Ali Edwards's Blog, page 47
June 8, 2023
Go Scrapbook Kit | Special Guest Shu-Wen Tham
It’s Shu-Wen here (aka @ChouxPuffCreations), and I am so excited to be participating in this planning series featuring the new “Go” Quarterly Scrapbook Kit! Being a lover of travel-scrapbooking and arrows as a design element (read: interactive elements!!!) I LOVE this kit! In this blog post and video, I’m going to be sharing 5 different interactive page ideas featuring the “Go” Quarterly Scrapbook Kit, including the process for creating the “foundation” pages of 4 of them!
The 6x8 patterned paper with the two arrows pointing in opposite directions reminded me of the patterned paper from the “Action” Story Kit that I used in my lesson for Pam Baldwin’s Playing With Paper class, where I created a double slider mechanism to reveal two journaling cards. This inspired me to turn the patterned paper 90 degrees so that the arrows point up and down instead of left and right. I decided to simplify my interactive element this time around and create a double pocket without the slider mechanism: still lots of room for journaling and extra photos, without the fuss of creating the slider! I decided to use the orange 6x8 patterned paper with the arrows as my background because I loved that the arrows were going the same directions as the two arrows pointing up and down, and I used the coral patterned paper with the triangles to make a couple of inserts where I’ll be able to attach some photos or journaling later on. Then, I used a We R Memory Keepers Envelope Punch Board to make little pull-tabs for the edges of my patterned paper inserts.
For my next foundation page, I used the 6x8 teal patterned paper with the word “GO” with some of the round chipboard frames that came in the Scrapbook Kit to make a pocket page for my travel album. First, I used a 2.25” Circle Punch to punch out the insides of each of the letter “O”s on the patterned paper. Then, I backed two of the round chipboard frames with acetate before adhering them down around the punched-out “O”s. And finally, I made the whole page into a pocket by adhering the 6x8 green map patterned paper along the top and bottom edges with some paper hinges. This pocket will be perfect for storing some of the flat memorabilia that I collected during my trip, such as receipts, game score cards, and beer flight lists!
My next foundation page is also a see-through pocket page, but this one has a different assembly. I started out with the 12x12 patterned paper with the circles / arrows on it, folded it in half to make one of the sides of the pocket, then die-cut some of the circles out with my die-cutting machine. The circles on the front side of my pocket lined up pretty closely with the circles on the back side of my pocket, which created a cool see-through effect all the way through the pocket! Next, I lined the inside of my pocket with a folded piece of vellum. I tend to hoard lots of paper goods during my trips, so having two pocket pages in my travel album will allow me to save every last bit!
I took full advantage of the digital patterned papers for this next page, because I had to size it down in order to fit in my 5x8 album! Whenever I see patterned papers with lines going across the whole page, I like to think about how I can turn those lines into the edges of a pocket. In this case, I cut along the horizontal sections of the red arrow zigzagging across this patterned paper to make small pockets for the kraft tags that came in this Scrapbook Kit. Unfortunately, sizing down the patterned paper meant the tags didn’t quite fit in the pockets I made on the smaller patterned paper, so I had to trim off about 1/8” from the left and right sides of each tag. I think these tags would look so cute layered with some smaller tags, like the ones that came in the Travel Collection 2022 Mini Kit.
The last idea that I had for an interactive foundation page was using the 6x8 patterned paper with the “Here… There” geotags as the basis for a pull-tab slider page, similar to a layout I made in my 2022 December Daily album. I even printed out the digital car stamp from the Travel Collection 2022 6x8 Phrases Digital Stamp Set to serve as a slider piece between the two geotags! I didn’t include this idea in the foundation pages I made in my video, but it would be similar to the process video I shared for my Dec Daily page last year.
I hope this blog post inspired you to try planning out some interactive pages with this kit! Stay tuned to see how these pages turn out, and make sure to tag me @ChouxPuffCreations if you decide to try any of these interactive page ideas! I look forward to seeing your creations over on Instagram or in the Ali Edwards Facebook Group!
Shu-Wen
June 6, 2023
Go Scrapbook Kit | Special Guest Linda Jordan
Hi there! This is Linda and I’m so excited to be here today to share with you my project planning for the Go Quarterly Scrapbook Kit. Most of the scrapbook kits don’t have a specific story prompt (like a story kit), which gives you more flexibility, but sometimes makes it difficult to come up with story ideas. I love this kit because it has a very loose theme, Go, which is great for stories of travel, outdoor activities, and just moving around! But, it’s also very loosely themed so you can use this kit to tell most stories.
Because this kit has such a loose theme, I kept in mind photos + stories from the past couple of months, plus a few things that I know are coming up (I have a busy June ahead!) as my jumping off point for most of my projects and then use the kit itself to spark design ideas.
In the video, I walk through my process for planning out 10 projects using this kit, as well as talk through lots of other ideas.
