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Happy December people! First of December here in Australia and the first day of Summer so it has suddenly become unbearably hot. I had been planning to do another 6x8 December Daily this year because I already had an album and I just love that size. But then I had second thoughts about doing more of the same and decided to change it up and go 3x8. I bought this album from Ali Edwards' shop (even though it's not the December Daily one) because I already have one from Week In The Life and like a bit of matching on my shelves. I also bought a few 3x8 kits to work/play with. Ali's overlays with the date - which I use every year. So happy she made them in 3x8 this year :) Ali's 3x8 journal cards (again, happy!): And Liz Tamanaha's December You Are My Fave No 7 3x8 Album Kit at Paislee Press (again with the 3x8 products! Yes!): I'm still sticking with my usual formula because I know I will get it done - full photo on the left with the daily overlay, then some journaling and sometimes more photos on the right. I try and work on my pages and have them printed and in the album daily. Sometimes works, sometimes doesn't but I am always done come January. The products make it easy to keep up and I'm just not a person that agonises over photos and words - done is good enough for me. I also plan to make a few video tutorials as I make my pages - sharing some digital scrapbooking goodness. I'm very new to making videos but here is my first one looking at my title page. I'm using Photoshop Elements on a Mac. I know how confusing it all is for someone new to the program or digital but I hope that with each video beginners might be able to pick up one or two things to help theme get more comfortable. I also plan to do some more step-by-step tutorials for beginners. Feel free to email me with any questions and stay tuned for more/ Thanks! #DigitalScrapbooking #DecemberDaily

By about September/October I start to lose steam in my year-long projects. I've been making a Project Life album (in various forms, not always the traditional Becky Higgins style) every year since 2010 and around this time of year I start to look ahead at how to change things up for next year. A year is a long time to work on something so I've learned that if I stick to a simple formula, it's relatively easy to keep up. If I am required to be too creative week after week or month after month then I'm going to have problems. My everyday scrapbooking is where I can be creative, my year-long projects need to lean more to the 'scrapbooking on auto-pilot' side of the spectrum. Keeping up is one thing, getting bored is another. A year is a long time to work on something no matter how simple or complex you make it. I've mostly enjoyed working on my project this year - a very photo-centric project with a weekly recap that I am planning to print as a photobook at the end of the year (you can read all about it here). I've kept up with it OK and even when I've fallen behind, it hasn't been too hard (a habit of writing about my previous week every Monday has helped enormously). But with a photo-centric project, the photos are the key and some weeks/months I am just not taking a lot of photos (or photo-book worthy photos more specifically). I am also missing the little details of life that get documented with the traditional Project Life - the little snippets of information, silly quotes or random ideas that get collected within those little 3x4 pockets. I want a project that collects everything together - photos (not necessarily perfect photos that enlarge well), little memories, pop culture things we are enjoying, quotes, silly stories, ephemera. The typical Design A Project Life pockets are the perfect way to do all that but I've just made too many of those and feel a bit burnt out. I'm leaning towards a graphic, magazine-style layout (Pinterest has been throwing a lot of magazine design images at me lately for some reason) so I've been playing around with creating a digital template where I can add photos and some snippets of journaling every week. This morning I drew out a plan then created a template in Photoshop Elements and added some older photos and words just to see how it would work (how would it look? would I like working on it every week? could I keep up?). The goal is to print an 8x10 photobook at the end of the year so I would make a 16x10 spread every week. As with all plans, I reserve the right to hate this system come January and completely ditch it for something else. But I like coming into the new year with a plan. Stay tuned :) #ProjectLife #DigitalScrapbooking

