Hello Project Life App!

Hello again! Back again sharing a few more things I've been playing around with. 

You may have heard of it. 

It's the Project Life App from Becky Higgins and team. And it's pretty awesome. 

I had a chance to be a part of the beta testing and was able to use it to get a month of 2013 layouts and more done with it for the class. One of the things I tried to do was to use it to "keep up while catching up" and it worked pretty well. I think for most normal weeks it works well for me.

In fact, during class one of the students and I made a challenge to work on that week with the app and see how it went. So I did that and thought it was pretty awesome. And so I did the following week as well. I'll share the other one soon. 

So here is week 47. I've never been one to try to number my weeks because I wanted the flexibility to change things up. But…if this works for me, I might try it! It's kind of fun! 

Have no idea what week it is? I usually google it. I've found a site here that tells you what week of the year it is. Kinda cool. 

Here is the full two page spread. I created a 24x12 canvas in PSE to put the two together after they were created. I just really like seeing the full two page spread together. It helps me to see the layout as a whole and creates more cohesion for me. Plus, I like to share it this way too.

I did the creation of this all on my iPhone.

To begin with, I used my favorite Collect Photo App to collect the photos and stories. Then I exported and saved them to my camera roll at the 3x4 size. I chose not to add the print bleed since I was just dropping them into the app and I think they worked well.

For a video tutorial on how to export, click here. Note, the latest version is slightly different, but still similar enough. I plan to do a new tutorial this coming year on my process (once I get it worked out.)

Here is the left side. I used the Midnight edition in the app for the title and week in review card. 

Then the "This is Daily Life" word art is from Ali Edwards. From the "Wash Your Hands" set. 

To create that, I used the another app from the creator of Collect called Letterglow. It works great and lets you import .png files (for word art.) Hello awesome! I also plan to do a tutorial for this sometime too. (note that you can use .png files in the PL app if they are already sized correctly -- for instance Ali's fall cards worked great. I will share that in another post.)

Basically, in the Project Life app,  I created a collage with the 2 on a  4x6 and added the kraft paper card and the heart card and then exported and saved to my camera roll.

Then brought them into Letterglow to play around with adding word art and type on the cards.

And for the right side:

For this page I added IKEA RUN and the Everyday Love in Letterglow (to the cards I had exported from the app. I also had to crop each to 3x4 in PicTapGo to make it work like I wanted. See--still working out my process.)

Then I just saved them and then added them back to the app. Yes, it would be awesome if we didn't have to toggle back and forth. But seriously, this is just such a huge step forward for mobile memory keeping! I hope it will come with later versions. But for now, this works pretty well for me.

Also note there are lots of other apps that let you add text to photos and use .png files. This is just one I'm familiar with and the easiest for me to use at this time.

And here's a close up of my week in review and the Ali Edwards word art. And if you look closely at the photo on the bottom right above: the Thanksgiving preparation one: see if you can find the giant balloon that was in our house for over a month. My niece and nephew got a kick out of it too.

The result? I pretty much love it. I can tinker around a bit on my lunch break or before bed. I'm still in tinker mode. Meaning, I'm just playing around with it to see how to make it work best for me. (note I may have nothing done in my December Daily but I pretty much have four pages done already in the app for December! More on that to come.)

My plan for Project Life in 2015 is going to be to use this for my base spreads. I will use a D-ring 12x12 binder. I just picked up two of these from Becky's site during the cyber Monday sale. That way I can still add in physical pocket pages as well. At least for the first part of 2015 that is the plan. The idea is that I will use the extra time I save (hopefully) to catch up on some old projects and maybe, just maybe finish up my Week in the Life and December Daily projects.

So here is a look at how I'm beginning to use the Project Life App. I'll be back to share more. And it includes more Design A and other styles. The fun thing about the app: no worries about what goes on the backside! You can just create for the photos you have! Pretty cool.

I think I like it.

Hooray and Thank You!

Hooray! Hooray! Just wanted to say thank you to everyone who took our recent class Catch Up with Project Life at Big Picture Classes.

It was really fun to see so many people get inspired and actually GET PAGES DONE!! 

So awesome. 

One of the cool things we did for the class was have a Big Party at the end, where we had 12 wonderful and amazing guests share their take on the challenges, and we also took on the other teachers' challenges. It was fun and so awesome to get inspiration from so many different styles and approaches. 

A few things I've learned: 

This community of Project Lifer's and scrapbookers and photographers and memory keepers is awesome.

Behind the scenes preparation is more than most people think. More than I thought. 

It takes time to learn to be a better online teacher.

It takes better equipment. I hope to get some better equipment to make it easier. 

It takes time and it takes heart.

It's not easy. I am thankful to those online teachers who put their heart into their work. I try to be one of those.

As Austin Kleon says, "write the story you want to read." I took that to mean, "teach the class you want to take" and so I went that route. I put my heart and time into it. I tried. I really tried. I was vulnerable and put myself out there. 

And I'm so thankful. So incredibly thankful to those who have taken the time to let me know how much they learned, how much they were inspired and how much they created! 

I know there are many online options now. It seems everywhere you look, there is this class or this sub or this thing. So I just wanted to say thank you for your time, your support and your feedback. It really helps.

So thank you. 

And where to go from here? I'll be working on my own Project Life and other projects as well as pages for Ali Edwards Digital Creative team. I plan to take some time off teaching online. It was a good learning experience, but my family needs me right now. I may be back, who knows? I plan to continue practicing with making videos, etc when I can and hope I can find time to share them. So who knows? When things settle down I may be back! :)

And definitely if you are looking for more classes with inspiration and encouragement for Project Life, I highly recommend checking out Megan Anderson. She is an amazing person and an amazing online teacher. I am so thankful for her guidance and inspiration and it was the most fun coming up with the class with her.

And keep an eye on my friend Trisha Harrison! Her work is beautiful and inspiring as is she! I'm so thankful she was a part of the class as well! And so thankful for her beautiful brush script which she let me use for this post. Definitely keep an eye out for her and hoping she will start selling her beautiful art!

Okay, not sure why I felt compelled to share all of this. I just wanted to say thank you for your support. And a reminder that as Ali says, "you are right where you are supposed to be."

Hooray!

Hooray brush script is from Trisha Harrison, used with permission.