The Savor Project – Week 8

And here’s the spread for week eight.

here’s a closer up of the left side:

The first story here is David and Nathaniel building the city they created on the living room floor. The next one is about my hair. I just got it straightened again and I love it. And the last one is the boys being cute together (I know I have one of these each week but I can’t help myself.) and then there’s one about

And here’s the right side:

All of the right side is from Tiburon. The first story is about the running/racing the boys did as we walked around and they giggled. The second one is just a general story about Tiburon and the candy store and toy store and coloring on the bed and just having a wonderful time.

As usual, the bottom has my art and our weekly family photo and I added one of the three boys.

So there we go. So far, so good. Loving getting to savor these memories again and again.

Happy Savoring.

The Savor Project was supposed to be a weekly project for 2012. You can read about my setup here.

March 7, 2012 | The Savor Project | One comment

The Savor Project – Week 7

And here’s the spreads for week seven.

Jake and David got an old paper from Alcatraz when they went so I added an 8.5×11 so I could slip it in. That’s what you see on the right:

and then I also added Jake’s Valentine’s Day card in there too:

and here’s the right side of the spread:

here’s a closer up of the left side:

The first story here is Jake and David’s trip to Alcatraz. Then one about my book club and then one about the kids hugging.

And here’s the right side:

My valentine’s flowers and Nathaniel’s fascination with them. Then David and Jake’s trip to see Phantom Menace in 3D and finally making Valentines with Nathaniel.

As usual, the bottom has my art and our weekly family photo and tickle time photo along the bottom.

So there we go. So far, so good. Loving getting to savor these memories again and again.

Happy Savoring.

The Savor Project was supposed to be a weekly project for 2012. You can read about my setup here.

February 29, 2012 | The Savor Project | One comment

The Savor Project – Week 6

And here’s the spread for week six. Still working on being simple and letting some stories spill over if needed:

so here’s the left side:

The first story here is how Nathaniel likes to have me fake-shoot him and then fake-die. He loves to act. The second one is the first set for David’s birthday. From the morning of his birthday.

And here’s the right side:

Continuing on David’s birthday but this time from school. And the last story is about how much joy it brings me to watch them hug.

As usual, the bottom has my art and our weekly family photo along the bottom. I put a photo of David’s cupcake with candles on and off to commemorate his birthday.

So there we go. That’s week six. So far, so good. Loving getting to savor these memories again and again.

Happy Savoring.

The Savor Project was supposed to be a weekly project for 2012. You can read about my setup here.

February 22, 2012 | The Savor Project | One comment

The Savor Project – Week 5

And here’s the spread for week five. Tried to keep it simple this week, too:

so here’s the left side:

three stories on this page. The first is David and I finally finishing our first book of 2012. The Mysterious Benedict Society. Nathaniel and David’s new passports in preparation for our trip in the summer, and my new personal trainer journey.

And here’s the right side:

I rarely talk about work here but the first week of February was branch day and I am responsible for this new branch so I thought it would be great to look back and remember. I printed out the email I sent to the team and tugged it into a little pocket I sewed up. And the last story is Nathaniel and the batman computer and how he cheers every time he gets the answer right.

As usual, the bottom has my art and our weekly family photo along the bottom. I put an extra one from tickle time this time.

So there we go. That’s week five. So far, so good. Loving getting to savor these memories again and again.

Happy Savoring.

The Savor Project was supposed to be a weekly project for 2012. You can read about my setup here.

February 15, 2012 | The Savor Project | One comment

The Savor Project – Week 4

And here’s the spread for week four. Tried to keep it simple this week:

so here’s the left side:

two stories on this page. The first is nathaniel sharing his drawing with me and asking me to take a picture of it. The second one is how the kids are sitting head to head and looking at the catalog together. I love it so much.

And here’s the right side:

Three stories here. The first is of David reading to his teddy bear. Then Nathaniel playing peek-a-boo with my parents over Skype. And then the last story is CHA. I worked in the Maya Road booth so I put my badge, my booth sticker and the little make-and-take we made all into the flap with some of my thoughts from the weekend.

As usual, the bottom has my art and our weekly family photo along the bottom.

So there we go. That’s week four. So far, so good. Loving getting to savor these memories again and again.

Happy Savoring.

The Savor Project was supposed to be a weekly project for 2012. You can read about my setup here.

