to go on the back burner for a while.

But hopefully that is behind me. Decisions have been made. Life goes on. And happy to say we are in a new space! Out of the apartment and into a really really real house! can't tell you how awesome it is to see how much Maggie loves it--especially the backyard. One of the things I'm working on is making this place our own and embracing being where we are. Grow where you are planted, right?

My plan is to start sharing some of the project life layouts I've made with the Project Life™ app. I'm in the process of getting those off my phone and into my album using Persnickety Prints. I had some layouts printed with them and have always been very happy with their quality. Plus I was able to visit their store this spring and got to see first hand their "persnickety process!"

Currently I have project life layouts finished through Week 7 as well as other layouts  and the 15 on the 15th project. See below for one of layouts I created on my phone.

Other things I've been up to (besides work):

I've also been working on layouts for my 6x8 personal album as well as various other layouts. I am subscribing to Ali Edwards Story Kits and Stamps and I love love love them! The education and inspiration plus the products are so worth it! I'm still working on getting going on actually making things.

And last month I started subscribing again to Studio Calico. This time to the scrapbook subscription. I had subscribed to the Project Life™ kit since the beginning but last December I cancelled it because I knew the first half of this year was looking to be tough. And honestly I just needed a change. With the recent move I saw how much stuff I had collected and went through a big purge. Since I'm wanting to create more layouts I decided to subscribe to the scrapbook kit and plan to purchase some Project Life kits when I want to. I've been purchasing the digital cards each month so I still get my fix that way for right now. And I can use those in the app! So it's a win.

Hoping to share more about my 15 on the 15th project soon too. I've really liked this project although in April I was away on business and am going to be "flexible" on the actual date to make April work.

So here's a look at one of the layouts I created on my phone using the Project Life™ app and Letterglow. These are cards from the Dazzle and Love Story editions in the app and Ali Edwards digital cards: Simple Lines 3x4 cards. Love that set.

This is a simple two page spread showing my daughter in her new room. She loves her new loft bed from IKEA. And yes, those boxes in the corner are still there…work in progress, work in progress. Big sigh. But she loves her room and it will get there in time. It's all good.

I've had quite a few questions about using Letterglow and am planning on making a video once the update is live. There will be fewer work-arounds and app-smashing together. It's going to be awesome!

So that's where I am right now! Considering upgrading to a new site but everything is a work in progress, right? 

Thanks for sticking around and for your support! Hope to be back soon!