A Week in our Life…

I’m finally getting around to putting together my Week in the Life album for 2015 (and loving it!!).

I was undecided if I was going to participate in documenting our week (August 17th-23rd) right up until the very last minute. And then I read this article by Rachel Stafford and it gave me goose bumps. I felt like it was meant for me at that very moment.

It’s been pretty quiet around here (my blog) the last few months. Our family has been challenged in ways I never imagined would ever happen to us (…but nobody ever thinks it could happen to them, right?).  So to give a little context to what was going on in our lives during this week, my husband and I had separated, I had been single parenting for a few months, and I was feeling pretty low about life in general. Without a doubt, there was a voice in my head saying “why would I want to document this? I don’t want to remember any of it!!”. The situation I found myself in sucked. I didn’t want to be there, but I was.  Reading Rachel’s article was the reminder I needed that I am not alone in this journey and sharing our stories, especially when they’re not perfect, especially when you find yourself living a life you never dreamed for yourself and OWNING your story IS living. So I did it. And I realized that as much as my situation impacted all areas of my life at that time, IT wasn’t my whole life.

This week, I’m excited to share how my album is coming together. I’m using a combination of kits and whatever inspires me. Pretty much all of my supplies are from Ali Edwards’ 2015 Week in the Life Kit (both the physical and digital products) and my Story Kits.

Here’s what our Monday looked like…

This wasn’t my original first page (you’ll see it when I flip the page), but the idea of not having the flow of our day in some sort of start to finish order was driving me crazy. Early mornings can mean weird lighting, so I made my photos black and white, which really helped unify the page instead of having competing colours. I typed my journaling on the photos before printing them. And I’m now seriously crushing on the black/white/yellow combination of colours. It pops up a couple of times throughout my album.

The journaling card is a digital version from the Week in the Life 2015 collection turned printable. I recoloured the bottom half black in photoshop elements (it had been blue) and added a bit of journaling before printing. I printed my photos at home on glossy photo paper and everything else is matte photo paper. That awesome little wood veneer “Monday” is also from the Week in the Life kit.

Monday was “Super Hero” day at Liam’s summer day camp and so he got to wear a costume. He’s got SO MANY to choose from but Buzz is still his favourite (he’s on his second one now after outgrowing the first one)! It wasn’t costume day at Emily’s day care, but she insisted on wearing her Minnie dress. And I’m not one to argue about that. Let them be little, right? 🙂

I am so in love with the full page 6×8 photos in this album! I love using the white space to add some digital art and journaling, and still having room to add embellishments without it feeling too crowded. The black and white stripe strip across the bottom is something you’ll see repeated each day (love it!). And I finally got up the courage to stop hoarding those awesome tags from the GO Story Kit and putting all my chipboard pieces from other previous story kits to good use. The tiny word strip is also from the Week in the Life kit.

More full page 6×8 photo love with typed journaling and a tiny word strip. That cute little heart wooden button is from Shimelle’s line. Mixing up the sizes of the pages throughout my album is something I love to do. This spread has a 3×8 insert. The “enjoy the little things…” card is actually part of the packaging from the Little Things story kit that I trimmed down and added a small 3×2 photo to. I love the way Ali uses index tabs to her inserts and totally wanted that in my own album as well. You’ll see later in the week that I ran out of tabs and had to improvise with a few other ways to tab my inserts…

I used a LOT of the Black and White Story kit throughout this album. The 4×6 card quoting Sirius Black is awesome 🙂

I see the question come up a lot…”how do you document the hard stuff in life?” or “do you include the bad stuff in your scrapbooking?”. I felt like it was still important to include, but it didn’t really have to be out there on display for everyone to see. So I’ve tucked some hidden journaling into a few spots throughout my album.

Also, I’m still totally hooked on Geo tags… This spread’s got an insert with chipboard tabs attached with my tiny attacher instead of index tabs (this one is from the Little Things Story Kit).

On the back of the insert, I enlarged one of the digital cards from the Little Things Story Kit to about 4.5 x 6 (same as the photo on the front) and decided to jot down some of Liam’s favourite things. He’s totally into writing lists of his favourite things right now (and he’s doing such a good job at sounding out the words!!). If I were to do this insert over again, I would have him write the list instead of me… I guess I’ll just have to make a layout instead 😉

The “evening” card on the rights side is a favourite for me too. I used a digital version of this card (originally 4×6 from the AM/PM Story kit) and turned it into a 3×4. I just love the way it looks. I kept the upper right pocket see through with a transparent star and word strip.

A few iPhone timered selfies of “getting stuff done” after the kids went to bed (wonky colours = black and white). And I really loved that quote card, which is again from the packaging in the Build story kit.

I stitched around the edges to turn this card into a pocket and tucked a bit more journaling inside.

I’ll post my “Tuesday” tomorrow!

(Also, wanted to share that our family is working through the hurdles. We’re no longer separated, and really enjoying our time together as a family of four again. After the hardest 7 months of my life, I never thought I’d be saying that. You just never know what tomorrow will bring…)

Thank you so much for stopping by!