12 Months of Parker Project Life Layout

Becky Higgins' Project Life App for Android was finally released at the end of February, and since I'd heard so much hype (albeit from the company itself), I had to give it a try.

For this layout, I used the 12 monthly photos I took of Parker, with a Midnight edition card in the middle.

I went back and edited some of these monthly photos after I put together the layout in the app because after I saw all the photos together on a single layout, I could tell that they weren't all edited for consistency of brightness and lighting because I didn't edit them all together and I didn't necessarily take the photos at roughly the same time of day every time either. I finally got all the monthly photos edited to a place where I felt like they were sufficiently consistent month-to-month and called it good.

I love being able to see the progression of newborn to one-year-old on this layout, and wish I'd taken Evie's monthly photos all like this too. I plan to have this layout printed (maybe even extra copies for grandparents) so that I can include it in a physical album.



Some quick observations on the app:

• I found the app fairly intuitive to use, and I didn't personally run into anything buggy when I used it, though there were some that did.
• There are some features for the iOS version of the app that don't exist yet for the Android version - sending the layout to print from within the app, for instance.
• One feature that I thought could be nice, but isn't available, is being able to change the spacing width between photo slots.
• I think I've read others asking for the ability to edit photos within the app. I'm not sure that I would personally use that functionality much if it were there - I find it hard to edit photos on my phone.

Today Was a Good Day Layout

This time last year, I took this picture of Greg and Evie feeding ducks at Kiwanis Park. We were at an engagement picnic for my friend, Lee Anne, and her then-fiance (now, husband). Parker was still so little, six or seven weeks, and so was still in the sleep-most-of-the-day phase, which meant that he slept most of the time that we were at the park.

Especially when Parker was just born, Evie spent more quality time with daddy, so I wanted to scrapbook this picture showing that. One of the things I thought was amusing about this moment is that Greg sat down to feed the ducks, and Evie followed suit, but instead of just sitting on the ground like Greg did, her default was to plop herself down in daddy's lap, because why not?

SUPPLIES:

Paper: American Crafts (patterned paper), Bazzill (cardstock)
Embellishments: Pinkfresh Studio (wood veneer "today", acetate circle heart, puffy stickers, enamel stickers), Freckled Fawn (cardstock circle and arrow stickers), Evalicious (puffy stickers), Heidi Swapp (acetate heart shape)
Stamps: Pinkfresh Studio (rectangle letters, and matching die)
Tools: Tiny Attacher; white embossing powder from JoAnn
Ink: VersaMark

Parker's Twelve Month Photo

Final monthly pictures! I'm sort of relieved that I'm not doing any more, because they get harder to do each month as he gets more active, but I'm glad I did it for the first year because it's fun seeing the growth month-to-month.

Parker's Eleven Month Photo

Took these 11-month photos fairly timely, but didn't edit them until recently.

Metallic Twine Dream Catcher

For my Whisker Graphics project this month, I decided to try my hand at making a dream catcher using an embroidery hoop and gold metallic Divine Twine.

The great thing about the Internet these days is that you can find how to do just about anything. In this case, I found this pin showing how to make a dream catcher, and it was super easy to execute!








In addition to the twine and embroidery hoop, I also used some wooden beads, feathers, and bead cones. Before this, I hadn't realized bead cones were a thing, but they were pretty much what I was looking for when I went to the craft store, mulling over how to attach feathers to the dream catcher.

For the feather embellishments, I strung twine through the hole of the bead cone and knotted the end. Then I filled the inside of the bead cone with some hot glue and quickly stuck feathers in. Have the feathers ready to go though - the heat from the glue travels right through the metal and it's hot on the fingers!