February 8, 2012 | The Savor Project | One comment

The Savor Project – Week 3

And here’s the spread for week three. I had too many stories this week so I added an extra page and then cut off half of it. This gave me a place to put two more stories and I also restricted some stories to one 4×6 pocket while spreading others over two like usual:

and here it is with the middle flap on the other side.

here’s the little extra page I added:

so here’s the left side:

two stories on this page. The first is nathaniel working on his letters book and then the next is about how the kids are having fun together doing science projects.

then the right side of the middle addition:

this has a little story about Nathaniel and daddy and then one on my new bracelets. I made it so the flap of the card that came with the bracelets sticks out:

back of the flap:

two stories here, too. One on David working on his Book of Good Memories and one on Nathaniel learning to read letters.

And finally, here’s the right side:

Three stories here. One on my book club night and what book we discussed (The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet) and then one on the Michael Jackson Cirque de Soleil I went to (those tickets stick out of the patch too.) And then one on David’s play date with his best friend. (Blurred his friend for the post just in case.)

As usual, the bottom has my art and our weekly family photo along the bottom. Even if the art is sideways, it doesn’t bother me. I like having a record of it.

So there we go. That’s week three. So far, so good. Loving getting to savor these memories again and again.

Happy Savoring.

The Savor Project was supposed to be a weekly project for 2012. You can read about my setup here.

February 1, 2012 | Family, The Savor Project | 3 comments

The Savor Project – Week 2

And here’s the spread for week two:

These full spread photos are hard for me to take because my lens is not wide-angle enough but I am trying my very best.

Let’s get into a bit more detail. Here’s the left side:

The left side is about how Nathaniel’s always happy and finds a way to occupy himself when I have to work and David’s at school. The other story is about how much I love watching the kids play together. I can see telling this story again and again and again. I will never get enough of it.

Here’s the right side:

The first story is about how David and some of my current thoughts of the boy he’s growing up to be and how much I love him. The second on is our family photo for the week and how much I adore these photo sessions. This, too, I can totally see telling again and again.

As usual, the bottom has my art along the bottom. Even if the art is sideways, it doesn’t bother me. I like having a record of it.

So there we go. That’s week two.

Happy Savoring.

The Savor Project was supposed to be a weekly project for 2012. You can read about my setup here.

January 25, 2012 | Family, Scrapbooking, The Savor Project | 9 comments

The Savor Project – Week 1

Ok here we go. Try two. This the real week one of the project since it’s based on the first week of the new year. Life I did with the November Book I picked some photos from the week that had stories I wanted to tell. I printed them on my little polaroid printer (see link all the way in the bottom for details on my printer.) and then I made my four pages.

Let me show you the spread and then I’ll explain the setup:

This old PL album I have is setup so it has 4 4×6 pockets on each side and 4 3×4 pockets along the bottom on each side. I set things up so that I created my “page” on a 6×8 setup and cut it in the middle to create two 4×6’s and put them in the album as if they are 2ups. So there are two stories on each side of the binder. So the full spread has the four stories I hope to capture each week.

And along the bottom I print 3×4 photos of my art from that week. The sketches, art journal pages, collage pages, etc.

Let’s get into a bit more detail. Here’s the left side:

The first story all the way on the left is about how creative David is with his legos and how he takes ideas from other places and incorporates them into his creations. The one next to it is from our little venture out on New Year’s Day where we went to watch the ducks and birds and planes. Along the bottom you see some of my sketches and an art journal page. I know the art journal page is actually vertical and so, put sideways but I am ok with that.

Here’s the right side:

The first story is about how Nathaniel, David and I spent time playing with markers and stamps and how much fun it was to create alongside them. The second one is about Nathaniel and how mischievous he is when he knows I am trying to take his photo and how much he exudes joy no matter what.

And along the bottom are more art journaling pages and sketches from that week.

So there we go. I love the fact that this book will end up holding not just all of our wonderful stories from the year but also a collection of the art I create throughout the year.

Since this project is story-based and not time specific, there might be some weeks where I have more than 4 stories and other weeks where I have less. I am totally ok with that. I plan to flow with it. Some stories might spill to the following week and some spreads might wait until I have more stories. I am not too worried either since there are so many stories to tell all the time.

