Ali Edwards's Blog, page 182

Project Life® 2016 | Week Eight

One of the things I highlighted in the Storytelling With Project Life® workshop was the idea of setting yourself up for success by creating cards in advance or having a specific theme you are documenting for a particular week. For Week Eight I created my own cards using my Days Of The Week Craft Die set. 

I apologize in advance that we are currently sold out of the Days Of The Week Craft Die set. At the time I set this week up we still had them in stock. If you are interested in purchasing them feel free to click the Notify Me button and we'll send you an email when they are back in stock. Once they are back in stock I'll share a video tutorial with you on how I used an Evolution die-cut machine to create these 3x4 journal cards. 

Here's a look at Week Eight: 

I love having something set up in advance, a plan of sorts.

 In this case the plan was simply that I created homes to hold my daily stories using the Days Of The Week Craft Dies - when you start with that it's pretty darn easy to fill in those spots. 

And yeah, I also love repetition. 

Here's a closer look: 

The "today" card is from my This And That Journal Card set (also now available digitally here). 

SC Mega Date Stamp + alpha stickers from the SC Brimfield Scrapbook Kit on top of a card from the Everyday Core Kit. 

I don't always take a photo every single day. Sometimes I include photos from the same day or same event next to each other in the Design A pockets - I especially love it when it can be something like these two photos that tells stories about each one of my kids and they can be placed in pockets right next to each other.  

I'm loving the chance to use my new Rolling Time Stamp (included with the Day In The Life™ kit). 

I stamped "story" from my Stories Of Life stamp set right onto the "saturday" card. Right now that stamp set is available to add to your Week In The Life™ box through March 31st and receive free domestic shipping or $10 international shipping for anything you add to your box from the WITL preorder page. 

Thursday's journaling includes some "-ing" prompt words: reading, listening, watching, cooking, and buying. Such a simple way to document a few things that are real about right now. 

For Friday I added a few tags from a little shopping trip I took. 

As you might have seen last week, I took a lot of photos of my shoes this past month. I loved this one of my shoes + the kids shoes at the park. 

SUPPLIES
Rolling Time Stamp from Day In The Life™ KitAED Days Of The Week Craft Die SetAED Stories Of Life Stamp SetAED This And That Journal Card SetEvolution Die Cutting MachineSC Mega Date StampSC Brimfield Scrapbook KitEpson PM400 PrinterEveryday Core KitProject Life® Design A Page Protector

AE Digital Creative Team | Craft Story Kit™ Projects

Happy Monday! Today I'm sharing awesome layouts made by my Digital Creative Team using the Craft Digital Story Kit™. 

Also, I'm excited to let you know that we now have a Creative Team Gallery where you can go to check out how the team is crafting their stories using my products - including additional images from the projects we are sharing below. We'll be updating it a couple times a month. 

This month the team is sharing stories they crafted using the Craft Digital Story Kit™ which is available via subscription now through March 14th:

Here's a look at how the team worked with the Craft Digital Story Kit™. Just a heads up again that most of my team uses the digital kit to create paper projects - meaning they print out the digital pieces and add them to paper layouts/pockets (vs. completely digital projects):

Brandi Kincaid | Brandi told the story of how she embraces the mess of her personal creative process of making stuff. Love how she cropped her projects into star shapes and how she enlarged the "make stuff" word art for a big title.  

Emma Speller | Emma told the story of three different crafts she participates in using the number circles to highlight each one. 

Ginny Hughes | Ginny told the story of handmade quilts. I love the addition of the new + old photo to help tell a more complete story. 

Ingunn Markiwicz | Ingunn tells the story of doing what she loves - getting outside/hiking - and learning that her sweet little baby can fit right in. Love how they are making that happen. 

Kelsey McEvoy | Kelsey told the story about her daughter making friends using an enlarged version of the "make" word art. I love that the theme of "craft" has lots of story threads that can be followed - making, passion, crafting, etc. 

Sarah Zayas | Sarah tells the story of embracing her desk mess :) and how that all relates to her personal creative process. Click over to Sarah's blog post to read more about how she created this layout. 

Sasha Farina | Sasha used Design F page protectors to hold her story of her crafting passions. I love how each pocket is a micro-story that supports the overall theme. 

Jen Schow | For her story of "making stuff like it's her job" Jen incorporated digital items from the Craft Digital Story Kit™ + the rolling time stamp from the Day In The Life™ kit. I love how she used the enlarged image of the watercolors as the background/home for her stamping. Click over to Jen's blog for more information on her story this month. 

