A Week in the Life--The Finished Product

A couple of weeks ago, I told you that I was doing a photography/scrapbooking project called "A Week in the Life." Well, today, I finally finished putting that album together, and I thought I would show you how it turned out.

You might be thinking, Why take the time to document the heck out of a normal week in your life? Here's my answer: How interesting would it be to find something that documented a week in your life from five, ten, twenty years ago? What you ate for dinner, what your routine was, what your appliances/technology looked like. What if you could find lists made in the handwriting of someone you love, or maybe someone who has passed away? The whole point of this project is to find the extraordinary in the ordinary (that's deep, huh?). No matter how many people might put a project like this together, no two projects will be the same.

I put my project together in a red 8.5 x 11 We R Memory Keepers album.

Here is my opening page.


I'm not going to show you the entire album, but I will show you a couple of days just so you can get the idea of the concept and layout. (I borrowed very heavily from Ali Edwards's layout from her 2010 album, which you can find here.)

Each day's layout consists of three parts: a day's opening page with an 8 x 8 photo from that day; a page (front and back) that has little pockets for small photos, memorabilia, and journal cards (this page is really a baseball card protector page, and I purchased Ali Edwards's journal cards); and a page that consisted of a photo collage I put together in Photoshop Elements.

Here's Monday:




I'm skipping a few days here and going to Thursday:




The format is exactly the same for all the days.

Here's my final page:


The paper I used was primarily from Cosmo Cricket's "Circa 1934" line and "Social Club" collection. (I didn't buy the kits that I linked to; instead, I was able to purchase individual papers from my friend Mary's store, Altered Angel.)


What I Did That I Liked:
This was my first time doing this project, so I made myself accept that it wasn't going to be "perfect." It was really a learning experience for me.

First, I'm going to give myself a pat on the back for taking on Photoshop Elements. It has always intimidated me, but I watched some good tutorial videos and learned a lot.

Some things I am glad I featured in my album:
--snapshots of text messages and Facebook posts (I think we might get a kick out of Facebook in the year 2032 when we can communicate telepathically or something crazy like that)
--snapshots of the books on my nightstands
--photos that might not have been pretty but are "real"
--receipts from meals
--grocery lists
--bits of packaging from different items
--a photo of Amelia's handwriting
--a simple layout

What I Will Do Differently Next Time:
--use some black-and-white photos
--figure out how to use the self-timer on my camera so I can include more photos of me (at the risk of sounding self-absorbed, ha!)
--vary the subject of my "big" opening photos. Amelia was in most of them, and while I think she is precious, I felt that those photos were a bit Amelia-centric. HOWEVER, I'm okay with that this time around because our lives are a bit Amelia-centric right now. Haha!

Final Thoughts:
I loved this project and will definitely do it again. It gets a bit cumbersome to try to document everything, but when it is all said and done, the project itself isn't difficult at all. I think a simple layout is key. Honestly, what took me the most time was figuring out some stuff with Photoshop Elements, but now that I have those tasks figured out, I think the project will take less time in the future. (And also...it didn't even take me a month to do this project from start to finish. In the scrapbooking world, that is practically unheard of!)

So yes, yes, yes to A Week in the Life!