For me, the biggest loss in using this format is the flipping and extra layers I was able to add to the book. So I might experiment with that throughout the year. I might have some stories that take up the whole 4 4x6s and some that are just single (instead of the 2-up) but overall I think the 2up is the most consistent setup I will use since it seems to be the most flexible one for me. Let’s see how it works out.

On the upside, not only will this binder accomodate the full year of stories and allow me to also put my art in there but it also means everything is in a page protector so the kids can look through it without worrying about anything falling apart. Which is a big bonus.

There we go. I hope you like my new setup as much as I do and I hope hope hope it continues to work for me.

Happy Savoring.

The Savor Project was supposed to be a weekly project for 2012. You can read about my setup here.

January 18, 2012 | Scrapbooking, The Savor Project | 15 comments

2012 Projects – The Savor Project – The Revised Plan

As promised, here I am to tell you my new setup for The Savor Project. The first thing I want to do is repost the paragraph that talks about the thinking behind this project:

The idea is to create something that’s sort of an amalgamation of Project Life and December Daily. I did Project Life a few years ago and really struggled to keep up with it. Because I already process and post photos here weekly, it felt uneventful and like a chore to have to print them all out and do it again each week for my book. However, I liked the idea of keeping the odds and ends of ephemera that come into our life. I wanted something more creative and the setup I use for December Daily seemed ideal to me. My plan is to create a minimum of four pages a week with photos, stories, ephemera from that week. If I do more, great. But there’s no pressure. For now I am using my Polaroid Printer for all the photos. It’s crappy but quick and convenient. And quality is not my number one concern for this book.

The reason this is called The Savor Project is because I choose to write longer stories about little moments in my day where I am filled with gratitude. I think savoring life is all about paying attention to those moments more and more. The greatest thing about this project is that I appreciate my daily life, my simple moments, the “ordinariness” of my life that much more. I cherish these moments more. I am more thankful and aware of everything I have. I get to appreciate my kids, our life, right now. It’s like getting to look back up on the “good old days” while they are still happening. It increases awareness, gratitude, and joy.

Since I process my photos daily, I get to savor the moments as they happen, once again as I process the photos and then a third time when I am putting them in my book. That’s a lot of gratitude!

All of the above is still true. However, the more I thought about how to scale this project to create one book to hold my year and the more I saw all the Project Life posts around the net, I thought maybe I could combine my two ideas and find a way to make it work. I struggled over this decision (obsessed even) for a few days. And then finally I decided to try it to see if it would work. (and it did! more on that next week.)

Four years ago, when Project Life was originally introduced as a Kit-of-the-Month club from Lisa Bearnson (it was called Project 365 then and was originated and designed by Becky Higgins, just sold through the KotM), I had bought two of them. I have no idea why I did that since I don’t tend to buy in multiples usually. Anyhow. I use the one back in 2009 and, as I explained above, I wasn’t super happy with the process. I then put the other one in a closet and there it stayed.

Until this week.

I told myself that if i was going to try this out, I wouldn’t buy anything new. I was using the kit I had even if it wasn’t as pretty or “nice” or flexible as some of the newer options. Often times we get carried away in all the possibilities and end up spending more time setting things up “just right” than just doing it. So I dug out my kit, put aside all the stuff that came with it, except for the page protectors. And came up with a system that would make my Savor Project work within the confines of the Project Life system.

And I love it. There are limits that the notebook didn’t have but in general, this system will scale and still allows me to create the concept I wanted. And if it doesn’t continue to work, I reserve the right to change things up yet again! (But I really do hope this will stick.)

So I will start sharing my pages next week but I wanted to show you what I did to my cover and intro page. The original project 365 came with a binder but it has some print on the cover that I didn’t like, so I covered mine with textured fabric paper, velvet, and some sequins. Here’s how it looks:

I covered the back with similar fabric, too, but it’s just plain. And then for the first page, I took all the photos we took as a family last year and made a big collage. That’s 64 photos. And then on the bottom, I added the word Savor since it’s the Savor project and the year. Here it is:

And there we go. So now this is truly an amalgamation of Project Life and December Daily because I will be telling longer stories of small moments throughout the year using the Project Life setup. More specifics next week.

I am more comfortable with this setup as I can see it scaling and working for the whole year. Let’s hope it does!!

January 11, 2012 | The Savor Project, Yearly Projects | 31 comments

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