Carol Chastain | Carol used the kit this month to create a mini-book telling the story of her love of crafting. She printed out a bunch of the journal cards, punched holes, and added her story along the way. Here are a couple pages from the inside:

Check out the Creative Team Gallery for more detailed photos of each members projects.

Interested in learning more about working with digtal scrapbooking products? Check out my free series on Getting Started With Digital Scrapbooking here. Check out all my digital/printable scrapbooking supplies here.

Let's Do This | Pocket Storytelling

Last month in the February 
One Little Word® classroom the prompt was to "practice" something each day over the course of the month. 

I decided that my daily practice was going to be walking one mile. Over the course of the month I took photos of my feet each time I walked, knowing that I wanted to visually tell the story of connecting with my word in this way. I love that over the course of the month I literally crafted a story - a story of building a habit one day at a time.

There's still time to join us in the One Little Word® workshop as we work together to make our words visible each month via creative prompts. We generally close this classroom in the late Spring and class runs through December. 

To tell this story I decided to print all my photos at 3x4 and use a Project Life® Design F Page Protector to hold the photos and words. This story will go into my yearly 12x12 album but you could easily add a story like this to Project Life®. 

After printing out each of my photos (all printed 3x4) I used the rolling time stamp from the 
Day In The Life™ kit to add the time and the date using Black Staz On.

All these photos were taken with my iPhone. I'm currently still using Aperture for my photo management and it, like most photo management programs, holds the "metadata" for your photos. That information includes the time and date the photos were taken which made it super easy for me to go back when I was ready to document these and stamp the real-life times directly onto the photos. YES! Go technology. 
Noell at Paperclipping.com has written more indepth information about metadata if you'd like to learn more here.

Here's a look at how it all came together on the front and back of a 
Design F page protector: 

And the other side: 

A few things to note: 

For the title card I used a 4x6 card from my Sparks Story Kit™ + the "let's do this" stamp (part of the Craft Story Stamp™ that you can still grab between now and March 14th - there is also a digital version of this stamp set available without a subscription here) + a black label from my package of label stickers. 

For my journaling I printed out a short reflection (I also included more about this in my One Little Word® album which is part of the workshop content) and paired that with a "hashtag" chipboard piece from my AED Cascade Chipboard set.

The rubber "February," which I just slid into the pocket, was included in the SC Savannah Scrapbook kit.

The "photos for the win" card was from the Click Story Kit.™

In the bottom corner pocket I included a card from the Everyday Core Kit + a cork speech bubble from Freckled Fawn + an "@" symbol from the Cascade Chipboard set. 

SUPPLIES

AED Rolling Time Stamp (included with the Day In The Life™ kit)
AED Cascade Chipboard Mixed Designs
AED Labels
Craft Story Kit™ (available via subscription through March 14th)
Sparks Story Kit™
Click Story Kit™
Black Staz On
Everyday Core Kit
Project Life® Design F Page Protector (or available in the Big Variety Pack  here )
SC Savannah Scrapbook Kit (February word)
Freckled Fawn Lovely Embellishment Kit

March Digital Release | Day In The Life™ And More

Happy March! 
Last month we announced that we were changing up the way we release digital products from weekly to monthly. Over the last two days Katie has added 20 new products along with 30 Classic AE products from my past collection previously offered at Designer Digitals (Classic AE products are designated with a grey box around the product preview). 

Click here to see all products added as part of the 
March Digital Release. More details below:

NEW PRODUCT BREAKDOWN

New digital products this month focus on:

Day In The Life™:  digital version of the mini kit, a 4x6 layered template set, a 6x12 layered template set, and Day In The Life™ Circles Easter : word art Travel : word art 5 past Digital Story Stamp™ sets : Black & White, Craft, Heart, Old & New, and Sparks Journal Card Sets : Celebrate, Gratitude, This & That (these are all available as printed versions  here )

I'm working on a new tutorial to walk you through working with the new Day In The Life™ templates and hope to share that soon. 

If you are looking for more information on Getting Started With Digital Scrapbooking check out my free series of posts here. 

CLASSIC AE

We have over 30 new
Classic AE products in the shop this month focusing on Winter/Spring, Easter, travel, everyday memory-keeping, as well as previously released Day In The Life™ Layered Templates. 

Here's a layout I made a couple years ago using the 
Easter Blessings 3x4 Journal Cards (printed out and used on a paper layout): 

You can read a blog post about the process of making this layout 
here.

Thanks for your support and here's to telling more stories together!