My first step is always to look through the kit in its entirety. As I get to each item, I think about a few things:
1. Is this something I want to add into my stash because it’s a great basic, or do I want to use it in a specific project?
2. For embellishments, is this something I want to use all on one project, or should I use these a little at a time as additional embellishments?
3. Does this include a story prompt I want to use as a jumping off point for a story?
4. For papers, is this something I want to cut up or keep whole?
5. Does this product lend itself well to project life?
Next, I go through the products again and begin lumping together the products I want to use in a specific project and sketching out the project ideas. I also make note of the album I will add it into, the specific story I want to tell, any specific photos I want to include, and which products I want to use.
Then I put together the products for each project in a ziplock (when they fit) or otherwise lumped them together so they’ll be easy to pull out when I’m ready to put that project together. Then I placed the entire kit back into the box I store it in, so it’s easily put away when I’m working on other projects or using my desk for other things (I also work from home a few days per week).
And that’s it! I’m ready to dive into the kit and start making. Thank you so much for joining me to plan out projects using the Go Quarterly Scrapbook Kit!
If you’re interested in more details on my planning process, I have an entire class on project planning (and so much more) it that is still for sale called Plan, Prep & Play. I also often share my projects & bits of my process over on my instagram and on my YouTube.
June 5, 2023
Go Scrapbook Kit | Special Guest Denine Zielinski
Hello friends! I’m excited to be here once again on the AED blog to share how I used the GO Scrapbook Kit and one of my sketch ideas to create a page. If you haven’t had a chance, you can go and check out my other blog post which includes eight different ideas for this kit. You can also download a PDF from that post with all of my sketches on it.
This kit has some really fun colors, and it is quite versatile. You definitely do not have to use a go or travel theme to create lots of awesome pages. You will see that my spread today is about time with my family at home. Let’s get started!
For this spread, I used three 12x12 papers from the kit: Large Arrow Circles paper, Mountain Symbol paper, and the TopoMap paper. The latter two papers were cut down to 7x8.25 and used for the background. I fussy cut the arrow circles out of the Large Arrow Circle paper.
Here is what my original sketch looked like:
And here is my finished spread:
I pretty much stayed true to the design of the sketch, but I ended up adding a clear plastic page in between the two pages. The clear plastic page holds the insides of the Chipboard Circle Frames that have my journaling on them. It is double sided so that as the viewer flips the page, the photos with their corresponding journaling show.
I typed and formatted my journaling in PSE inside of 2 inch circles. I printed them out on 8.5x11 sticker paper and punched each of them out with a 2 INCcircle punch. Then it was as simple as just peeling off the sticker backing and adhering the journaling to each of the chipboard circles.
You can see in my photos that I also did some stamping. Inside of the circle that goes across both pages, I stamped “the best” multiple times using two different ink colors. I stamped numbers above the journaling on each chipboard piece and then stamped a few phrases around the outside of some of the fussy cut circles. The date and some chipboard stars were added at the end to finish the spread off.
You can see in my process video below how everything came together for me:
INSERT PROCESS VIDEO HERE
Thank you all for joining me as I created this spread with the GO Quarterly Scrapbook Kit. Planning pages in advance and creating sketches has really helped me to make the most of my kits. I hope that my planning could help you, as well. Keep your eyes open for other pages from this kit on my Instagram @Denine2. Feel free to let me know if you have any questions about this spread or any of my other sketches. Happy storytelling, my friends!
June 2, 2023
In Case You Missed It | June 2
Happy Friday, friends! Welcome to the latest
In Case You Missed It. Just a reminder that this is a quick post that will happen every Friday afternoon with all the updates and links that have happened throughout the week. So, let's get to it:
STORY PLAY PHOTOGRAPHY WEEK
All this week Ali and community members have been playing along with our Story Play Photography Week. Head to the blog for each daily post packed with inspiration from Ali, free downloads, and tips from community members. On Friday, we hosted a community Zoom call chatting all about phtogrpohay's role in telling our stories. Stay tuned for a recording of that conversation coming soon on the blog.
TRAVEL RELEASE UPDATES
NEW GUEST STORYTELLERS
Did you know on the first of every month we share two Guest Storyteller lessons in our Story Class? This month in the HAPPY classroom we are delighted to welcome Kim Chaffin and Erika Breslin as Guest Storytellers. You will not want to miss their beautiful and inspiring projects.This bonus content is just one of the benefits of being a subscriber. Click here to learn more about the HAPPY Story Class subscription and become part of our vibrant, supportive community of memory keepers!
NEW CLASS FROM ALI: STORYTELLING WITH WEEK IN THE LIFE™
Be sure to check out Ali's newest class: Storytelling With Week In The Life™, available now. Storytelling with Week In The Life™ is designed to get you in the mood for documenting a seven day period in your life. This workshop is modeled after the popular Storytelling With December Daily® and Storytelling With Project Life® workshops and is designed to walk you through all the facets of the project in an way that encourages and empowers you to be the boss of your own storytelling experience. We've recently addded bonus lessons from community members. You don't want to miss the great inspiration they are sharing. Register here.