This will be my eleventh year making a December Daily album (thanks to Ali Edwards) and it's still one of my favourite projects. I am very much a Christmas person and December also marks the start of Summer here in Australia so my album documents the festive period as well as the change of rhythm as school finishes for the year and I take time off from work. What's not to love? Even though it's a hectic time of year, I will always make time for this project. I've made various versions - homemade minibooks, divided page protectors, a 6x6 album and a tiny 4x4 album, but over the last few years I have stuck with a digital 6x8 album using page protectors and that's the way I plan to go this year. GETTING IT DONE Here are some of the things that help me keep it simple and allow me to keep up: 1. Make my pages digitally (in Photoshop Elements) and print at home as I go (in an album with page protectors) 2. Stick to a few digital template sets and kits. I used to buy ALL THE THINGS and get so overwhelmed with too many choices then end up not using a quarter of my stash. I love Ali Edwards's daily overlays and have used them for as long as she has been selling them, then I usually get a few more things from Ali and Liz Tamanaha at Paislee Press (mini kits, template sets) and call it good. Last year I only bought my digital supplies as I started working on my first day's pages so I didn't go overboard and stuck to things I knew I would use (digital December Daily shopping frenzy is a thing too!). 3. Repeat my design each day which is usually a full photo with the daily overlay on the left, then a story with more photos on the right (using one of the templates). Knowing I need a full photo every day helps me find new and interesting things in my day. This is my 2013 album and the first time I used the 'formula' of full page photo with Ali Edwards' date overlay and a collage/template/journaling on the other (in this case I used Cathy Zielske's 30 Days of Thankful 6x8 album template). It was so easy to keep up. 4. Make and print my double layout each day if possible. I am a very quick scrappper and decision maker so I don't agonise over which photo and story to tell. The templates and design plan make it easy to put together and I can probably get the spread done, printed and put into my album within half an hour each day. I like to be done with all things Christmas by the time New Year's comes around and that includes working on my December Daily. STORIES In terms of stories, I love that there are repeating stories every year so I know that many of my December Daily pages are already accounted for before I even start (not in any particular order): Putting up the tree and decorations Last day of school for the year My office Christmas lunch Christmas baking for school - we always make something special for the kids to take to school in the last week and it's usually something DD worthy, like reindeer cookies. Evenings in the pool (Summer routine) New Christmas music I might buy (John Legend this year) Reading/buying Christmas cookbooks & magazines Planning the menu for Christmas day My to-do list Christmas Eve dinner out A list of movies to watch A page each about Zara and Eli right now (that can go on a day when I don't have anything else) Christmas Day Boxing Day That's half the album. I'm also happy to intersperse our regular non-Christmas days and activities in the album. Last year I had a page about swimming lessons, a hospital visit for my sister, yard work, my daughter's school camp, a quiet day in, seeing Star Wars and a new dress. If you really are worried about not having enough stories for your project, you could always change the project from a daily story album to something more prompt or theme drive. Last year, Tiffany Lowder from the Scrap Gals started a Decembers to Remember album telling childhood Christmas stories - what a brilliant idea! Or go super-simple. For 2014 I used a gold We Are Memory Keepers 4x4 album and used Paislee Press' This Day in December journal cards to note a few sentences about that day, paired with a photo. I think it was the easiest December Daily I've ever made. You could even print the cards ahead and just handwrite every day and add a photo. One year, I joined Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas class and cannot recommend it highly enough (once you sign up and pay for the class, you are part of the class every year going forward). I really love the album I made that year - it is a much more considered approach rather than a look at our daily December life. Every day there is a Christmas-related prompt for you to answer in any way you like (I made a 6x8 mini book) and you can make a page for every prompt or pick and choose the ones the speak to you. Here is a look at some of my pages when I took the class in 2011. I really love going back and looking through these books - such a great snapshot of our lives at various stages. This is my very first December Daily from 2008 - a homemade 6x6 mini book with binder rings. And my second album in 2009: It is a lot of work, particularly during a very busy and stressful time for most people, but if you keep things simple and aim for 'done' over 'perfect' it really is an amazing project. Even if you can only manage to take a few photos and jot down a story each day to work on after the December rush, I'd encourage it. #DecemberDaily