Project Life® 2016 | Week Seven

One of the things I love about this project is the opportunity to include the voices of other people who are important to me. This week I've included a couple of text messages from Chris and the kids + a note Anna wrote to Aaron + some math practice Anna did while we were at a restaurant. I am intentionally on the lookout for those kinds of micro-stories to include in my weeks. 

Here's a closer look at Week Seven: 

In terms of design this week one of the things I did after I had all my photos and most of the 3x4 cards/stories in place I used circle journal stickers from Freckled Fawn on top of three photos. It's a way to link the whole spread together + get more words on the page. 

As many of you have heard me say recently in the Storytelling With Project Life® workshop, I also really want to make sure I'm including "stuff of life" in this project. This week I cut up part of some Shopkins packaging and added it to a pocket. 

"Together" is from my AED Celebrate Journal Card Set. The SC Mega Date Stamp was used to get the dates onto the card (click Notify Me to be sent an email when it's back in stock).

To include the text message from Chris I did a screenshot on my computer (you can do it on your phone too) and then I added the "notes" card from the Everyday core kit to the top (cut in half and added to the top and the bottom).

The "Wednesday" card is from the Hello Today Journal Card Set.

The "ampersand" card was included with the Black & White Story Kit™ - I simply wrote "work" over and over again because that's a lot of what was happening. 

The "movies" red puffy stickers are from the SC Savannah Scrapbook Kit. 

SUPPLIESProject Life® Design A Page ProtectorsEveryday Core KitAED Celebrate Journal Card SetAED Hello Today Journal Card SetBlack & White Story Kit™SC Savannah Scrapbook Kit (Red Puffy Letter Stickers + Small Grey Phrase Stickers)Freckled Fawn Embellishment Kit (Circle Label Stickers)AED SlickWriter PenSC Mega Date Stamp (click Notify Me to be sent an email when it's back in stock)

Week In The Life™ 2016 | Kit Now Available For Pre-order

The 2016 Week In The Life™ kit is now available for pre-order. 

A seven-day documentary project, Week In The Life™ began in 2005 as an annual opportunity to capture the simple everyday details of life with photos and words. The albums I've created are some of my most treasured in that they are wonderfully true representations of my family's life at a particular point in time. From the mundane to the profound, it's those simple little everyday moments that I treasure most.

This year I'll be documenting a week in my life in early May. You are welcome to do this project any time or join me in May. I'll be sharing my documentation process and how I work with the kit after my week here on my blog as usual. Kit pre-orders will ship the first week in April.

For support and fun and sharing during this project you're invited to join my free Week In The Life ™ Community here on my website and/or the Week In The Life™ Facebook Group. 

Here's a look at the 2016 kit: 

I love this kit. 

Printed chipboard circles + black chipboard alpha (includes two of each letter) + gold-foil Day of the Week 4x6 cards + 31, 3x4 journal cards (one-sided) + a 3x4 stamp set + wood veneer numbers + rubber rectangle words + acrylic hearts + word/phrase stickers + time washi tape + large plastic day of the week letters. Yes. 

When you choose a kit you have the option of either a black album with a gold label or a printed "stories" album: 

I'm honestly not sure which album I'm going to use yet. As you'll see in the video walk-through below, we sized the black chipboard alpha to fit perfectly on the label on the front of the black album to add an initial for you or your family's name. 

These albums have a 2.5 inch spine. This is larger than the Week In The Life™ album spine last year (this album is the same width as the 2015 December Daily® albums). 

Included with the kit are enough page protectors (24) to follow along with my personal plan for the album. 

If you'd like to order more page protectors those are also available in a variety of designs to add to your box during the pre-order period. 

In addition, while supplies last (or until the pre-order period ends on March 31) you'll receive these chipboard day of the week dividers free with your kit. 

Here's a video walkthrough of the 2016 kit: 

In addition to the kit we've curated a selection of other products you can add to your box during the pre-order period. 

Included with the options are three new stamp sets: 

You can add anything to your box from the Week In The Life™ Pre-Order page between now and March 31st. After that we'll pack it all up and ship it out to you starting the first week ion April. Free shipping for domestic orders. $10 flat rate for international shipping.

New digital layered templates for Week In The Life™  and a digital set of the cards & stamp from this kit will be available closer to May.

Hope you guys have an awesome weekend!

Project Life® 2016 | Week Six

For Week Six in Project Life® 2016 I used cards created with the optional Storytelling Class Kit for my Project Life® workshop along with a few other supplies. The kit is sold out + will not be restocked but the stamp will be available later this year. We also have a digital set of the cards + stamps available here.  