IMPORTANT SUBSCRIPTION UPDATES
Since January, we’ve seen incredible growth in our subscriptions! As always, we are extremely grateful for your support and thrilled by your enthusiastic response to the changes we’ve implemented. As a result, we are currently on a waitlist for new Stories By The Month™ subscribers. Now is the time to subscribe or jump on the waitlist if you’ve been considering a subscription to either of these products. If you are interested in receiving one of these subscriptions when they become available, it’s important to sign-up for our waitlist now as it helps our team anticipate future quantities.
As always, we’re so grateful to have you all as members of this community! Thanks for joining me today and have a great weekend!
Story Play | Photography | Community Zoom Call
Thanks to those of you who were able to join us for the live community zoom call today! We recorded the conversation and it's available for you now.
Also, big thanks to everyone who shared their own stories related to photography as we celebrated their role in our memory keeping adventures this week!
Have a great weekend!
June 1, 2023
Story Play | Photography | Right Now Page + Use Those Cards
Welcome back to our Story Play Photography week!
Today we are sharing examples of projects using the Right Now paper and 3x4 cards from the Story Play Photo Mini Kit. Joining Ali we have Kelly Watson, Morgan Beal, and Kristin Tweedale. Ali has three projects and a process video included below.
We'd love to see how you are using this paper + cards! If you share on social media please tag #aephotorightnow.
Don't forget that we have a live zoom call happening tomorrow at 10am Pacific (it will be recorded + added to a blog post after completion):
Topic: Community Photography Zoom
Meeting Time: Jun 2, 2023 10:00 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86076148393?pwd=Z1BGbFpV...
ID: 860 7614 8393 Passcode: 266329
Find your local number: https://us06web.zoom.us/u/kbQIOYxoUp
Let's dive into today's examples!
Connect with Kelly here: Kelly Watson
Hi friends, Kelly here. I’m excited to share the beginnings of how I’m documenting Photography week in my Story Play album, using the ‘Right Now’ 6x8 paper and a few of the 3x4 journal cards. Since flowers & progress in the yard are what’s happening around here right now I decided to document that.
I mostly used the physical kit with the exception being the 3x4 ‘Photo Love’ card. Using the digital card, I enlarged it a bit then cut out the heart and adhered it to the vellum paper as the intro page for this section of the album, adding one of the chipboard phrases below. On the back of the vellum page, I cut a photo to mirror the heart shape. From the background portion of the enlarged card I printed I cut a strip to back the chipboard & hold the date.
On the 6x8 phone paper, I printed six photos to fit inside the phone shapes, rounding the bottom corners. To finish the layout I used a 3x8 divided page protector to include two more photos and two journal cards as well as my journaling.
As always, I’m so looking forward to connecting with you all as we share our love of photos!
Connect with Morgan here: Morgan Beal
For Story Play Photography week, I created a 6x8 layout using some of Ali’s previous photography tips to document my right nows. The previous Story Play centered on Day in the Life and
Ali shared a blog post with some photography inspiration. These photography challenges included: looking up, looking down, setting up a shot, showing scale, creating contrast, and incorporating yourself in a shot. I used these tips when taking photos to create this layout. Sometimes it’s easy to get into a photo rut, where I find myself taking the same photo over and over (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing – it certainly tells a story!) But it’s always nice to challenge your creativity and find new ways to see and capture the world around you.
I used the 2x2 square page protector to include journaling with the corresponding photos and resized some of the journaling cards. The digital kit gives you the freedom to resize and recolor journal cards to fit your project needs. And I love to create journal cards with the digital stamps, as I did with the ‘photologue’ stamp.
Connect with Kristin here: Kristin Tweedale
I thoroughly enjoyed putting together this layout; it was such a delightful experience.As soon as I laid eyes on the 'Right Now' paper, I immediately knew I wanted to incorporate those phone images by cutting them out and placing them in a homemade pocket.
I carefully selected six of my most loved springtime photos and glued them onto the front of each cut-out phone. This arrangement left me with more than enough space to add two to three sentences of heartfelt journaling on each phone. I love being able to capture the heart of those special moments.
For the reverse side of the cut-out phones, I resized the 'photos photos photos' journaling card and printed it out, ensuring it fit perfectly. One of the aspects of scrapbooking that I absolutely love is incorporating interactive elements. It's so satisfying to play around with the things you created, even after you put them in your album.
To create the background page itself, I used the camera paper from the Story Play kit as the foundational base for my pocket page. To make the pocket itself, I found coordinating cardstock and cut it to the appropriate height for my desired pocket size. I glued three of the edges, and stuck it down on the camera paper.