I bought some Traveler's Notebooks last year and had no idea what to do with them. I think I tried stamping in one and had to tear it out (my stamping looks like a bird walked through the ink pad. A really sick bird). I love seeing people's layered notebook pages with lots of embellishments, photos and papers but I just can't do that so I went back to what I can do - make a clean and simple page in Photoshop Elements. Cooking and eating is my jam (haha) so I decided to use this book as a place for the many food photos that fill up my phone. Minibooks are always perfect for single themed projects. Food photos can be colourful and busy so I chose a mostly black & white colour-scheme for this project. I didn't plan very much, I just played around in photoshop making my first page and was happy to keep that overall style going - a photo, B&W elements, a short story and a title. I already had a few digital food themed kits so I coralled those along with some simple non-food kits that still work. I've also made some of my own simple elements when I couldn't find what I wanted. Some of my supplies: Ali Edwards' 'Eat' Digital Story kit Paislee Press "In The Books Elements" One Little Bird "Hangry" Stamps The book is a mix of favourite recipes, meals we have eaten out and new things I've tried cooking and loved. I'm not including full recipes but noting why we love it and where the recipe came from. I'm not in a hurry to finish this project - I'm about half way. I just make pages here and there when I feel like it. THE PROCESS I started by measuring my notebook page and created a 4x8 canvas in photoshop, which is slightly smaller than the actual page and allows some room to glue the finished page in. Then I just create my page exactly like a mini scrapbook page - a photo, some embellishments, journaling and a title. When I'm finished, I print onto a thin, cheap matte photo paper I bought years ago by mistake and never used. The thinness means it doesn't bulk my book up too much. I can't find the actual paper I used online anymore but it is the same weight as regular paper (not cardstock) and is smooth on the printing side and rougher on the other side. I'm almost out so I'll have to find something similar). I can fit two layouts to one A4 or letter sheet, but mostly I'm impatient so I'm just printing one per sheet. Once I cut the layout out, I just stick it in with my tape runner. I am half way through the book and it's not too bulky and everything seems to be well stuck. This is one of those projects that I pull out now and then and add to and really enjoy playing with. Usually makes me hungry though.... #TravelersNotebooks

Lightroom makes it so easy to see everything and look through photos and supplies. I can drag a photo or digital item straight from Lightroom to the Photoshop Elements dock at the bottom of my screen and it opens right up in Photoshop ready to use. The search function in Lightroom is makes my scrapbooking so easy. Once I am in my Lightroom Scrapbook folder, I can search for anything. I love using circles on my layouts so I hit Command F (for Find), do a search on 'Circles' and all the circles from every kit will show up and I can drag one down to Photoshop. It's brilliant. I also often search on words like weekend, currently or yes to see what supplies I might have with that word, or "journal cards" if I need one of those. This makes it easy for me to mix and match my various kits, while still having each kit in its own folder it I want to stick to one. I don't have to spend a lot of time looking through my kits unless I want to and that's great. So that's a quick look at how I use Lightroom for scrapbooking. Feel free to leave a comment or email me with any questions. Thanks for reading! (See Part Four for a quick video run through) #Lightroom

In this post, I want to share how I organise my digital scrapbooking supplies. BUYING & IMPORTING SCRAPBOOK SUPPLIES On my Mac, when I download a purchased digital scrapbooking kit, it is automatically unzipped and saved in folders in the Downloads folder on my hard drive. Other computers may need the files to be unzipped first. To add a kit to Lightroom, I click on Import in Lightroom, choose my Macintosh HD under Files (if I'm importing photos from my phone, it will show up under Devices) the navigate through to my Downloads folder on the hard drive and select the new digital kit/item. If you don't see the full kit when you click on it (sometimes kits are split by the designer into separate folders like Journal Cards, Stamps, etc) make sure the 'Include Subfolders' box is checked in Lightroom then everything should be visible, ready to click the Import button. Once a kit is imported into Lightroom, I create a new subfolder for that kit in my main Scrapbook folder. This is how my Ali Edwards' Learn story kit looks when I click on that folder: Next post: how Lightroom helps me when making layouts. #Lightroom #DigitalScrapbooking

