Week In The Life Album - July 2011

Finally finished my week in the life album! I've had the 8 1/2" x 11" photo pages for a couple weeks now, but just found time this afternoon to put it all together.
I just love this project. I used a WER Memory Keepers album and the divided page protectors for the journaling cards/small photos/daily ephemera.
I did like how Ali ended up putting her journaling directly on her photos, but for some of my photos, it worked better to have the text in the white space alongside. It is great how flexible the digital templates can be for changing up the design of a page.
I made my own journaling cards with ivory cardstock + stamped titles + embossed line details (I used a Zig Emboss Pen and Zing Powder in Teal). Each day of the week had 4 cards - Love, Overheard, Favorite, and Thankful. I also made a card for each day listing our meals, and a card featuring a square Hipstamatic photo and a stamped word to describe that photo. Each divided page protector also contains a piece of a Hambly overlay with a sticker that says the day of the week. I like being able to see through to the next page and have that design carry through the book. Another idea I took straight from Ali.
I added in some other things like receipts, print-outs of text messages and other phone screenshots, and in the photo above you can see a piece of our family room wallpaper that was torn down that day. Along with the stories from the week, these are the things I would have forgotten all about a few weeks later - I'm sure it will be fun to look back at them in the future!

I added a digital patterned paper in the background of the digital pages and took the opacity down to 30 or 40% to keep it subtle. If I could do it again I would bump the pattern up a little because it is hardly noticeable.
Ali mentioned that next time she does this project she might do it completely digitally and have it printed in book form. I definitely see the appeal in that, since I did do lots of rewriting and rearranging that could have been streamlined if it was all typed. On the other hand, I do love the little bits of life that fit into the divided page protectors. We'll see - I could actually fit at least one more week's worth of pages in this album, so maybe I'll try the same week in July in the same format next year.
On the last page I put a small photo from each day and a brief summary of the project. I'm so glad I took the time to collect all the photos and stories and then stick with it until everything was pulled together.