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Thursday, February 20, 2014

Digital Project Life - Thoughts and Baby Book Pages

We have 2 Project Life albums going this year, our family album and Weston’s baby book. I was having a hard time deciding which pictures to put in which album. Then decided to order multiplies of certain photos to include in both albums. Theeeeeeeen I was scrapbooking the same thing twice (once for his album and once for our family album). It started to get a little redundant, confusing, and overwhelming so I stopped. Just stopped using both systems all together.

That wasn’t good because nothing was getting documented. Weston’s milestones and fun family memories were flying by and I had nothing documented to remember them. 

I sat on it for a week or so trying to decided how I wanted to go about my little problem (yep I’m a over thinker and I research the you know what out of everything before I make a decision). I needed a fix that would simplify the process or I would find myself right back in the same spot.

My fix?

I made the jump and decided to switch his album over to the digital version of Project Life! Yep I scratched everything I had done with his album up that point and started over.

We still have 2 albums going. Our family album is the hard copy version which I LOVE and Weston’s baby album is the digital version which I also LOVE!

I will break down why I love both systems and how it’s working for us but 1st I want to share a few pages from Weston's baby book!

  Maternity

New Baby Weston

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Family visits W in hosp

going home

Newborn Photos1

Bathtime1

I’m so glad I decided to make the switch to digital for Weston’s baby album. This is working out tons better than what I was doing it before!

What I’m loving about digital:
-It’s easy! I just sit down and get started. Not need to order prints or get the album out.
-Love how easy it is to crop photos. I’m working with large files that I can crop how I want with just the click of a button. It makes it simple to use landscape shots in the smaller vertical slots if I choose.
-No need to plan layouts. Well at least I don’t with digital. I just sit down pick the photos that I want to use and bam! With the hard copy version I find myself planning what photos are going to go where a little more than I do with digital layouts.
-Hello spell check!
-No need to worry wasting journaling cards due to messy handwriting!
-Umm and did I say spell check?
-There's tons of free digital goodies you can easily include in you album to jazz it up a little.
-Fun fonts to use in your layouts

While I am digging the digital format the hard copy version is still very near and dear to my heart!

What I love about the hard copy version:
-Love having an actual album to flip through throughout the year verses files that I need to open and look at. With the digital album you have to wait until your album is complete and printed before you get that satisfaction.
-I LOVE that I can include things like handwritten letters, ticket stubs, recipes, printed blog post and things of this nature. You can also include these in a digital album but they would need to be scanned and either used in a template or you would need to create a layout to include them and then you wont have the actual piece in your album to enjoy in the future.  
-I find working on our hard copy album to be much more therapeutic than the digital version. Maybe it’s the paper I get to play with, flipping through the pages as I work on them, having actual photos in my hands to work with..…not sure what it is but I always feel very relaxed while working on our family album.
- It’s not on the computer! That’s a BIG positive for me. As a photographer I’m on the computer ALL. THE. TIME. and spend a majority of my workday in PhotoShop. While I don’t mind working on our digital album as much as I thought I would it’s still really nice to be off the computer while I work on our family album. With that being said I can pack up my album and work on it anywhere!
-It’s easier for me to get the hubs involved in the album.  I’m sure this will be the same for Weston down the road as I hope to include him in the process as well!
-Tons easier to include text on journaling cards than the digital version. I just grab a pen and jot down what I want to say. No need to think about font selection, font size and spacing.
-I’m better at writing down random stories and things I want to remember on the hardcopy journaling cards. I just grab a card when I want to document something then hold onto it until I’m ready to include it in a layout.

Both versions have their strong points and I’m really enjoying working with each format! I can see sticking with using both formats in the future as I want to do a yearly roundup album for Weston so he has albums to take when he’s older. I’m sure he would rather store a sleek printed digital album as the Project Life albums are a bit bulky! I don’t mind that though!

What about you? Are you a Project Life fan? If so what format do you use?

Wondering what in the world Project Life is? Visit Becky’s blog which is full of info about her awesome product!   

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1 comment:

  1. Love the pics, great share :) I am into photography myself so loved the info

    ReplyDelete

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