I know I’m in good company at The Lilypad as a digital scrapbooker who’s “doing Project Life”! If you love all the gorgeous digital products our designers keep producing, but also like having a physical album in your hands (in other words, you’ve joined the hybrid camp!), then this post is for you. Don’t think of “hybrid” as something scary – it can be as easy as printing and cutting word strips, or adding a cute heart element to your photo before printing. These are just a few ideas of things I have done.
Certainly there are many beautiful journaling cards available in the shop that you could just print and insert in your album (in fact, we have a whole section dedicated to them here!), and I have done that, but I also enjoy dressing things up a bit when I have a little extra time. I’m going to show you a few quick-and-easy ways I use digital designs in my Project Life album, from adding bits to my photos to printing elements to create custom journal cards.
On this card, I printed out a few word strips from Michelle’s {Fierce} elements and arranged them on the bottom of a Becky Higgins 3×4 grid card. I plan to add a little self-portrait shot on the top half.
For this one I used a template from Designs by Lili’s 4×6 Photo Collages no. 4, and a few bits from Lauren Grier’s All 52, Mark It Up by Peeps & Milo, and Armchair Critic by The Edits. I printed on regular photo paper (note: the printer cut off a bit around the edges, and I’ve since learned to size my whole canvas down a bit at the end to avoid this problem!). The journaling is with my own custom handwriting font – you can get your own from Heather Joyce here, and I highly recommend it!
The next two cards, I used Lili’s new 3×4 Photo Templates and elements from the February BYOC. I left the background plain white on the first one, and added elements from CD Muckosky’s Winter With You. On the second, I clipped a paper from Lauren Grier’s Rainbow Joy pack and added a simple word art.
This 4×6 photo is decorated with more cute elements from the February BYOC, this time from Micheline Martin’s Artsy Bits Vday pack.
The next two cards are a little more “complicated” and involved a little extra decoration after they spit out of my printer. But honestly, not much. I like to keep things simple while I’m having fun!
For the first one, I started with another Lili 3×4 photo template and clipped a piece of music from Krista’s XOXO Ephemera to the background. Those adorable “potty people” are from CD’s Winter With You kit, too. The words “Date Night” were typed using one of Heather’s new fonts from The Roots set. I then printed and attached it to a 4×6 card for stability, and decorated the other half with my paper stash, creating a pocket for some hidden journaling.
I really loved this 3×4 card in The Lilypad collab Made For Each Other (find out how you can get that for free here!!!). I put together a quick little mini-book following Cristina’s tutorial at Persnickety Prints, and decided to include this card and the next one in my mini-album instead of sticking it in my Project Life album.
After printing, I adhered a roughly 2″x2″ Instagram photo in the corner, added a tiny hand stamp, and a bit of washi on the bottom. Super cute!
This is another card I made for my 3×4 mini-album using the Made For Each Other collab. That Instagram-lookalike camera is adorable, right?! The card base is one of the Project Life Seafoam edition journal cards. Before printing my photo, I clipped the heart overlay and “Sweet” word art to it, then layered the camera element over the photo. For a little extra “oomph,” I outlined the heart in glitter glue!
I hope this quick run-through has given you a few ideas of ways to use your beloved digital elements in your Project Life or other types of albums. If you have any questions, feel free to comment here, PM me, or ask away in the forums!
Cheryl says
What sweet pictures and a great use of so many different things! Thanks for the inspiration. You make it look so easy.
Lili says
I love your ideas and photos!! Great post!