I embellished the pocket with a lovely pink sheet of cardstock and grabbed one of my all-time favorite classic Ali alpha stamps, which I believe were released as part of a December Daily collection. Next, I carefully cut out the title, glued down the letters, and then added in some decorative washi tape, I completed the layout by placing a cut tag on top, allowing me to journal about the page as a whole and provide additional context.
Participating in this Story Play theme has brought me tremendous satisfaction. It helped me think about the roots of how I even got started as a scrapbooker, over 20 years ago. Photography has always been my gateway into this art form. When I was little, my grandmother would take me on various trips, and I would never leave home without a disposable camera tucked away in my bag, eager to capture every moment.
Over the years, I have embraced my passion for photography, experimenting with weekly selfie challenges, incorporating full-page photos, and, as demonstrated in this layout, creating pages that allow the photos themselves to be the primary storytellers. It's a beautiful way to let the memories shine through and deliver the emotions and experiences captured within each image.
I put together three projects for today's post using pieces from the Story Play Photography kit.
Let's dive into the video:
Full page photos are still one of my most favorite ways to design a scrapbook layout. For this one I paired a full page photo with the right now pattern paper from the kit. On top of my full page photo I added word art from the digital kit and one of the extra photos from the flowers that I'd printed out. Love adding a photo on top of a photo. For the second page I printed my photos 1.5 inches x 2.5 inches so that there was white around the edges. A date stamp finished off my project.
Story Play Photography Kit
Epson XP15000 Printer
Corner Rounder
Fiskars Trimmer
Rolling Date Stamp
My second project today was sparked by a photo Aaron took of himself outside his office door (that goes into our backyard). As soon as he texted it to me I walked downstairs to take my own photo in the same spot. I love having these two photos together! To tell the story of these images I used one of the 3x4 cards (digital) to create a 3x8 journal card (you can simply make it longer on the bottom of the card in Photoshop). Rather than use a 3x8 inch page protector I decided to use a page attacher instead. Along the outside edge I added an Avery Index Tab with a sentiment from the 3x4 stamp set.
On the back of the 3x8 I added pattern paper from the Labels Scrapbook Kit. On top of that I added three of the circle stickers from the kit and stamped numbers and a camera on each one before writing a couple sentiments on each one. I paired those with a chipboard circle from the January 2023 Stories By The Month kit.
Such fun photos!
Story Play Photography Kit
Page Attacher
Story Play Photography Stamp
Chipboard Circle from past kit
Avery Index Tab
AED Inks: Willamette, Columbia
Labels Quarterly Scrapbook KitALI'S PROJECT #3
For my third project I enlarged another full page photo and paired it with one of the transparencies from this set. I love building pages on top of transparencies and in this project I decided to add a 3x4 journal card from the kit to one side and a 3x4 photo on the other side. This is such a fun way to do a little something different with a journal card and supplementary photo.
Love the invitation to write directly onto the journal card.
On the back side of the transparency I added that second photo (and rounded the corners like I did with the journal card) and added one of the chipboard pieces from the kit on top. I also added a chipboard piece on top of the full page photo along with a couple clear word/phrase stickers.
Story Play Photography Kit
Story Play Transparency Set
Tab Sticker from May 2022 Stories By The Month Kit
6 Hole Punch
May 31, 2023
Story Play | Photography | Imperfect Photos Still Tell Stories
This week we are celebrating photos as an integral piece in our memory keeping adventures. We've designated today as a day to celebrate imperfect photos!
Do you have a layout that uses an imperfect photo as a "hero" photo or another example of a layout that uses "imperfect" photos to support your story? We'd love to see it! Share on social using #aeimperfectphotos.
What makes a photo "imperfect"?
It might be a technical issue. Too light or too dark. Too close or too far away. Strange color casting. Blurry or out of focus.
It might be that you don't like the way you look in the photo.
It might be that you snapped the photos a second or two too late and you missed a particular moment you wanted to capture. Maybe what you got was either right before or right after a "moment" you were trying to document.
It might be an old photo that is simply a product of its time (color off, blurred, pixelated, etc).
It might be those photos you snap to show someone something in your house - those quick ones you never think you'd use to tell a story.
It might be that you are way too critical of your own photos (and potentially spending time comparing yourself with others).
Imperfect photos will always be in the eye of the beholder. What you might think is imperfect I might see as totally creative and vice versa. Do you use "imperfect" photos? What do they look like in your memory keeping?
When I think about using photos in memory keeping I'm often thinking about two things:
Sometimes the photo is the hero of the story. It might be the jumping off point for the project/layout (a story spark) or it might be that it best supports a story I want to tell. Your hero photo may be your "favorite" of a series of photos or it might simply be an "imperfect" one you've chosen to go big with to emphasize your story. The beauty is that as the narrators of our own stories we get to choose which photos we use!
