A month in photos: December and 2014 year in review

Happy New Year everyone!  *Crickets*  Yeah, I know I don't have many readers LOL.  Let's face it I am a very infrequent blogger.  I typically think I would like to change that and blog more, but it is what it is.  Ya know?!

Anyway, here are my layouts for December and also my year in review collage.  I look forward to starting my month in photo collages soon for 2015 and I will be sure to post my progress here.  Thanks for reading!

A month in photos: Catching up on 2014!

This year has been a busy one.  I haven't devoted as much time to photography and scrapbooking as I usually do, but I still took the time to take some photos each month and kept up with my monthly photo collages.

My monthly collages for  2015 will all be done using the project life app which I am really excited about.  I bought the app a couple months ago and have played around a little with it.  I think it will handle my scrapbook needs perfectly and without having to turn on my computer.  I still plan on uploading my photos to the computer for now, but at least putting together pages will be simpler and quicker than Photoshop Elements 10.

Enough chit chat!  Here are my monthly collages for March through November.  These were all done in Photoshop Elements 10.  Font is Ali Edward's handwriting font.

Thanks for reading!

A month in photos: January and February 2014

These past two months flew by!  We've had lots of fun.  It took me a while to figure out how I wanted to handle my monthly collages this year.  I thought about trying to do two pages instead of just one page for each month, but ultimately I decided the one page has been working for me.  No need to make it complicated.  I like the simplicity of picking the best photos that highlight our month.

One of the reasons that I had thought about doing more pages is because I take a lot of photos.  Especially a lot of nature or artsy photos.  So, I am still thinking of how to handle that.  I will either make a book just for those photos or instead of just having a quote page after each quarter in my photo books come up with a collage of those photos with the quote.  Or both!

Thanks for reading.

A month in photos: November, December, and a year in review collage

Yes, I am not good at keeping up with my blog.  I know.  Bad blogger!  I thought I was only behind on December's post but then realized I didn't post November's either.  Oh well, it is here now and also made a quick year in review collage to put in the back of my photo book.  Hoping to work on that today!  I do hope to blog more than once a month (or two!) and might just start blogging about whatever plus my photo stuff.  We'll see.

A little note on how I did the year in review collage.  I didn't make a template for it, but I used the month flags from my free template that I shared here and lined them up across the top of a 12x12 page.  I reduced them in size by 90% to give them some space in between.  The rest is just dragging and dropping the monthly collages onto the page and reducing their size to 25%.  Then once they are all arranged I reduced each one to 99% individually to create the white line between them.  If you select all of them before reducing they will not be spaced evenly.

Thanks for reading and Happy New Year!

Catching up on a month in photos post

I have been working on my a month in photos project every month, but sort of took a time out from blogging.  It's been on my mind to pick this back up!  So here is a quick post to catch things up.  Stay tuned there is more to come!  I have more projects that I want to share.  If you've used my free template this year, I'd love to see so link in the comments.  Enjoy.

 

A month in photos: 2012 photo book

I wanted to share a little bit of my photo book on the blog to show you a quick and easy idea for printing these collages.  Shutterfly has a coupon every once in a while for a free 8x8 photo book, but I usually don't have anything ready.  This time I quickly added my 2012 collages from the month in photos project and added some quotes to fill in the blank pages.  I kept it simple with an all white layout and the cover has just a simple title and the year.

I got this back in January and we keep it on a table in the living room.  It is picked up and looked at often.  This makes me feel so good to see my photos being looked at and not just stored away on the computer.  I've made a photo book for 2011 using Rebecca's 2013 template and plan to order it soon.

Thanks for reading!

A month in photos: February 2013

February's collage is done!  Finally!  I some how kept forgetting to put together February's collage.  My intentions for this blog were to start posting more often.  I'll blame it on winter.  BLAH!  I used a template I created for 2013's a month in photos project.  This month I rotated and flipped the template and used a different title block shape since it worked better with my photos this time  You can download the free template here.  Enjoy!

A month in photos: January 2013

I really enjoyed using my template to start off this year's month in photo collages.  If you want it, the link to download it is available on this post.  Hoping to have something new to share soon so please follow my blog to stay up to date.  Thanks for reading!

 

A month in photos: 2013 template

Finally finished my template for my 2013 A month in photos project and sharing as a free download here on my blog!  I used Rebecca Cooper's new template to scrap 2011 so I wanted to make up something different for 2013.  This template is nothing fancy, but I did give a few options on the title block shape.  Most of the photo blocks are tall, but you can rotate the template 90 degrees for wider photo openings.  Enjoy!

I meant to get this out the last week of the month, but time got away from me!  It has been a long time since I designed something and shared online.  If you have difficulty with this file please leave me a comment.  I hope to have a new layout to share for January 2013 soon.

Download file

A month in photos: 2012 year in review

There is something about a project that requires your participation through the whole year that is so rewarding when you finish.  I haven't printed these yet.  Trying to decide between printing them at home and adding them to an album or having them printed in a book by shutterfly or blurb.  I still need to do a few things either way like add a details page for each month to note some of the juicy details and maybe a "best of" page for the end.  Here is the cover page!  So thankful for Rebecca from simple as that for sharing her collages and providing the inspiration for this project!

A month in photos: December 2012

December was busy, but I can honestly say I enjoyed this past holiday season more this year than I have in a long time.  Before the insanity set in, I stumbled on this blog post called dear mom during the holidays.  I wasn't searching for it, but it found me on pinterest.  ;-)  If you find yourself enjoying the holidays less, read it.

Anywho, sorry I got off topic!  December was great and went by super fast.  I am still working on my 2012 year in review and holiday photo scavenger hunt, but hope to have it done soon to share.  I am still debating on what my photography goals for this year will be.  I've been thinking about a few different ideas and just have to narrow it down and decide how to document 2013.  Enjoy and happy new year!

01/02/2013  Pssst... I finished up my year in review collage and posted about it here!

A month in photos: Intro/November 2012

I take a lot of photos a ton of photos.  In the past, I created scrapbooking pages to display and document my favorites.  A few years ago, I made the choice to stop designing digital scrapbooking products and I am sad to say I quit scrapbooking too.  Not because I was tired of it, but because of the lack of time to dedicate to it.

I've been a fan of Rebecca Cooper's Simple as that blog for some time and for years had been drooling over her monthly collages.  This year I decided to do it.  Her templates are simple and easy to use.  Check them out here.  You could certainly make one yourself, but she's done the work for you.  Hardest part is picking your favorite photos!

So, here is November's collage!  I hope to put together a year in review post to share the rest of the months after the first of the year.  I have kept up with this project all year and I can't wait to share it with you.