pocket pages: January 2019, part 1

a little background… Early in the year, I was thinking about my memory-keeping projects and realized that while I have quite a few of them in-progress, not many of them are using current photos.  My kids are old enough to know that I take LOTS of photos (and they want to be in them!) but young enough that they don’t have easy access to my phone or computer to view them digitally.  I wanted to make a project that would let them see everyday photos more easily in a physical format.  They really love my Day-in-the-Life photo books, and this would be a sort of expansion of that idea.

As I considered the format of this project, using inspiration from my current favorite scrapbookers (Inkie Quill, Shimelle, Jen Schow, Ali Edwards, and others…), I decided to make it a mostly pocket-style album with both “traditional” layout and pocket inserts. The pockets will make it easier to include tiny/small/everyday stories with the flexibility of telling bigger stories as well, whether it’s in those pocket pages (as coordinating pockets), a pocket insert, or upgraded to a full-on layout.

I’m taking it month-by-month rather than week-by-week, but I’m making as many spreads as I need to tell the stories and fit the photos I want to include.  After the month is over, I sit down with my photos and my ephemera to decide what will go where.  I use empty page protectors and a set of cardstock templates in my typical photo sizes to plan everything out (You saw a glimpse into my planning process if you watched my 200 Persnickety Prints video!)

.  .  .

For January, I decided to use a combination of the remaining bits of my Studio Calico May 2012 “35 mm” kit (yes, you read that correctly… 2012!) combined with parts of the Echo Park “Times and Seasons 2” (which has a copyright date of 2013! wow…).  Even as I was starting to plan this album, the color palette of the Studio Calico kit kept coming to mind.  It was a nice surprise to see that the Echo Park collection complimented it so well.  (I’m really trying to make a concerted effort to use older products that I’ve squirreled away.)  The aquas, greys, and blacks reflect the cold weather, and the golden tones go well with the warm indoor lighting in many of these photos.  I also dove into my collection of Project Life cards for coordinating journal cards.

The first card in each month’s section with be a sort of title card, and for January, I created a cut file: a frame with a script “January” across it.

Inevitably, I have some longer stories that I want to tell, and rather than make a whole layout for this one, I made a flip-up.  I wanted to tell the story of B’s building skills with a little wooden 3-D puzzle kit.  I made sure to add a tab to signal that this part is interactive.

As I was putting these cards together, I was finding them looking a bit flat, so I started adding a bit of foam behind certain elements…

…a little bit of pleated tissue paper here and there…

..and paper layers.

I really like the dimensionality and softness that these touches added to the spread.

Stay tuned for part 2!