OCTOBER 2016 Project Pages

Here is mine! I just subscribed to the MPM collection, so still getting to know it a little and seeing if it fits my style...

 

I have some completed pages for October:

 

As usual, I'm kind of all over the place - a little bit of 3rd quarter 2016, a little 4th quarter 2015, and now I've decided to go ahead and get started on Q4 2016 as well! Lots of projects in progress... just imagine one day when I actually FINISH one of them!

I decided to change it up a bit for the last 3 months of 2016 to see how I like it. Decided to use pockets and some sort of wood grain / neutral-ish paper in the background... We'll see how it goes.

 

Another using the pockets - I think it's kind of growing on me. ??

 

I love the MPM! I look forward to it every month - I hope you grow to love it too! I don't know what your style is, but I would definitely say I love these pages you've made so far w/ MPM!

 

@RebeccaH I'm loving the new look!!! So many ideas swirling around in my head now about what I want to do next year!

 

Thanks Tracie @tkradtke! I think I'm liking it too... It has been years that I've had basically the same look to my PL. Also, sometimes I feel like I lose track of the point of the albums. We recently took some time and sat down and just looked through old photos - like 2006ish - and I kept thinking, "there are so many stories to tell." I feel like while my recent PL style has gotten lots of pics in the books and has had a fair amount of journaling, sometimes the individual stories get overlooked... it's a shame. So... my revamped approach: tell the stories and keep my pages super simple. I love all the products and goodies that can be used on pages, but sometimes I really just feel like the photos get lost in the mix. I want to change that. So simple it is. And it's been kind of fun (in the whole 2 pages I've done so far like this) to pick a preset pocket layout and just make it work.

I'm excited that you have ideas swirling!! I can't wait to see what those ideas yield! Your stuff is always so super inspiring to me!

 

@RebeccaH I've tried out several looks over the years, but nothing very thought out or dramatic. I'm too trying to figure out the point of my albums. My first year was my truest to the original PL concept album. Pretty much one spread per week with the same template for every page. It was a good place to start. The next two years I operated on the philosophy to do as many pages as it takes to get a week done. After last year, I felt that was getting out of hand, so this year I went back to one spread per week with extra pages scrapped however I wanted for events.

Here's what I've found.... I have scrapped way fewer pages this year than I have in the past two years. Still more than the first year, but significantly less than '14 and '15. I find myself not going back and doing pages for some events... deciding to skip the extra photos just to get the book done. I'm missing out on those stories. When I made them part of my weekly spreads, I powered through and got them done at that time in order to keep the momentum going. Separating them out completely, I've found it way easy just to skip them.

I love the template maker by Mommyish, and thought I would use nothing else, but lately I've been considering going back to a single template or a small template set. My pages have gotten very busy with being able to put as many photos as I could possibly want on a page. I've been itching to go back to larger photos and more journaling. I may stick some regular scrapped pages into my weeks, but I want to change my mindset. They're not extra pages (meaning optional), but an actual part of that week's spreads.

I love your pages and I love having people to bounce ideas off of here at TLP! And thanks for the kind words about my pages!

 

@tkradtke I feel drawn back to the larger photos as well. I think that was a big aspect of what prompted my change-up. Also, I noticed that when people looked through the books after they were made, they often skim the photos and really don't read the journaling...therefore, the photos need to do the most storytelling. The journaling ads details or perspective, for sure, but the pictures are what draw people to look in the first place. If there is too much going on, or the page is too busy, it seems like the value of it all gets lost.

 

Seriously, if I could be this productive in my PL all the time, I would never have issues with being behind!

 

@RebeccaH I'm looking at your pages and have a question... are you doing a one page week summary page, with everything else pocket scrapped to go with that week? I'm really liking that idea. I still need a summary page or spread since I do have random photos from the week. But with a one page summary, I wouldn't have to worry about having an even number of extra pages.

 

Yes, that exactly! I figured a brief summary (hopefully kept to 1 page each week), then whatever I need to tell each story for the week. The best part about it is just what you said...it doesn't require figuring out even page #s and what will go with what. If my week summary lands on the left side, fine... if it lands on the right, that's fine too. I just will plan on using the week number identifier to note the change to a new week.

 

I love this idea so much!!! I'm going to take a harder look at my pages to see if I can make this work for next year. For some reason, I've been craving a good old fashioned photo album kind of look. I was even (slightly) considering giving up PL next year and just pocket scrapping everything chronologically much like you would have done with printed pictures years ago. But with this, I wouldn't have to give up PL, just pare it down a bit. Wheels are definitely turning now!

 

@tkradtke That idea - just scrapping chronologically in photo albums - was the foundation for this switch up for me as well! I just want to look through albums, see photos that are good sized and not cluttered up with other stuff. I want it to have a lot of the photos I took, not just a select one or two that I could fit on the page. I LOVE looking through all the old photos we have - even the ones that aren't jaw-dropping have so much to tell in the details of everyday life that the photo captures. I just don't want that to be missing from our family books some day when we look back through them. We can point and say "Oh, I remember that ugly flooring!" or "Isaac used to LOVE that beanie hat" or whatever other little quirky thing that a crowded PL page might miss. So I figured I'd give that approach a try for the last quarter of the year... then maybe tweak it here and there and roll with it for all of 2017.

 

THIS. I think this is a driving factor for me and why I want the change. PL was the push I needed to start capturing more of the everyday and now I need to make sure the photos are big enough to see the detail. I think what illustrates this the most for me is that although I have no problem making today's photos small on my PL spreads, I just can't do it as I go back and do pocket pages for my 2010 photos. So much has changed in that short period of time (my kids have changed schools, we've moved, etc.) that I don't want to cut out the details with using small photos (nor do I want to cut out any photos like I do now either). Can't wait to see how your project goes over this last quarter!

 

And for a minute, I'm officially caught up w/ October!

 

So much planning going on here. I hope you ladies find something that works for you. I'm at a point where I'm where I want to be. I just change a few things here and there every year but for the most part for me the photos and words are the most important. For me it's as many pages as it takes to get those photos in there without squishing too many and making them tiny.
Pre-scrapbooking I only printed 4x6 photos and slid them into an album. I used to print most pics but there are no stories written so those little memories are lost in most. Which is why my current albums or books make me happy. And I've seen my daughter already grab them and look at photos but also read the journaling. I just need to simplify my journaling a bit, less words but still tell the stories.

 

I've been obsessing about this way too much (and have completely hijacked this thread!). As much as I love Rebecca's idea, I'm not entirely sure I can get it to work. Too many of my weekly photos are random, single photos. I'm not sure I can condense them to just one page.... even on a slow week. Which takes me back to what you do @Mrivas, as many pages at it takes. My issue with this, that I could never wrap my head around, was how to divide up the photos so they flowed properly. For example, my daughter has her Thriller dance performance on Thursday and I will take lots of photos. On Friday and Saturday, there's a chance that I might just take one or two random photos. Do you flow through the photos in order in your book, mixing some of the event photos with the everyday ones, or do you pull those out as a separate event? Flowing through seems to make the most sense as far as getting the pages completed, but separating them out lets you play with fun themed kits!

I've even tried to map out what a daily type of concept would look like... but I'm thinking that might be way too much detail as it might become to "journal-y".