Week in the Life : Album Creation Part One

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I definitely felt like something was missing yesterday. Having a camera attached for seven full days and then taking it away definitely made for a different sort of day.


One of the things I hoped for in doing this project again was to get back into the groove of taking daily photos. It has been awhile since I felt that desire or excitement related to using my camera daily. It definitely renewed my spark and appreciation for the everyday.


This past week I took 247 photos. That is quite a few less than when I have done this project in the past. Monday had the most photos with 83 and Sunday had the least with 14.


I spent most of my working day yesterday figuring out my formula for this album. Here's what I ended up with: two 8.5x11's (also called a spread) with one baseball card divided page protector sheet sandwiched in between. So far I have just completed the basics and plan to do a bit more embellishing (especially on the patterned paper rectangles as the week goes along) - process details to follow below:


NOTE: A lot of information follows. Take a deep breath, read through, and adopt the pieces (if you want) that make sense for how you want to put your album together. This is my album and the way I approach the process is what makes sense to me :) - everyone will be different.


Also, I work fast. Once I get going and decide on a formula I just go for it and don't spend a lot of time wondering if this is the "right" way or if I should be adding this or that. I want to get it done :). This approach is not hard, there are just steps to go through along the way.


MONDAY


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[ album: Corduroy American Crafts 8.5x11 (ended up with chestnut); page protectors: Avery Baseball Card Protectors; cardstock: Bazzill Lily White ]


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TUESDAY


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THE PROCESS


When attacking a project like this I prefer to do "like" things all at the same time. It's basically working in production-mode: doing things that are the same from one spread to the next all at the same time rather than finding yourself jumping back and forth. 


Here's my process:


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1. Print out all the daily templates (I am using the 8.5x11 Story of Today templates. A 12x12 version - that could be adjusted to 8x8 for printing at home - is also available). I added my journaling to my templates before printing them out. I simply copied and pasted from my Word document and adjusted the font/spacing/etc.


ADJUSTING THE TITLE TO MAKE ROOM FOR JOURNALING


As you will see, some pages have much more words than others. For these pages I adjusted the height of the title on the Story of Today template to make room for the journaling (this means my photos on these pages will be smaller).


Here's a look at how to change the height of the title to adjust for your journaling (images are from Photoshop CS3):


Stepone


1. Type or copy and paste your journaling on a new layer (on top of the template).
2. Select/activate the template layer. Using the rectangular marquee tool, draw a box around the title, line, and days of the week. Be careful not to cut into the border as you are selecting this area.


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3. Switch to the Move Tool (the black arrow) and the selected area should just include the title, line, and days of the week. Use the up arrow key to move the entire piece farther up the page to accommodate your journaling.
4. Print.


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2. Add a stamped date and circle the day of the week on each of the
first page templates. Circle stamp from savvy stamps. Letter stamps are
unknown. Ink is from Stampin Up.


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3. Order photos or print out at home. I ended up printing all mine at home today once I established my design formula. I printed photos for the opening page of each day. If you are using the 8.5x11 templates the width of my photos were 7.25 inches (the height varied by the amount of journaling - Monday had the most).


Before adhering I rounded the corners of the photos on the top to mimic the frame from the template. 


There's seven pages finished (six are shown - the seventh is in the album already).


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4. For the other full-page part of my spread I decided to do a gathering of photos that would fit into the same Story of Today template frame as the first page. Again, I followed the steps above to move the title to the top of the page (I removed the line and date at the bottom and the days of the week). I printed out seven of those onto white cardstock. 


My photo gathering (created in Photoshop but could be easily done by cropping and arranging printed photos) is 7.25 inches wide by almost 9 inches tall. I varied the placement of the photos (large vs. small, etc) from one day to the next depending on the number of photos. Print, trim, corner round the bottom edge, and adhere to the white cardstock.


14 pages done and in page protectors (even though I plan to go back in and add a few embellishments - most likely word stickers, felt pieces, etc).


DIVIDED PAGE PROTECTOR PAGES


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1. Print photos 2.5 inches wide x 3.5 inches tall. I chose to go with twelve of these size photos for each day - six for the front of the page protector and six for the back. The other pockets are filled with patterned paper (see below) or pieces of stuff cut to 2.5 inches x 3.5 inches.


Here's a look at the canvas of photos in Photoshop:


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To do this and any other sort of gathering I create a new canvas (usually something like 8 inches x 10 inches at 300 dpi) and then open photos I want to use. Each photo is re-sized before adding to the canvas: in this case to 2.5 inches x 3.5 inches (which requires portions of the image to be cropped). I usually set my photo to 3.5 inches tall first which gives me a width of over 5 inches (if you have the proportion lock checked).


