Project Life: April Layouts

It took me one afternoon of coffee and New Moon to finish my layouts for last month.
I am very pleased with the work I did for these layouts…it’s fun how many options you have, even if you’re using the same photo pocket pages over and over. You get to personalize it and make it your own and it’s just great.
Part of me is bummed that I didn’t wait until this past Saturday, which was National Scrapbooking Day.
All sorts of fun events, sales, and hashtags were going on. I still contributed a few of my layouts to the cause, but it would’ve been fun to spend the day (which was otherwise completely lazy and not busy) scrapping with everyone!
If you’re in need of some inspiration, check out the hashtag #NSD10K on Instagram. There are so many inspiring layouts, from Project Life style to good old-fashioned paper and picture.

Anyway, on to my layouts!

I’m really glad that I purchased these page dividers that correspond with my Sunshine Edition core kit.
While the dividers themselves aren’t strong enough to flip a page in the book, they add some organization between the months and they are just so darn cute. I added one to the past three months and this particular one went well with the flow of the pages. April was a good month for memories, so I’m excited with this simple beginning!

 

I ADORE the color scheme of this layout. I wish I had gotten the whole page together.
On the top, you’ll see photos from when my sister and I got lunch at a local place during the week before her big move.
We drove past this old market that is still open (Maria loves the way it looks, can you blame her?) and it helped me narrow down the colors I chose to journal and decorate with!
I also unintentionally did a lot of Diptic and DblCam work on the first page, and I’m glad I did…I love two photos in one!
I’m also trying to get comfortable putting stickers on the pictures…you can’t go back once you do, but I don’t regret placing that “Don’t Forget” sticker on the top right photo, it holds a small memory that I’ll be glad to have. The Road Trip layout was a first for me. Yes, there are a couple of journaling cards on the left, but the entire right side is photos. I took so many, and I didn’t want to leave all of them out! I had fun using the Fiskers Paper Trimmer my friend handed down to me to make all of the pictures fit into each slot on the page. I use this device at least once a month, for cutting paper that I want to use instead of journaling cards or trimming annoying pieces off of pictures, but it was soooo useful this month. Usually, I use a corner rounder punch to mimic the look of the cards, but I liked keeping the whole thing rectangular this time around. You don’t lose much rounding corners off, but I like the way these look.

Again, I really wanted to utilize as much pictures as possible. Journaling is super important to me for PL, but I wrote a lot about the trip in my actual journal, so I didn’t feel the need to rehash or even decorate each page with cards.
The two 4x6 cards on the right are perfect as is. Besides, the pictures themselves tell a story.
Again, I used the Fiskers to even everything out. I love the look of the photos in the journaling card pockets.

I print A LOT of photos each month. Usually at least 75. I definitely don’t need that money, but I usually get a discount the more I print, so whatever. The final layout for the month has a bunch of random (but pretty/memorable) pictures to close the month out. Four journaling cards tell the stories behind each photo, since they aren’t cohesive.
And, as I mentioned in the previous layout post, I broke out a super tiny bit and added two 3x4 cards from a small pack of We R Memory Keepers cards that I have. The core kit I use doesn’t have any horizontal designs (I suppose some can be turned that way and no one would know, but then the other side would be wrong), so I took a deep breath and stuck these suckers in there. They helped tie that page together and it still looks nice and matchy.

So those are most of my layouts for the month!
Hopefully, when I post May’s layouts, I’ll find a better place to take the photos and more natural light to play with.
The pages tend to get a bit glare-y, so they are hard to capture if too much light hits.
It’s a process, and you learn all the time!