Over Christmas, I flipped through an album my grandmother made for my Dad a few years before she passed away. The album touches on his entire life. Photos span from his baby pictures to his great-grandparents to family pets through my high school graduation. She included mementos like a note "To Mother" written in crayon and a typed letter from the Secretary of the Army congratulating him on a promotion. I've seen this album so many times over the years, but viewing it for the first time as a Mom really touched me because I know the love and the intent she had making this.
One of my big resolutions for the New Year is tackling Project Life and keeping up with it. This is a simplified scrapbooking system created by Becky Higgins to help document your memories. Products include albums with a variety of photo pocket pages that hold pre-designed title and journaling cards. For me, it's the perfection combination of preserving memories like my grandmother did and the creative outlet of making it all look pretty that I have the itch for.
My first step for this project was creating a title page for the album.
I like my use of black and pops of color here, but I'm not going to hold myself to a set style throughout the album. Just going to go with the flow and let the content drive the design.
DESIGN NOTES | I used a mix of products to put this together. First, I bought the Project Life Clementine Core Kit. Love the colors and patterns in this collection. Then I made my own photo strips with our family photos, printed them out and adhered them to a Clementine title card. I made sure to include a card with all of our ages as of January 1st, attached with a mini-staple. I also created a few title cards from papers and elements in the Crate Paper Portrait Collection Kit, plus one tiny starburst brad from The Paper Studio. Love me a cute brad.
FREE DOWNLOAD | I designed the 2012 Memories Start Here card and printed it on one of the graph paper journaling cards that comes with the core kits. I used a tutorial from Paislee Press on how to do this, super easy. I'm offering a JPEG file and a PNG file of the card for your use! Both are journaling card sizes, 300dpi. Print and trim the JPEG or use the PNG to overlay on a photo or pattern if you're Photoshop savvy.
OK, I think I covered it with this big ol' post I just threw at you. I hope you're inspired to play along or hang out with me during the process. I'm sure more freebies will pop up from time to time too! Be sure to cruise around Becky's website; she has a creative team with some of my favorite bloggers sharing their Project Life ideas and experiences.
