pocket pages: February 2019, part 5

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’m running out of steam as I complete this last “main” page for the February section of my 2019 album. I’m also running out of supplies and fresh ideas to keep it interesting! So I turned to the Mini Workshop bonus challenge from Victoria Marie’s January crop, and it was perfect. I tried techniques in a couple of the categories of stash-busting ideas.

I layered and clustered several stickers together to embellish the pocket showcasing Husband and V at school lunch…

…and that inspired me to do some more layering of stickers, patterned paper, labels, and embellishments in some other pockets.

I am thrilled to be the new owner of a hand-me-down manual die cut machine, and so I experimented with adding texture to an otherwise fairly bland red paper that became the base layer in another pocket.

Finally, I got out the Shimelle “Head in the Clouds” stamp set I had first used for my third page in this set and used the bolder floral cluster stamp on some patterned paper to create some embellishments from my scraps.

As usual, I had more to say than would simply fit in the pockets as-is, so I made another flip-up to write about my ankle follow-up appointment. I used another washi tape hinge, but I made sure to reinforce the washi with some of my regular ATG adhesive, because while this particular tape is very pretty, it is also very not-sticky!

Speaking of journaling, in a couple of places, I had enough to say that I decided to type it up. I also wanted to keep the patterned paper on display– especially that delicious floral!!– so I printed it on vellum.

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pocket page: February 2019, part 4

Here is the fourth of 5 “main” pages for the February section of my 2019 “everyday” album.

As I mentioned in the previous three posts about this section, I have been using a stash kit that I assembled to use during the Victoria Marie virtual crop at the end of January. This particular layout doesn’t fit into any of the challenges, but I do credit the whole crop for getting me going! It feels really good to be working through another whole section of this album. (more thoughts at the end of this post)

The top 4×6 and two left-hand 4×3 pockets are meant to go together: they tell the story of my daughter’s preparations for the Valentine’s celebration in her classroom at school. In order to tie them together, I used the same pink patterned paper behind the smaller photos, and I used parts of the same border sticker at the top of the 4×6 pocket and the bottom of the 4×3 photo.

I’m finding the lovely Paislee Press 4×3 cards to be hard to use in this album. They are so clean and minimal, and this particular project can’t really be described as minimal, can it?! Haha! However, this card was so perfect for this photo of my kids, so I tiled it together with the photo to fit in the 4×6 pocket, bridging the seam with a cluster made from a border strip, label stamped with the date, and an arrow sticker.

There’s another flip-up on this page. As I looked at my photo captions for the story, I realized that there was more of a story to tell, so I included it underneath and added an extra photo.

…

…some reflections…

I’m starting to run out of steam on this set of pocket pages, I must admit. There is still one more “regular” page in this set (see my next post!), and there are two pocket inserts and two 12×12 layouts planned. Although I haven’t yet used up the stash kit I made, I’m getting much lower on supplies (especially embellishments). I will probably take a pause on this project for a bit so that I can come back with fresh eyes for the inserts and 12×12 layouts.

The original idea for this project was to be a bit of an expansion on my day-in-the-life book projects so that our everyday lives could be captured and displayed: photos+stories together in a physical format. I wanted my kids to have a better look at all the photos that I’m always taking (since they are still not allowed on my computer)! I started the project with the idea (delusion??) that I’d be making it a month or two behind when I was actually taking the photos… and we all can see how that turned out, haha!

It’s a really big project. So big. (And I have a couple other big projects on my plate at the same time.). It has taken–and will take–a lot of planning: I only have photos through April planned out and printed, though I have ephemera and lots of notes and photo captions collected for the rest of the year. There have been some moments when I start wondering whether I will actually ever fill in the rest of the months… and I still can’t guarantee that I will finish (although given my completionist personality, I imagine that I will complete it, but maybe not for years!!).

BUT. I am so glad that I’m doing it. I (of course) didn’t fully understand it at the time: 2019 was “normal.” Even though some big stuff happened for me personally (ankle injury culminating in surgery, loss of my beloved grandfather, a trip to Germany, both kids going to school at the same time, etc.), it still was “normal.” 2020 was so wildly different. It’s been amazing to look back at the little everyday stories of our life in the “before times” and celebrate all those moments in this album project. For that reason alone, I want to keep going. Pockets still aren’t my favorite format, but they are the right format for this collection of small stories that add up to a huge whole story.

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pocket page: February 2019 part 3

In snippets of time over the past couple of weeks, in between homeschooling and physical therapy, I have been putting together more of the February pocket pages for my 2019 “everyday” album. When I have to do things in such small increments of free time, I find myself especially thankful for my pre-planning system and detailed captions in the metadata of my photos.

For this page, as for the other February pages, I’m using a stash kit inspired by Victoria Marie’s January crop and the scrapbook.com January Instagram challenge. That kit is made up of some pretty old items: a BasicGrey collection kit (“Highline” from 2014), stickers from an Echo Park collection kit (“Head over Heels,” introduced at the end of 2013), and some metal embossed charms and photo corner embellishments from Making Memories that predate the previous supplies by at least several years! I really wanted to get these things onto pages and into my albums instead of languishing in my stash. However, for this page, I also tried to include some newer items to meet the “Old+New Challenge” for the Victoria Marie crop.

The challenge here for me was actually finding *new* products! I don’t buy a lot of supplies, and when I have in recent months, they have been for very specific projects–that aren’t this one! haha. I hope it’s okay that I stretched the challenge to include new-to-me items: a manual die-cut machine(!!!! I’ve been wanting one for so long, and I’m so grateful to a neighbor in our local Buy-Nothing group for giving one to me!!!!), a cloud embossing folder by Darice (that same kind neighbor also gave me some embossing folders with the machine), the Elle’s Studio “MINI Dated” stamps I purchased with the intent of using them in this album and had never opened until this last week, and a set of Shimelle “Head in the Clouds” stamps that I purchased for my Disney 2016 album but broke open for the first time to use on this layout. Does it also count that I used a new trimmer that my parents gave me for Christmas?

At the top left of this layout, I included an envelope to hold some valentine notes from my children and Husband. I wanted it to exactly fit that 4″x6″ pocket, and I wanted to use my envelope board.

After a quick internet search, I discovered that there is an app called “Envelope Generator” from American Crafts to generate the paper size and board marking for any card size (in 1/8″ increments). It doesn’t have an option to calculate backward from the finished envelope size, so I had to do quite a few tests on scrap paper to determine the parameters… but it didn’t take me too long to figure them out. Here they are (for those keeping score, this corresponds to a card size of 5 5/8″ by 3 5/8″ in the app):

For an envelope to fit in a 4″x6″ pocket:
use paper size 7.75″ square and the punch guide marking at 3.25″

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