I've put together a series of posts about using Lightroom for scrapbooking, especially for digital scrapbooking supplies, because it is such an important part for my process and flow and makes everything easier. I'm fairly new to Lightroom - I've had it for about a year. Before that, I used Aperture for my photos, which is a similar Mac program that has been discontinued, and the Apple Photos program for my digital scrapbooking supplies. So while I am no Lightroom expert, I have it working well for what I want. I am using the Classic CC desktop version on an iMac computer - I have a monthly Adobe Creative Cloud subscription which gives me access to both the Lightroom Classic CC and Lightroom CC cloud-based version as well as Photoshop. MY SET UP I am using Lightroom for both my photographs and my digital scrapbooking kits. I have moved a lot of my photos from Aperture into Lightroom, but still have Aperture running and go back there from time to time. I have not bothered moving all of my digital scrapbook supplies from Photos - a lot of my supplies are older and just not what I am using now (I've been digital scrapbooking for eight years). I have moved all of my Ali Edwards' Story Kits over to Lightroom because I use them all the time and anything new I buy is going into Lightroom. In Lightroom, all of your images are stored in folders which are referenced in a catalogue. I am using the one catalogue for everything but I have three main folders (with sub folders within): Photographs Scrapbooking Video IMPORTING IMAGES There are various ways to import your images into Lightroom - this is something I had to spend some time googling for information and everyone has a different way of doing it. I import my photos and digital supplies straight into Lightroom (so I am copying images from my phone or from the downloads folder on my Mac and they are being placed by Lightroom into folders on my hard drive). I then spend some time organising at the hard drive level after import. There are ways to set Lightroom up to import exactly as you like but I am happy to bring my images in then drag them to the correct folder. Still learning. Some people do it the other way around - organising photos on their hard drive then bringing into Lightroom from there. Others bring everything into Lightroom into the one folder but use Collections to do the organising. I would suggest watching some YouTube videos and reading some articles about importing so you do it in a way that works for you. Photos don't actually live in Lightroom - they live on your hard drive and the Lightroom Catalogue stores the location and information for the image. FOLDERS V COLLECTIONS In the left panel of Lightroom, there are various click down menus - Folders and Collections are the main ones. If I click on Folders, I can see my Mac Hard Drive and the way my images are actually stored on my computer. If I delete or move things around here, I am deleting and moving the actual photo. In Collections , everything is virtual, meaning your image isn't actually moving around or being copied to different places, it's just a pointer to the real image on your hard drive. Collections are similar to music playlists. I operate mostly from my Folders, some people leave this area alone and stick to Collections. ORGANISING MY FOLDERS I store all of my imported photos in the Photographs folder, then I have subfolders by year then month. I also have some of my photos stored by theme rather than year like Weddings and Holidays & Trips with lots of subfolders underneath. I see my everyday scrapbooking and my event scrapbooking as very different things, so if I have a lot of photos of an event (wedding, trip) I like to move those photos into their own folder rather than have my regular May photos folder filled with Fiji pics for instance. Personal preference. TAGGING In the past, I have spent a lot of time tagging photos (and digital scrapbook supplies) with key words but I don't want to spend time on that any more. I am happy to go through my photos manually for ideas and pages. I am more likely to scrap the recent photos or take a photo specifically for a layout so having everything organised and tagged isn't really necessary. I also have older children now (9 and 12) so I am not taking as many photos every day like I used to. I still have Aperture running on my computer for now with all of my old smart folders and tags so I can go back there and look through my tags, but I am not adding new photos to that program. Similary, I used to tag all of my digital scrapbooking supplies (I have a huge collection) by Designer, Colour, Item (card, tag, circle, word art) and have some really great smart folders for that kind of thing in the Photos app. That is still running with all of my older supplies and I do go back to it from time to time, but I've decided not to continue that in Lightroom - I'm happy to just use the Search function. I am also buying a lot less supplies so it's easier to keep track of what I have. COLLECTIONS Collections can be set up to be smart (so every image with a tag or from a particular date period automatically appears) or you can create blank collections where you add images in manually. Collections are a good way to collect photos or supplies for a current or future scrapbooking project. For example, when I'm working on my December Daily, I might have two or three different digital collections for the project. I want to keep them in their separate folders for organisation up in my Scrapbook folder, but to actually work on my project, it's easier for me to have everything available in one folder. I can create a Collection called December Daily Supplies 2018 and drag everything I want there. Again, some people do zero organising at the folder/hard drive level and only use Collections. DIGITAL SCRAPBOOK SUPPLIES My scrapbook supplies all go into the Scrapbook folder and I have folders set up underneath. For example, I have a folder in Scrapbook called AE Story Kits and that is where all of my Ali Edwards digital Story Kits are stored - a separate folder for each kit. Next post I'll look at importing and organising scrapbook supplies. PART TWO IS HERE PART THREE IS HERE PART FOUR (VIDEO TUTORIAL) IS HERE #Lightroom #DigitalScrapbooking

