Seeking Feedback: Themed/Monthly(ish) from Weekly
 

I am now on my third year of PL, and it's just not coming together for me like it has in past years. I have done it weekly up until this point, and it hasn't mattered to me when I had photos from different days, different kits/cards, etc.

I'm trying to pull January together, but I'm hitting a mental/creative roadblock with all the mismatched photos/events/memories. The page I put together for my birthday (which was 4 days) and the page I did for NYE were easy to do, but an ordinary week... I have now done 2 versions with those photos and am still not happy.

I hear everyone talking abt monthly PL, but I guess I've never really thought abt how that differs from weekly. Do those of you who scrap monthly PL do it by theme? That seems to make the most sense to me in this moment, but I've already changed my process so much this year that I'm afraid going 'too off the rails' will mess me up completely.

Can those of you who do monthly/anything but weekly link me up with your pages? Or share your process with me?

TIA! :wub:

All I do is organize my pictures where they fall and insert cards and journaling to pretty them up.. I don't even put in monthly cards or anything. I'm behind in years but to me it doesn't matter because really for me it's just about getting the info down there... my only regret is not journaling somewhere.. If i had that i'd be really happy.

I'm NOT the type of person though who is type A or anything so that makes things easy for me. Whenever i've done stuff that i felt like i had to document each week it took all the joy out of it for me. I just didn't want to feel like I had to document things just so that I could fill up spreads or whatever.. It kinda made me depressed because we have some weeks where we really do not a lot of anything.

My pages just all look a lot like this.. pictures in chronological order and with journaling or whatever.. I have a lot of my files just in PSD form so I can add to them when I feel like it etc.. which alas hasn't been much lately.

https://www.sweetshoppecommunity.com...=page8&cat=500

I did weekly for the first 2.5 years, and I switched to a monthly format for the second half of 2014. I really like it better, though I do miss some of the little details I captured in a weekly spread. I'm thinking I just need to be more intentional about that; it's doable, just not as natural as it is in a weekly spread.

I'll take some pictures of mine in a bit and post here. I did the first month with one color scheme, and I love how it flows. But there's too much pretty stuff to maintain that! So I just did a review spread, sometimes 4 pages, sometimes with an insert between the review, and then when we had events, I did a page or two for that.

I did 2012 and was pretty faithful about getting every week down, and how I kept it together and cohesive was because of Penny Springmann. She put out a monthly themed kit the whole year. So I would get a new kit every month to give me new things to do, but because they were all from the designer my book had a consistent look. KWIM?

I've only ever done it monthly (I'm starting my third year now)... I usually do four pages a month (five or six if its a busy month). I copy all the photos I want to include into a folder labelled for that month as I take them, until I'm ready to scrap. I don't place them on my pages in strict date order though - so long as they're in the relevant month that's good enough for me. Sometimes I'll add a date caption if I think it's important. If I have a generic photo (e.g. of one of my kids or the cat) that I like but can't fit in, I sometimes just push it into the next month.

I sometimes start scrapping my pages during the month but more often than not I do it at the very end of the month or after the month's finished - that makes it easier to figure out where to fit the photos in since I'm not too bothered about doing it chronologically.

I mostly use Traci's Pocket Life collection (for all the pages in the month) so it looks sort of consistent, and add other bits and pieces where I feel like it - I don't do alot of extra embellishing though.

Here are my pages for January - they're not all finished yet but it gives you an idea of what I do... January was a busy month as it's our summer school holidays so I have six pages this month. I'll then scrap individual pages for significant events (e.g. a day trip or holiday/vacation, or even a photo I REALLY like) and then slot them in my album between the January and February pocket pages. Sometimes, because I take so many photos, I'll include a few photos of say a holiday in my pocket pages just as a taster, but still scrap 1-2 individual pages just about the holiday (hope that makes sense).

Good luck!

http://home.people.net.au/~mrbdesign...ary-2015_1.jpg

http://home.people.net.au/~mrbdesign...ary-2015_2.jpg

http://home.people.net.au/~mrbdesign...ary-2015_3.jpg

http://home.people.net.au/~mrbdesign...ary-2015_4.jpg

http://home.people.net.au/~mrbdesign...ary-2015_5.jpg

http://home.people.net.au/~mrbdesign...ary-2015_6.jpg

Kim, did you know you left a 'subtitle or caption' on one of your pages? Or are you not finished with it?

*edited because I'm an idiot and didn't fully read your post. LOL!*

I wish I was finished... but life gets in the way of scrapping sometimes. Very annoying that!

July was the only month where I kept with a color theme, and it's my favorite. I did 2 spreads + 1 page of random July stuff, a layout opposite the last random page and then a 2 pg spread from our trip to the province, and a layout + 1 pg spread of our trip to the beach.
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e1...0Life/July.jpg
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e1...Life/July1.jpg
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e1...Life/July3.jpg
{The downside of living overseas...I have to wait for my next package from the States to get the layout for that last page!}

These look great!