Here's a look at my Week Six: 

In the Storytelling With Project Life® classroom this week I shared my complete process for this spread which included creating all the cards first (cutting many of them up to make homes for stories), stamping the days of the week, and then writing something on each one each day of the week. I love the concept of breaking up the different tasks and having all the "crafty" parts done and all I had to do was add the words and print my photos during the week. 

I also included a 6x8 insert this week to celebrate Anna's birthday. I stamped "birthday" using my Birthday Stamp Set on top of a card from my Celebrate Journal Card Set. I also used that stamp set to stamp "birthday goodness" inside the 2-inch Avery Index tab. 

That #7 tag is from an old Studio Calico set or kit which I don't think is available any more. 

On the back of the insert I included a photo (cut into 2) of her gift list (for sending thank you notes) + the back of the Celebrate card + I cut up one of her personalized cards and wrote her a short note about how awesome she is and how thankful I am to have her in my life. I ordered those personalized cards from Minted (Sanibel Island stripes children's stationery) to encourage the fine art of letter writing and thank-you-noting.

The "everyday story" title card was included in the Spark Story Kit™. 

One thing you might notice about this week is I didn't add any embellishments to my photos. I felt like I had enough going on in my middle row of 3x4 cards + the insert to call it good. Actually, I really love those photos without anything else on them. 

My goal this week, after putting all the cards together, was simply to write down some basic facts on each day. 

I seriously love how this week turned out and I will totally use this approach again another time. 

And in case you are wondering, I write on those journal cards first and then underline them. 

Hope you have  great week! 

SUPPLIESAED Birthday Stamp SetAED Celebrate Journal Card SetTiny Attacher Stapler6x8 Page ProtectorAED Precision PenBlack StazOn InkEpson PM400 Printer (for anything 5x7 and smaller)2-Inch Avery Index TabsSpark Story Kit™

AE Digital Creative Team | February Inspiration

Today I'm super happy to be sharing an awesome collection of projects with you put together by my 
Digital Creative Team.

What I've told this team to do is
make what they want to make and tell the stories they want to tell in the ways which are most authentic to them. I want my products to be purposeful and support their stories or be jumping off points to tell one story or another. These are their stories and their ideas and their reflections on their own lives. I so love reading their words and I'm very thankful to have them here as part of this team. 

I also want to let you know that we are starting the process of loading these projects into the new 
Creative Team Gallery which will allow you to view them all in one place vs. just here on the blog. 

Below you will find samples of projects using the 
February release of digital products. You can read more about how I'm changing up how I release my digital products here. 

Click the links below to visit the designer's blog and/or check out the product links. Most of these projects are hybrid - meaning that the designers are printing out the digital products to use in their projects. 

Brandi Kincaid | Brandi used Encouragement Bubbles and Thick Valentines on her first project. Brandi also made this 4x4 mini album using Messy Love Circles which you can read more about in this post.

Carol Chastain | Carol used Encouragement Bubbles on her first project and Thick Valentines and Messy Love Circles on her second project.

Emma Speller | Emma used Encouragement Bubbles, Messy Love Circles and  Encouragement Journal Cards.

Ginny Hughes | Ginny used Encouragement Bubbles , and a design from the Encouragement Journal Cards on her first project and  Thick Valentines and the Heart This 8.5 Layered Template (watercolored the heart shapes) on her second project.

Ingunn Markiewicz | Ingunn used Enoucragement Bubbles on her first project and Valentine Hearts and Encouragement Journal Cards on her second project. 

Jen Carlson | Jen used the Heart This 8.5x11 Layered Template in her first project and the Valentine Hearts and Journal Cards in her second project 

Kelsey McEvoy | Kelsey used Messy Love Circles , Valentine Hearts and Encouragement Bubbles.

Pam Baldwin | Pam used Encouragement Bubbles as well as Thicker Days on her first project and Valentine Journal Cards on her second project.

Sarah Zayas | Sarah used Messy Love Circles, and Encouragement Journal Cards on her first project and Valentine Hearts and Thick Valentines on her tag project.

Sasha Farina | Sasha used Thick Valentines on her first project and a design from the Valentine Journal Cards on her second project. She also used the Classic AE product You.

Jen Schow | Jen used an enlarged design from Encouragement Journal Cards on her first project and Messy Love Circles and Thick Valentines on her second project

Jen also put together a
video tutorial on how to color the Messy Love Circles like she did in her second layout. 