It was a wet and cold Spring weekend in Sydney so I had the opportunity to work on some of my neglected projects. One of those is my version of Project Life (which I've written about here). This year, I am making a 6x9 photobook (planning to print with Blurb at the end of the year) that is very photo-heavy with a weekly recap every few pages. I'm dividing the book by season, using seasonal digital elements by Paislee Press. I thought it would be a good time to talk a bit about setting yourself up for success when it comes to a project like this. This is my ninth year-long scrapbooking project, beginning in 2010 with a physical Project Life kit by Becky Higgins, so I've learned a lot about keeping up, letting go and making things easy on myself. A year is a long time to work on something if it is becoming a chore or too time-consuming. While I can absolutely attest that these projects are worth the trouble once completed, I also want to enjoy working on it over the year. The last few years, I have moved away from page protectors and albums for Project Life towards photobooks, just for ease and less shelf space. So I knew I wanted to make a book this year and chose a smaller 6x9 Trade Book from Blurb (which is a bit cheaper and lower quality than a regular photobook, but I printed one last year and was happy with it). Once I choose a size, I like to make a design plan. Something simple and very minimal. I am not even using any embellishments this year - just words + photos. Having to create a different design each time doesn't work for me for a long project, there are enough decisions in choosing photos. I make a plan for about six or seven different page designs and just repeat them over and over. For some that might not seem very creative, but for me it's the only way I can keep going. I can let my creativity out in my everyday scrapbooking which I do alongside this project. You'll notice lots of white space in my pages - this is because I like it and also because it means I won't have problems with things getting cut off in the printing process which is an issue when making photo books. The next step is to create digital templates in Photoshop Elements (I'm planning a series of posts for digital scrapbooking beginners and will share how to do this). It isn't until I put the first week or two of layouts together in Photoshop Elements that I know if my plan is going to work out long-term (I know myself well by now). You really need to see if your templates work with actual photos from your life. The hardest about this years' project is the weekly recap. It's the one thing I debated about keeping - am I really going to be able to write a paragraph about our week every year? Honestly? But it is also really important to me to keep some notes to look back on so I made it work. I have made it a habit to write a quick recap of our previous week on Monday mornings when I get to work early so that really helps if I fall behind. And I have fallen behind. A few times actually. But because I've kept my foundation simple, it's always been easy to catch back up. A few times I have spent a Saturday afternoon listening to music and getting my weeks done. I go through that week's photo's in Lightroom and choose enough to make 4-6 pages using my templates followed by the recap page (which I take from the journal I keep on my computer using Simple Note. Just looking through my photos and planner for that week would also help with that). It's not really hard and I can get a few months done in about two hours. I don't follow an exact recipe of pages - I usually start with a full page photo then do a few collage pages and a few single photo pages and that's it for the week. It all depends of the photos I have. Now and then I print some of my pages off just to see how they will look - it's hard to not lose steam with a digital project because you have nothing to show for your years' work until you get the book printed. I think I have honed my process to a point where I am happy with the final result as well as with the work required to make it and I guess that is the secret to getting one of these year-long projects done. I'm in the home stretch now and can't wait to get this book printed. #ProjectLife