Sometimes the photo(s) is simply supporting the story/words. In the case of what I'm sharing today the "imperfect" photos are all pieces of the overall story of my right now.
As with so many parts of scrapbooking, there isn't a right or a wrong. What I hope to communicate today is that imperfect photos are something we all have and honestly, they are something to be celebrated because they are often so representative of our real lives. We don't live perfect lives. There are a million things that are imperfect about our existence and using imperfect photos simply helps to honor that part of our story.
STORYTELLING CHALLENGE
Go through some of your recent photo archives + deliberately pick photos that feel "imperfect" to you for whatever the reason. Use those - whether it's one photo or many - to tell a story about your life right now. I love being deliberate and intentional with photos like this and I let my desire to tell my stories win over any need/desire for "perfect" photos.
Here's what I created using some recent "imperfect" photos. I love this idea of simply gathering a bunch of them together and going all in on them as a piece of your memory keeping adventures.
Here's a quick process video with info on how to use the layered template in Photoshop that I've included for you below:
Here's a look at my project via photos:
For this project I used the digital version of one of the cards included in the Story Play Photography kit to create a layered template (download available for you below). I love using one card as a repeated element across my spread and detailing a bit about what each photo represents below the photo. This is totally something you could do a couple times a year - collect a series of recent imperfect shots and celebrate them by featuring them all together.
You can download this layered template for use in Photoshop here.
When I was doing Project Life I feel like I included more photos like this in my weekly spreads. Some are snapshots, some are over-exposed, most are simply showing something about my everyday life right now. Each one tells a little micro story about this season.
Epson XP15000 Printer
Remember This 6x8 Album
Secretary Typewriter Font
Fiskars Rotary TrimmerStory Play Photography KitTOMORROW: MORE PROJECT IDEAS USING THE KIT
Tomorrow Ali and community members will be sharing additional ideas for documenting stories of photography using supplies from the Story Play Photography kit.
May 30, 2023
Story Play | Photography | Sharing Our Why
Welcome to a week of celebrating photography as one of the core pieces of memory keeping!
We chose to focus less on the technical and more on the emotional this week because we don't feel like you need to be a photo expert to authentically share your story via photos. Today we invited a handful of community members to share with us why they love photography. You are also invited to share your own why either in the comments or on your own social media. If you share on social please tag
#aephotolovewhy so we can see and read your reason!
This week on Friday we will have a live Zoom Community call at 10am Pacific to chat about photos + memory keeping. Bring questions about photos and/or memory keeping
All you need to do to join the call is click this link on Friday:
Topic: Community Photography Zoom Meeting
Time: Jun 2, 2023 10:00 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86076148393?pwd=Z1BGbFpV...
Meeting ID: 860 7614 8393
Passcode: 266329
Find your local number: https://us06web.zoom.us/u/kbQIOYxoUp
The call will be recorded + shared here on the blog after it's ended and uploaded.
If you'd like a deeper dive into looking through your lens from a storytellers perspective you can check out the classes we offer about photography including:
Lens Of Joy with Ali Edwards
The Magic Of Moments with Lisa Varshine
Both classes are 50% off this week (no promo code needed)!
To get you thinking about your own reason why we invited community members to share here using the Story Play Photography Kit (using either the
physical version or the digital version).
Let's dive in!
Connect with Azzari here:
Azzari Jarrett
I fell in love with photography at a time when my life drastically changed - when I became a mother. My world now revolved around this tiny human being I had brought into the world, and my outlook on everything shifted. I grabbed my camera to document my new life, my new normal, my new world. I haven't looked back in 16 years. My journey with photography has led me down many paths - through digital and film, experimenting with different techniques and mediums. But one thing always remains the same - my love for the art of capturing my emotions and feelings through that lens. Photography continues to be the most special way for me to make sense of my world. When I happy or content, I love to capture that feeling. When I am inspired and in awe, I reach for my camera. If my day didn't go as planned, I still document it all. Photography has the ability to see me through different stages of my life so that I can revisit and make note of how much I have changed and grown.
Connect with Ingunn here:
Ingunn Markiewicz
My husband and I bought our first DSLR in 2006, right after I started scrapbooking. I instantly fell in love, and for years I would take thousands (yup) of photos of our hikes and backpacking trips, spending hours meticulously editing them in Lightroom.
When we had kids, my focus changed to capturing more of our home life and all the changes that were happening there – suddenly I understood what Ali had been talking about all these years, the joy of documenting the seemingly mundane details of our everyday life! (We are moving to Norway in July, and now those photos of our life at home here in Washington feel even more important! I’m so glad we have lots of photos of the kids growing up in this house, and I wish we had even more.)