From there I use the crop tool to crop the image to 2.5 inches wide. I get to keep a lot of the image that way. After sizing the image I drag and drop it onto the new canvas and print after filling it up.


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2. Cut up patterned paper rectangles for the divided page protectors: 2.5 inches x 3.5 inches. I cut seven of each pattern. Here's what I went with (from top left: Basic Grey Recess, Hambly Studios, Scenic Route Claudia Street (this one has big numbers on the back), 7gypsies Life Creme, Bazzill Basics Dotted Swiss Cardstock, and Scenic Route Sonoma Napa Street. Any six papers you have at home will work.


3. Slip a combination of photos and patterned papers into the divided page protector pockets. If you have many more photos you could skip the patterns and go with all photos or if you have a lot of stuff cut up pieces of those things to 2.5 inches x 3.5 inches to fit. Consider adding more pages if you need more pockets.


Some days I had less than 9 photos to crop after doing the photo gathering for the second page. For those places I will be adding more stuff/patterned paper rectangles.


These patterned paper rectangles will be embellished over the next few days.


Make this project as simple as you can for yourself so you will actually DO IT! You have already done so much work in taking photos, gathering stuff, and documenting life. Give it a home.


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The pumpkin muffin recipe can be found here at allrecipes.com.


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A complete list of posts related to the week in the life project can be found here.

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157 thoughts

  1. Erin Glee says…
    10/07/2008

    You AMAZE me that you are already (almost) done!
    I am starting my 12 Days of Christmas album with circles cut from 12''x 5-1/2" pieces of soft olive green paper I have left over from another project... I'm making a 5" circular album with a tab~( from cereal boxes glued together to make my own chipboard), and I will punch out photos that I take every day and stick them on the solid cardstock pages and then hand journal and stamp/embellish afterwards. The tab will be where the holes for the ring are punched, and hopefully it will look like a ball tree ornament when I hang it up to display it!
    Thank you for your inspiration!

    Reply 0 Replies
  2. Bianca says…
    10/07/2008

    Hi Ali!
    I just started to read your Blog!!! Fine stuff! The album is really great. I love your clean and simple style!. I hope I can find the time to do this album soon!
    Bianca from Germany!

    Reply 0 Replies
  3. angie (CKMB & AMR: craftyscrapr) says…
    10/07/2008

    ali, your album looks fabulous!..i think i am going to use the baseball card pages as part of my album...it is a great way to get a bunch of pics in!....
    thanks for the inspiration!...

    Reply 0 Replies
  4. Heather says…
    10/07/2008

    Darn you, Ali. ;) I've ordered an album to do mine in, but I really, really adore the simplicity of yours. So now I'm thinking I should change my format, I'm worried that I'm making it far too complicated and it will never, ever get done. I can't print 12x12's at home, so I may just have to change it up to 8.5x11. Hmmmmm. Off to think........

    Reply 0 Replies
  5. Lydia says…
    10/07/2008

    This is an awesome IDEA!

    Reply 0 Replies
  6. Ali says…
    10/07/2008

    Sue - here is a link that will show you how to recolor the .png files: http://spraguelab.squarespace.com/blog/2007/3/23/photoshop-friday-2007-12-re-coloring.html

    Reply 0 Replies
  7. Tanya says…
    10/07/2008

    Wow Ali you're a machine..I can't get over how quickly you got your album together. I haven't even decided what album to use yet. I'm at a stand still and I think I'm making it a lot more complicated for myself than it needs be.
    I love all your ideas. Thank you for sharing them.
    T.

    Reply 0 Replies
  8. Shayne says…
    10/07/2008

    Your album is an inspiration to us all. I'm now beginning to put mine together and love your layout - one small problem is that i live in South Africa in a small farming village and scrapping supplies are somewhat limited! Any ideas how i could order the Avery Baseball card holders? I plan to order the album from scrappers.com. Many thanks for your daily inspiration!

    Reply 0 Replies
  9. SueB says…
    10/07/2008

    Especially enjoyed seeing the pictures depicting the process you go thru to create the album ~ TFS and thanx for the inspiration!

    Reply 0 Replies
  10. Natty says…
    10/07/2008

    wow gorgeous album you've put together. i documented this week in pictures and words but was thinking about leaving it at that but your album is inspiring me to rethink!

