project life: week 1

This one will be a bit of everything...week 1 of project life, a tiny update on my Intention project, a share and a quick tutorial...ready?

So this year, I've decided to switch up my project life approach a bit. I bought a package of baseball card protectors in the middle of last year with the intention of using them for inserts in my 12x12 PL album (I know I saw someone do this...I want to say Jamaica? Yeah, probably her because she is awesome and regularly blows my mind.) But, I failed miserably only making it about half way through the year so here I sit, with a full, unopened pack of baseball card sleeves. This year, I'm going with those sleeves for project life. Those sleeves only. With the occasional 8.5x11" regular layout protector mixed in for full size layouts or memorabilia. I feel like the compact size will be more manageable for me and I won't have the excuse of choosing which pocket setup I'll use from week to week.

With that in mind, I put together a quick digital template to help streamline things (I don't know if this is helpful to anyone as the pockets are 2.5x3.5" but if you want it, grab it here.) The plan is to work digitally, printing completed cards for each pocket. If I have the time or inclination I'll further embellish but that's the cherry on top - just having filled pockets is the goal here.

So, my week 1 spread looks like this digitally:

SUPPLIES: life love paper journal cards | DDE oh happy day freebie | paislee press press cards no. 18 | persnickety prints storyteller

and this, once printed and pocketed (yeah, it's a word):

I really wanted to include this ballerina Izzy drew - luckily for me, it was exactly the size of a plastic bag from a set of MME brads - I just cut it to size and slid it in with a paper backer. I simply stapled it to the protector right along the edge where the seam is

flipped back, you can see the card I included for the drawing

I also have a regular page protector with Jake;s spelling Bee certificate and the letter Zack received from his favorite author.

The first week of each month, I'll include a card that shows my OLW/Do Something goal for the month. I created a template for me to use...it looks like this in template form and finished form for this first week:

I did a modified 3x4" version for the traditional PL protectors - one for each month of the year. If you're playing along with me, you can download the zip with all twelve months here.

And finally, a quick tutorial for how I went from the template to the finished product.

original file

1] choose rectangle tool (U) 2] draw a box (because I wanted a solid background rather than the border) 3] simplify

ctrl + e to merge layers

add a new layer

activate brush tool (B)

begin painting over the portions of the png file you want to change to color of (I had a color scheme I was working with for this spread so I did a mix of colors for the wordart...a single color would work just as well!) 

ctrl + g will clip your paint layer to your png file

continue with your paint brush tool changing the color as desired

ctrl + e will make the color change permanent

choose the text tool (T) to add the title/goal and details of your goal

finished card with text