Project Life Tuesday - What works for me...

This is my fourth year doing a Project Life album and I'm more excited about it than ever before. And I think that mostly comes from me finally finding my groove. The first year I got quite behind and when I tried to catch up I ended up with a good number of pictures scattered through the book but with very little journaling after about mid-year. The 2nd year I got behind again, but would attempt a major catch up about every 4ish months or so. That album came pretty close to being done, but there were still more weeks than I would have liked that were light on the pictures/journaling. The 3rd year I tried to do it EVERY week to avoid getting behind. That worked, but only until I had a baby and then I got behind on printing pictures and putting journaling in the album again. The difference was that I didn't stop organizing my pictures. So when it was time to print it was still super easy. Having several months to do at a time is daunting, but I did it. It was my first FINISHED book. I was thrilled!!

Through trial and error over the years, I've found that the best way for me to do it is a month at a time. I print my pictures though Snapfish and if I try to print much more often than that the shipping charges start getting out of control.  I can also usually find a good print deal about once a month to help keep the cost low.

4 to 5 weeks is also a good number of weeks for me to work on at a time once the pictures get here. It makes it worth getting all my stuff out. And I can usually get it all done in 2 to 3 nights working after the kids go to bed.

It also keeps me excited about digging through my stash, planning layouts, and seeing the book develop. Usually after a couple of weeks I start really missing it and I can't wait to print the pictures and get back to it.

Now on to the pics!! For this week I am sharing the week of July 1-7.  **Please excuse my toes! :) **

This is the whole spread. I love the month dividers to break up the album and making searching for a certain week easier! This week has one insert.

The left side of the week includes a July calendar (I include one in the first spread of each month). I trimmed down one of the 4x6 date cards to use in a 3x4 space and included journaling under the date.

This is the front of the insert for this week. I used a We R Memory Keepers page that had 6 vertical spaces. Since I like my inserts to be smaller than 12x12 in some way I trimmed off one column of the pockets. I also just got a photo pen and I am loving writing on some of the pictures. I can't wait for Becky Higgins pens to become available on Amazon or at my Michael's!!

 

 

The back of the insert is just pictures of our day at the beach.

 

 The right side of the spread is broken into 2 columns. The left side is a continuation of the back of the insert and includes a 4x6 journaling card all about our day at the beach. Then the right side is all about our 4th of July.

I'm linking up with Jessica Turner at The Mom Creative and her Project Life Tuesday series.