Sarah's Cards Ltd: January Project Life with Jen N

Just like that January is over and we are steaming headlong into February. Already! I know a lot of people who say January is the longest month, but for me it has flown by. Did it go fast for you too? Or did it drag out? We are now into week 5 of project life (if you work like me and started the year with week 1, a part week, Wednesday - Sunday). Sometimes life gets in the way of finishing pages on a weekly basis, and for me it did a little this month. Surgery and the subsequent recovery meant that I wasn't able to sit at my scrapping desk as much as I'd have liked. But I have all the weeks planned out, and the photos have been printed and cut up to the right size, so I'm confident that it'll only take me an hour or so to actually put the spreads together. I did, however, complete the first two weeks of my album, and I have those to share with you today.

January 1st - 5th looked like this for us. Plenty of snuggly photos,taking down the Christmas decorations for another year, my son dressing up lots, and plenty of cute "just because" snaps. Most of my photos throughout the year are taken on my phone, and I find that works just fine for the sizes I'm printing them for this album.

Here's a closer look at the layouts.

Week 2, January 7th - 12th, was a busier week for us so I included 3 inserts this week. One 6x12, one 6x8, and one 8.5x11.

The inserts are for my daughter's 5 month pictures, and a bit of writing about what she's doing at this stage; her first swim, for which we rented a pool out and had a lovely family time; and an example of my son's drawings. I kept my inserts very basic as I was short on time - most of them are literally photos put into page protectors, with a few bits of journalling here and there.The journalling card on the artwork page is stuck on to the outside of the page protector, as I didn't want to adhere it directly to the paper. If I feel inclined later, I may go back and add some simple decoration to the plain photos, but for now the pictures and the story are there, and that's fine for me.

You can see my planner in action above - with notes down the side of the inserts to include and then the layout scheme filled out with the photo sizes drawn on. I tick each one as I include it in my prints/photo order. I love ticking that 'Completed' box - very gratifying!

This week included such fun things as daily visits to the roadworks (15 weeks of annoyance for most, but 15 weeks of heaven for my little boy!), some of his current obsessions (which change at least weekly), a few details about new things my daughter has done, and a self portrait from the little one. Some cards don't need an accompanying photo - I simply journal on the card and it's done.