    Reply 0 Replies
  11. abbey says…
    10/07/2008

    HI there, I have a question - I was thinking of doing an 8.5x11 album using the "Story of Today" download, but I wanted it to be horizontal rather than vertical. Is there a way to flip this element? (I'm new to the digi scrabpooking world and the software here so I appreciate the help).
    Abbey

    Reply 0 Replies
  12. abbey says…
    10/07/2008

    Oops, that should be scrapbooking... sorry. In any case, I like what you've done here and think mine may be similar if I can figure out the proper orientation of everything. Thank you for all of the great suggestions. I really have enjoyed the project thus far and am looking forward to seeing everyone's final products.

    Reply 0 Replies
  13. Ali says…
    10/07/2008

    Abbey - you can easily adjust the orientation (place the template on it's side). Moving the title/line/etc will be a bit trickier since it will be shorter than the width - you would need to add to the line. It can be done :).

    Reply 0 Replies
  14. Nikki says…
    10/07/2008

    this is amazing and coming together so fast. I love the template and fancied doing something similar but the template is for US sized letter paper - do you think it would resize to A4?

    Reply 0 Replies
  15. Lisa says…
    10/07/2008

    Ali- I love your layouts. I really like the way you did the first page with The Story of Today template and photos (I'm assuming from the whole week?). I purchased the 8.5 x 11 templates and I'd love to do something like this, but I have seven files and each one has a day highlighted (bold), so I couldn't do a title page like that. Is there a way to un-bold one of the words? I don't have Photo Shop. I have been using a program for Mac called Portraits and Prints to put photos onto the template and then print out the whole sheet. Thanks- Lisa

    Reply 0 Replies
  16. Ali says…
    10/07/2008

    Shayne - I would check at a stationery/office supply store or maybe an online one that services South Africa. You can also check online at staples.com.

    Reply 0 Replies
  17. Tania says…
    10/07/2008

    love everything you do and this project looks great, i plan to do it next week had a bit of a crazy two weeks and wasn't really in the frame of mind to do it.
    I love your headboard though in all your pictures any chance you could share were you got it?
    Thanks Tania

    Reply 0 Replies
  18. Ali says…
    10/07/2008

    Hey Lisa - What happened for me is when I re-colored the template (by following these instructions for Photoshop/Elements: http://spraguelab.squarespace.com/blog/2007/3/23/photoshop-friday-2007-12-re-coloring.html) the bolded day of the week went away so that they were all the same. You could also erase the days of the week and just use the main title.

    Reply 0 Replies
  19. Ali says…
    10/07/2008

    Tania - it was hand-made by my sister-in-laws dad :). We love it.

    Reply 0 Replies
  20. Susanna says…
    10/07/2008

    Ali, this tutorial/tip came just in time for me. I was going to hang myself with tape runner because I'm so desparately behind in my scrapping. I loved all the tips to really get streamlined.
    You were the Runner Up Tutorial of the Week at Card of the Week.com. You can see the original post here: http://www.cardoftheweek.com/2008/10/crafting-101-tu.html.
    I did use a picture from your post, with links back to the site and the original post. I hope that is OK. Please feel free to email me if you need me to change anything.
    I also have an “I was featured” on badge for you if you want it :D

    Reply 0 Replies
  21. kate says…
    10/07/2008

    Ali, first of all, as always, you inspire me much. I am expecting my first little bebe girl in November and am planning on taking this "concept" and making it into her first year baby album. But I want to do the non-card slot pages 12x12 with then the 8.5x11 card sheet in between... my problem: i don't have a 12x12 printer but desperately want to do the whole template thing... what do you suggest? have you ever had things printed onto CS at a place like kinkos or something? any ideas? btw, you rock!!

    Reply 0 Replies
  22. nicole says…
    10/07/2008

    absolutely awesome!!!

    Reply 0 Replies
  23. Nancy L says…
    10/07/2008

    Ali, I love this! I don't have PS either and I am wondering is there anything I else I can use to use these templates?

    Reply 0 Replies
  24. Ali says…
    10/07/2008

    Nancy - you can use these templates in Word. Open a new word document. Click insert/picture and select the .png file. You will need to adjust the margins of your page (depending on the default) and then enlarge the template by selecting it, holding down the shift key, and dragging the template to size.

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  25. Ali says…
    10/07/2008

    Kate - I know you could have them printed through any developer that prints 12x12 or larger. You would want to check out the paper selection - maybe choose matte rather than glossy. I don't know that they are able to print them onto cardstock.

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