These days, I am too lazy to lug around a big SLR, so I take photos with my phone and edit them quickly in the Photoshop app. My favorite photos these days are a combination of my old and my new life: pictures of my kids out hiking! I’ve always said that my scrapbooking is mainly for me – a therapeutic way to look at my life as I live it, and as a way to help me remember all the good times when I am old and grey and no longer going on grand adventures. It feels like we are living through our golden years right now, and I am so thankful that I have a memory-capturer that fits in my pocket!
Connect with Jill here:
Jill Drangsholt
I decided to use this paper as an opportunity to include a few of my Week in the Life photos in my Project Life album. I ended up cutting down a 12x12 page protector to create an 8.25 x 12 layout with the "photos matter" paper and one of the Story Play transparencies stitched together.
PHOTOS MATTER TO ME BECAUSE:
I love taking photos of myself in order to see myself in ways that I haven't seen before. So often I only see myself head on in mirrors, but miss out on the me that others see. These selfies help me to remember my own beauty and be more confident in who I am.
I love the way photos can often tell a story better than I could describe it in words. I love how quickly I can capture a moment (however imperfectly) before it disappears. Or how I can deliberately craft an image to tell the story I want it to tell.
I love to document the changing seasons in my life. The moments that feel like they will never change but do inevitably morph over time, and the ones that persist over and over. I love to record today's ordinary moments knowing that tomorrow they will look completely different.
Connect with Amy here:
Amy Mallory
The Story Play Photography Digital Mini Kit provided the perfect pieces to create a layout that had a dual celebration. It celebrates my son’s proposal and my love for being the one who was honored to photograph it. As photographers, we are the ones looking through the lens, but sometimes it’s fun to take a step back and have a bird’s eye view of what we look like while we’re doing what we love. This layout is about the feelings I have as a photographer and how serving others through this outlet brings me joy! I chose to use photos from this special occasion as an example of how I love being able to photograph the people in my life. The majority of the photos from this spread are of the proposal, but on the insert I used a repeating photo of myself to support the story.
Photography is a passion of mine that ebbs and flows in intensity. Lately I have had a renewed energy toward my favorite hobby and Ali’s Week in the Life photos inspired me to pick up my camera again on a regular basis. I am going to have a celebration album of the photographs that are meaningful to me along with some reflective thoughts about the experience of being the photographer. It will also include words and snippets from others such as the "thank you" message I received from my son on Instagram.
I am continuing my memory keeping in a 10 x 8 album. This spread was all created digitally in PSE and I will print the pages at 11 x 8.25 to live outside the page protectors. This spread includes 2 pages plus a 6 x 8 insert (front & back).
Connect with Traci here:
Traci Brooks
I didn’t always value photography, mostly because I didn’t consider myself good at taking photos. It wasn’t until I started this memory keeping journey all those years ago, I discovered photos were the avenue for me to tell my stories. At that time photos were for historical or who/ what/ where/ when types of story (and still often can be those types of stories). However, I have been learning how capturing perspective in my photo also gives perspective in my storytelling. The photos started becoming a way for me to process what was happening in my life, in real time. They became as important as my journaling. I have grown to understand I don’t need to have all the technical knowledge of using my DSLR to capture my perspective/my view/my voice/my story. I just need a camera.
Connect with Kelly here:
Kelly Ishmael
Hi friends! I'm delighted to be here to celebrate my love of photography with you today. I have been taking a photo everyday (more or less) for the past 10 years, and it is a practice that still brings me so much joy. Seeing life through the lens is my way of seeking out and celebrating the good things in my life which is especially welcome when life feels hard or heavy. Photography also is a practice in mindfulness - like pressing a daily pause button that helps me to feel grounded and present. And finally, I love how photography gives me a tangible connection to my cherished memories with loved ones and then being able to relive those moments through my photos.
I loved the invitation to document why photos matter to me using this paper from the Story Play Collection Photography Mini Kit. I started by typing out my words and printing them on the "Photos Matter" paper. (
Full disclosure: My printer ruined my physical copy of this paper, so I ended up using the digital version for this layout.) Then I printed out three photos sized 1.75" x 1.75" to place in the squares and one 7" x 8.25" photo to accompany the layout. As a final touch, I added a simple chipboard piece from the kit and a felt flower from my stash.
I hope you enjoy the photography-themed content this week and I can't wait to see all of your projects. As always, thank you for letting me share my stories and my projects with you.
Photos are life! I'm a point in my own life journey that I can't imagine photos not being a part of my life in one way or another. My parents took lots of photos (and I've been able to go back through many of them over the years) because they simply loved both looking through the lens and developing the photos. It was simply something you did. I never imagined that photography would become a piece of my work life. I love both documenting the basics of everyday life (I'm looking at your messes - you are so very normal) and creatively looking through the lens to either capture or create something magical and meaningful.
My kids are older now and a lot of my photos in this season of life are of flowers or Betty (our white lab) or of myself. I'm here for that transition and walking into new chapters with open arms for capturing what's beautiful to me in this phase of my life. There are different stories to tell now.