As I was working on this, a thought came to me: did I (subconsciously) spend hundreds of dollars this weekend on new bikes just so I could make this layout and use that cute wooden bike embellishment?* I guess we'll never know... This was a simple digital 6x8 page with an embellishment stuck on at the end after printing. I started with the bike photograph, fitting it in at the bottom. I planned to put the wooden bike embellishment in the centre but as I looked for a few digital elements to add, I found this semi-circle word 'Adventure Memories' from Ali Edwards' Adventure digital Story Kit and thought I could enlarge it to fit the bike inside. This worked a lot better and gave me more space for the journaling. I also put the digital 'Go' stamp from the same kit over the photo, changed it to white and lowered the opacity. To work out spacing for a non-digital element that I want to add to my layout after printing, I usually measure it with my ruler then draw a box on my layout that size and work around it. When I print, I just turn that layer off so the shape doesn't print out. Being lazy today, I tried sizing the layout on my computer screen to exactly 6x8 by holding up a 6x8 piece of cardstock, then I just held the actual bike embellishment up and sized around it. Worked out fine and another page in the book. (*Bike element is from a set of wooden icons from Kmart Australia).

When I feel like I've lost my scrapbooking mojo (or even just because it's fun), I always go back to my tried and true layout style: little photo//little story//little title It never fails me and I've been making scrapbook pages in this style for years. Makes me happy every time. Not every page has to have multiple embellishments, not every page has to be a creative masterpiece, not every page has to even have much thought put into it. A photo and a story on a piece of paper - that's scrapbooking at it's most basic.

I've had fun working on my little 4x6 Commonplace Book this year, but I've struggled a bit with the disposable nature of such books and not being able to easily flip through with the binder rings. It was also at capacity and I wasn't sure if I should just finish, add bigger rings or start book two. As a reminder, this book is just a hodge-podge collection of my lists, TV shows, song lyrics, recipes, movies, photos, quotes, random ridiculous thoughts and silly stories that don't really fit the aesthetic of my family photobook project for 2018 (which is a more traditional 'Project Life' style of chronological photos and a weekly journaled recap). After looking through last year's Blurb book one quiet Winter weekend recently, I decided to just bunker down and recreate the whole thing in photoshop for another Blurb book. Some pages I had saved digitally and others I had to make from scratch but the whole project is simplistic and minimal so it didn't take that long. Now I have a bunch of pages ready for a future 5x8 Blurb Trade book and an easy format for adding more pages as I go. (These are some test pages). So happy with this decision. I really loved that little 4x6 book and being able to use my old paper stash, letter stickers and ephemera from my day but I just know the book will last longer and be a better way to look through all of those memories down the track.

We are travelling during the time allotted for Ali Edwards' Week In The Life so I wasn't going to participate. Then at the last minute, I ordered the cute 3x8 album from Ali's site and decided to jump in a few days early (I know I wouldn't do it if I waited until we got back). My week will go from Wednesday 2 May to Tuesday 8 May which is fine by me, if a little unconventional. I'm keeping my process for this project simple - taking photos throughout the day and keeping a log of daily activities on Simple Note on my Mac. I've just started working from home as our company looks for new office space in the city, so I thought that would be a good/different time to document. I am using Ali's 3x8 templates and keeping it mainly words + photos. I might get some of the other digital kits and embellish later but I've been big on purchasing ALL. THE. KITS. in the past and then just sticking with the basics in the end and not using much else. I sat down Wednesday morning and made a quick plan. I don't even have my album or page protectors yet but I'm doing the project digitally so I can have everything ready and printed by the time it all arrives. I am the kind of person that works on projects like this daily in terms of actually putting the album together and making pages. I am a fast scrapper - I make choices quickly and digital layouts don't take long to put together. Seeing the project take shape day by day inspires me to continue and helps me learn what kinds of photos and how many I need to aim for each day. THE PLAN Three page protectors each day, using each of the three designs - so six 3x8 pages per day. 1. Daily opener - full page photo with the date 2. Filling out the morning, afternoon and evening card as a run-down of my day. 3. Writing one main story for the day with a photo - day one is about working from home. 4. A page of four random photos from the day 5. Using some of the template title prompts to write about a topic - eg Embracing or Loving. 6. A final large photo and short story to go with it (or not) I have extra page protectors if a day becomes really interesting or photo heavy (Saturday we are going to a BBQ festival and concert with a bunch of friends so I may make more pages for that day). Here are my pages from day one - Wednesday. Looking forward to having this little album to look back on a few years from now.