Celine Navarro | Celine used one side of the Heart This 8.5x11 Layered Template

Project Life® 2016 | Week Five

Trucking-along with Project Life® this year with a renewed passion - not that it ever really went away completely but it wasn't my main project for a variety of reasons. So far it feels different in very good ways and I'm super thankful for that. I'm seriously so happy to be doing this and to be making it happen each week by keeping it simple and making it a priority. And, as I mentioned in the Storytelling With Project Life® class this week, "taking it down a notch" with my own personal expectations and just filling in the pockets is really helping me tell my stories each week. 

Here's a look at Week Five: 

First half of the week features a drawing from Anna + a photo of coming home from Disney + a photo of my feet on one of my close-to-daily walks (my OLW practice for this month) + a picture of a spread in Anna's journal + a McDonald's bag + a random note to remind myself to order cupcakes for Anna's birthday party + two micro-stories (one that talks about my walking practice this month and one that captures something I said to Simon). 

Chipboard embellishments are still my favorite. This one is included with the Craft Story Kit™ this month. 

Anna got this really fun activity book for Christmas: Tear Up This Book. She filled this all out on her own and when Katie and I started reading we were laughing so hard. So awesome Anna. I so love best-guess spelling. (PS - her favorite comic book is The Boy Who Cried Ninja.)

This is the perfect thing, in my humble opinion, to add to Project Life®. 

The second half of the week features another walking feet photo + a photo of Anna and me and our polka dot clothes + a photo of Anna's school auction + a photo from Anna's birthday party. 

On the "So Thankful For All These Good Times" card (from my Gratitude Journal Card Set) I used the day of the week stamps from the Storytelling Class Kit to document a couple facts about the weekend events (the stamp set will be available on it's own later in the year). You can grab the digital version of that stamp set (and the journal cards) here. 

I used one of my AED Silver Metallic Markers and an AED Precision Pen to write directly on my photos. 

The Mumford quote cards included in the Craft Story Kit™ this month. 

SUPPLIESAED Silver Metallic MarkerAED Precision PenAED Journal Card Set: Gratitude (so thankful for all these good times)Craft Story Kit™Past Story Kit™ Chipboard PiecesEveryday Project Life® Core KitFreckled Fawn White "Fun" (from Woodland)Lollipop Guild Scrapbook Kit (black "party" word)

Day In The Life™ 2016 | Mark Your Calendar For March 29th

One of the projects I plan to continue this year is Day In The Life™. 

One single day of in-depth documentation, Day In The Life™ is an awesome opportunity to record your right now - from the time you wake up until the time your head hits the pillow. What do you do, where do you go, who do you see, what's important to you, what are you eating, what are you saying, etc?  

My completed Day In The Life™ projects have come together in a variety of different ways including monthly in Project Life®(did this for about six months in 2014), in minibooks, on traditional layouts, etc. For this next one I'm planning to use pocket pages and most likely include it as an insert in my Project Life® album. 

This year I'm hoping to do quarterly Day In The Life™ projects - with the first date scheduled for Tuesday, March 29th (other dates throughout the year will be announced as we get closer to them). 

What I love about Day In The Life™: 

The invitation to use my "big" camera for the day. It's simply a fun photo project that encourages taking more photos than I usually do on any given day and I always end up with some photos I really love that tell the story of my life right now. 
It tells the complete story of just one day. In Project Life® I'm most often aiming for an overview of the week so I don't capture all the details of every single day (that would be way too much). Day In The Life™ gives me the chance to capture more of a single day: routines, things said, how much time I spend doing this or that, etc. 

There's nothing you need to sign up for - just mark your calendar and I'll post more ideas as we get closer to the actual day in March. 

Check out my archive of past Day In The Life™ documentation here. I also have a Day In The Life™ Mini Class available as well if you are interested in learning more about how I've approached this project in the past and seeing the step-by-step for a simple 4x4 album. 

DAY IN THE LIFE™ MINI KIT

To help you with your intentional storytelling for Day In The Life™ I've put together a small kit of supplies that is available now: 

In addition to the 3x4 & 4x6 cards and the chipboard circles, this kit includes something that I'm super excited about - a rolling time stamp. This is a product I've wanted to find/offer/create for a very long time and I'm super excited to have it to use to document the times of day for this and other memory keeping projects:

Here's a short video overview of what's included in the Day In The Life™ Mini Kit: 

We will be offering a digital version of this set with the cards + circles at the beginning of March. 

WEEK IN THE LIFE™ | COMING SOON

I also want to let you know that the pre-order for the 2016 Week In The Life™ kit will be coming soon. I'll be documenting my week in May 2016. More details to come.