For today's project I knew I wanted to pair my Reason Why page with a collage of photos. I scrolled back through some of my photo archives and picked some from my childhood, from when our kids were little, and some that are more recent.
In between my photo collage and my "here's my why" page I added in the vellum photo pattern and cut out the heart from one of the 3x4 cards for the front. On the back of the patterned vellum I added a couple chipboard pieces and a clear sticker from a past word/phrase sticker sheet.
I chose to handwrite my reflections (and paired them with small photos) directly onto the paper (and yeah, I know the date stamp is wrong - it's all good).
Here's my why (at least my why right now - there's probably always more I could write):
I simply love looking through the lens of my cameras to witness and document the chapters of my life. They are moments and memories frozen in time - the big pieces and the small little experiences. I love seeing both myself and my people.
Photos ground me in what is real - right now in a given season of life. I especially love photos of the natural world and things growing (the cycles) in my yard. Photos invite me to pay attention and tell stories of this season.
They link the past and the present. They show the passage of time and remind me that people make it through things. I love putting past and present photos together to tell stories that honor the chapters of life and all the ebbs and flows.
Here's a short video of this one coming together:
Tomorrow we are celebrating our imperfect photos! We all have them and they can be used to support a wide variety of stories from our lives. We'd love to invite you to share your imperfect + awesome photos on social tomorrow (5/31/23) and use #aeimperfectphotos to share with our community what you love about a particular imperfect photo. Let's celebrate!
May 26, 2023
In Case You Missed It | May 26
Happy Friday, friends! Welcome to the latest
In Case You Missed It. Just a reminder that this is a quick post that will happen every Friday afternoon with all the updates and links that have happened throughout the week. So, let's get to it:
20% OFF + $10 FLAT RATE SHIPPING WORLDWIDE
20% off site-wide AND $10 Flat Rate Shipping happening now. This includes US, Canada, and International orders! We know shipping is expensive, especially for our international friends, and we are so thrilled to offer this very rare shipping special. Just use promo code 10SHIPPING at checkout and enjoy. The promotion starts now and ends Monday, May 29th at 11:59pm EST. Use code TAKE20 for 20% off your entire purchase (excluding gift cards). These two codes can be stacked to take advantage of both offers! Albums are the only category excluded from the shipping offer. Each album will have a $5 flat rate shipping in the US and CA and an $8 flat rate for international shipping. This will be in effect through Monday at 11:59pm EST.
STORY PLAY PHOTOGRAPHY WEEK
Mark your calendars! Our Story Play Photography week is happening next week, beginning on Tuesday. Head over to the blog for all of the details. https://aliedwards.com/2023/05/story-...
WEEK IN THE LIFE™ INSPIRATION
This week on the blog Ali and several other community members have been sharing their completed Week In The Life™ albums. Head over now for an incredible dose of inspiration featuring walkthrough videos, photos, and tips.
TRAVEL RELEASE UPDATES
Last week we shared a first look at our brand new 2023 Travel Collection coming Wednesday, June 14th! Stay tuned for more sneaks and details as we get closer to the launch. A preview post, including product videos, pricing, shipping and more will be shared on the blog in advance of the release. Digitals for this collection will be available as part of our July digital release, happening the first Friday of July. We're also excited to share that we have a brand new travel class with completed albums from Ali and other community members in progress. We can’t wait to share this collection with you!
NEW CLASS FROM ALI: STORYTELLING WITH WEEK IN THE LIFE™
Be sure to check out Ali's newest class: Storytelling With Week In The Life™, available now. Storytelling with Week In The Life™ is designed to get you in the mood for documenting a seven day period in your life. This workshop is modeled after the popular Storytelling With December Daily® and Storytelling With Project Life® workshops and is designed to walk you through all the facets of the project in an way that encourages and empowers you to be the boss of your own storytelling experience. We've recently addded bonus lessons from community members. You don't want to miss the great inspiration they are sharing. Register here.
IMPORTANT SUBSCRIPTION UPDATES
Since January, we’ve seen incredible growth in our subscriptions! As always, we are extremely grateful for your support and thrilled by your enthusiastic response to the changes we’ve implemented. As a result, we are currently on a waitlist for new Stories By The Month™ subscribers. Now is the time to subscribe or jump on the waitlist if you’ve been considering a subscription to either of these products. If you are interested in receiving one of these subscriptions when they become available, it’s important to sign-up for our waitlist now as it helps our team anticipate future quantities.
As always, we’re so grateful to have you all as members of this community! Thanks for joining me today and have a great weekend!
May 24, 2023
Week In The Life™ 2023 | Ali's Album
Welcome to a look at my "almost" complete Week In The Life™ album for 2023. I've got just a couple spaces remaining to fill (you'll see those below) and felt like this is a good time to share the entire thing. This is a big post with a lot of photos and a video so grab your favorite beverage and let's dive in and see how this all came together.
