Truthfully, I wasn't really sure I'd ever catch up with my monthly PL spreads. When we returned from vacation two weeks ago, I was eight months behind. But shortly after we returned, I read on a blog about a woman who prints her photos each month, and then goes back to finish the spread when she has time. It gave me an idea that has worked out well. Yesterday I finished all eight months of the PL spreads. All that's left to do is a bit of journaling and some embellishing.
As I began to work, I came up with a process that worked really well for me. Since the pictures and words are what I focus on, I started with my Lightroom files. All my photos are uploaded to Lightroom and put in folders by month and year. Within those folders are events or categories. So for November 2015 I had 11 miscellaneous photos from various events like our church's Grocery Run, a folder with photos from Ella's birthday, and a folder with photos from Thanksgiving. For many months, I have as many as five folders filled with photos. How to choose?
Here are my notes from July, and the planning pages for June and July.
After going through the photos, I made a list of the ones I'd like to include. Because I use photo templates that allow me to get two, three, or as many as six photos in one 4X6 pocket, I have more latitude than I used to. Then I use the planning sheet on the clipboard to decide where the photos should go. The checkmarks indicate the photos that have been printed, and the circles ones I needed to do the next time I sat down to work.
Here's November 2015.
I couldn't find a template I liked for the six Thanksgiving photos I wanted to use, so I made my own. The word art is Paislee Press, and the journaling card from Becky Higgins.
The calendar page I use for all my title cards is from Paislee Press. All the rest of the templates on this page are from Tracy Larsen's Simply White templates. By the time I journal on the templates, lots of the journaling is done. Today I added the brown card (Becky Higgins) and the gold leaf overlay (Pink Press Studio), the journaling with a sticker (Michaels) and some jelly stars (Gossamer Blue kit), as well as some die cuts (Papertrey Ink) and the #1 (AC Thickers) on one of the photo templates to finish off the page.
All that had to be done for this page, was to attach the 8.5 X 11 page to the 12 X 12 patterned paper by Echo Park, and add some brief journaling to the journaling card.
I've got to say, it feels good to be this far along, and you'll be seeing PL posts pretty regularly now. I even have a start on the August pages before August ends!
