Layout is my life. For my entire career, I've been telling stories with design in newspapers. Everything from friday night football at local papers to Oscar night at The L.A. Times. Working with typography. Editing photos. Aligning text. Thousands of pages. Truly one of the great loves of my life.
Then one day I found scrapbooker Ali Edwards. More recently, Cathy Zielske. They turned everything I thought scrapbooking was on its head. Oh, I can do this digitally with clean, modern designs. I can combine my love for design with my love for family...This is cool.
So, I'm finally diving in. For the past week or so I've been participating in Week In The Life, a memory keeping project created by Ali. For a seven days, you document your life through photos and words and turn them into an album. I'm hooked.
In this post, I'm sharing my design plan for the album. Once I get pages and photos back from the printer, I'll share the completed album. Keep an eye out below for the free download of a design element I'm using.
DOCUMENTATION | I did my documentation last week (July 16-22) since my husband and kids were heading out of town. I'm ahead of the curve than most Week in the Lifers who are primarily sharing photos this week.
- PHOTOS | I shot photos daily and edited on my camera every night. Some days I got one great photo after another and others--like when I was at work--it slowed. Regardless, at the end of the week, the upload to my computer was 571 photos strong!
- WORDS | I kept daily notes in a draft in my Gmail. I took notes based on times throughout the day and started lists like words the girls are saying and books they are loving right now. I also kept things like grocery receipts and movie ticket stubs.
DESIGN PLAN | In my album, each day of the week gets four pages. Two 8.5x11 pages and one double-sided divided page protector sandwiched between them. Here are the first few days of the 8.5x11 pages (click to enlarge):
- INTRO PAGE | The first page has a big photo, a day of the week label and a small journaling block. The color on each day of the week label compliments the patterned paper that will be on the opposite page in a divided page protector.
- PHOTO COLLAGE PAGE | I created two layered templates in Photoshop. One with more of a horizontal design and the other vertical. I'm alternating between the two throughout the days of the week. The bottom of each page includes journaling.
- DIVIDED PAGE PROTECTOR | These are baseball card page protectors with nine pockets. On the front of the page protector, I'm inserting patterned paper in the first two vertical rows. I chose paper from Basic Grey's "Out of Print" line. (See some of the designs below.) Other pockets (on the front and back of the protector) will hold images, journaling and keepsakes.
FREE DOWNLOAD| Like my days of the week labels on the intro pages? I've put together a folder of PNG files of the label in a neutral yellow that you can download for free here. If you're Photoshop savvy, open and drag onto your image. The characters are knocked out so your image will peek through. Recolor or resize. If you don't have Photoshop, you can still print them out and and adhere onto a page. Files are 4.3 x 2.5, 72 dpi each. I'd love to see if you use them!
FONTS | I picked two fonts that I know I'll use in future scrapbooking designs.
- BEBAS | I have Bebas fever! A wee bit obsessed. Download for free here.
- DESIGN EDITOR | My handwriting font (with cool dingbats!) is available here for only 99 cents.
ALBUM | If you're curious, I'll be using the American Crafts 8.5 x11 Modern Album in brown.
Big, huge thanks to Ali for creating this project. I encourage all of you try this idea in one form or another. I am so happy that we'll have this glimpse into our current reality to keep forever. If you're interested, find out more on Ali's blog. You can also follow other participants on Flickr and via #weekinthelife on Twitter.