You can see each of my daily word + photos from the documenting week here.
You can see steps I took for repeated embellishments here.
You can see my original design plan for this project this year here.
A few things to share before we go through each day:
I really wanted to celebrate + elevate the everyday by focusing on photo enlargements and letting the photos sing their own songs.I love the mix of typed + handwritten journaling. Remember that all the typed journaling comes directly from my blog posts during the documenting week. I simply copy + paste what I wrote and add that into my album. Handwritten pieces include some that were done during the week itself and others that I wrote as I was putting the actual album together and some of that writing is more reflective vs. in-the-moment. I love that combo of the two. This project is a labor of love from the documenting to the printing to the embellishing. Let it take its time in coming together. Remember that you get to choose the right level of embellishing for you in this season of your life. With this project I tend to do "light" embellishing (compared with a project like December Daily®) and that works for the way I want to tell the story of my week. I am so, so, so happy that I used my DSLR camera for this week. It re-ignited a love for me and I feel grateful to this project for reminding me how much I love looking through that lens. I loved diving in to my stash for some sentiment cards and word phrase stickers. Definitely one of my favorite parts of my project this year was inviting our teens to add their voices via photos texted to me each day. I had set up a page for that during our Prep Day but when it came down to documenting those photos I decided I wanted to do something different and used one of the layered templates from this set. I love how it turned it especially since those were all phone photos.
What's not done yet?
Individual family photos that will be cropped into circles for one of the intro pages at the beginning of the album. Some of my ephemera pages need more pieces added. I'm simply adding things as I find them in the mail, around the house, etc.Feel inspired after checking out this post? This is a project you can do at any time! Pick a week and go for it. It is so worth the time.
Interested in learning more about the entire process of documenting a week in your life? Check out my Storytelling With Week In The Life™ workshop.
Here's the overview video:
Here is a look at my album via photos:
This is where I still need to add circle photos of each family member.
These photo strips are 1.25 inches x 6 inches.
In yesterday's embellishment post I shared about how I added this photo + words to the back of the highlights page and included "reflective" writing as I looked back on the week as a whole.
MONDAY
One of the things I did different this year was cut up some 6x8 page protectors to create 3x4 pockets to hold sentiment cards from my stash. As you'll see below I added those to a number of my full page photo enlargements (ones that are inside a page protector). I loved adding in some cards from my stash - you could easily add more writing to the back or use regular journal cards if you had additional writing you wanted to do.
The page protector pockets are adhered with red line tape.
As you'll see below I struggled to fill these in each day. But not to worry, I'm simply adding more from the weeks after the documenting week. It's all related to this current season of life.
On the back of each of those ephemera pages I added a full page photo with a chipboard label and "loving this life" stamped.
Here's the template I ended up using for the "from the kids" page. I love being able to see their full photos (vs. in pockets like I was thinking originally) and love the nod to the technology that delivered that content to me. I filled in the additional phone spaces with extra photos from my day or screenshots.
I went with another layered template - part of the same package as the phone page - to showcase more photos (love the contrast between the small photos here + all the other enlargements). I adjusted this one each day depending on the number of photos I had for the day and, on most days, I added journaling here as well.
This is the journaling that is all copied + pasted from my blog posts during the documenting week.
Journaling continued from the page before.
I added stickers from the Main Kit to some of my 10x4 photos.
Loved diving in to my stash to add word/phrase stickers to the vellum tags from the kit.
And repeat. Love repetition in this project specifically.
Large chipboard words were a great fit for some of my full page photos. These are from the Mini Kit.
For Wednesday I had just enough photos for one page of a photo grid so I decided to create a custom page for my journaling with a circle in the center for one of the plastic circles.
On Thursday I started the journaling on the 10x4 card and then finished that up on a 4x6 custom journal card (see below).
Here's where the journaling is continued from the 10x4 card. I added this to the album using a page attacher.
Sweet little card from Brandi Kincaid's Extravagant Hope.
For Friday I was able to combine a couple rows of photos on the template with journaling below (and continued onto the 10x4 card).
Yep, still need to add stuff here.
For Saturday and Sunday I had fewer photos and words so I took out the 10x4, 2-pocket page protectors. Make it fit your story.
Ah yeah. I can't wait to look back at this one again in the future. I feel like it's a really decent representation of life around here in this season of teenagers.
Thank you for being a part of this memory keeping community! You've got this!
SUPPLIESWeek In The Life™ Main Kit (just a handful of these remaining at the time of this post)Week In The Life™ Mini KitStar Album 10x8Week In The Life™ 10x8 Layered Templates Days Of The Week TransparenciesMulti-colored Plastic CirclesNumber + Journaling InsertsAlpha Sticker BundleDays Of The Week Journal CardsPhrases + Circles Stamp Set
