Week In The Life 2011 | Bringing It All Together (with Video Overview)

As always, I love your style! I like this project better when it is not in the summer too, and I think I did a laid back version this year because of it. I combined styles from last year's album and this year's and my own thing, and while it is not as extensive as yours, I am satisfied because it was summer, and I am also doing Project Life. Maybe I will try more digital with next year's version. Thank you!

I think your hands are pretty too!
I am also including the daily sheets in my binder the way they are. I've cut my photos to fit the divider page and it feels like it is finished. I may or may not type out essays I've written...or they may become blog posts somewhere down the line.

Next step: photographing and linking :)

Thank you for showing your complete project. This is my first time doing WITL and I've held off on doing my layouts to look at yours for inspiration. Plus I'm doing mine digitally with a few inserts here and there and I knew it would take a while for me to get things together since this is my first digital project. YIKES!! Loving it so far though. It will be so fun to look back at this years from now to see our crazy life with a 5 year old and a 5 month old!

Love that you did a video in addition to your photos of the project. I was waiting to see how yours came together before finishing mine. I love learnig new design techniques. Yesterday I bought your new stamp set from Technique Tuesday and I think these stamps will be great to use in this project. This is my first time doing WITL.I really enjoyed doing this project in the summer and my whole family (not at first) got involved in this project :).
I, like you, am looking forward to the December Daily. I'm organizing my Christmas stash and plan on using what I already have (enough to open a small store, lol.) Thanks for all you do for us :)

Ali, In one of the first photos, it looks like you store your rubber stamps in a binder. Have you show us before how you store your rubber stamps? If not, could you tell me how.

Awesome!! I love it! I started mine this past week. My son starts Kindergarten Monday so my week was his last week before school. I hope mine turns out half as good as yours!! Thanks!

awesome, awesome, awesome! mine is gradually coming together - about ready to order pics thru scrapbookpictures.com !

Hi Ali, your Week in the Life album looks great.

I have a question...I am planning to do my Week in the Life in a 12x12 album and add my daily notes in a 8.5x 11 page protector. Before I order some 8.5x11 protectors, could you tell me if they will fit in a 12x12 We R Memory Keepers album. Just wanted to check that the page protector holes are the same distance apart.

Thanks, Gen

Ali - I just had a breakthrough listening to your video commentary about your WITL concept. I'm going to be honest....I have the Project Life kit and tried to work with it on a daily basis but I just found it too overwhelming for 365 days straight -- so I stopped. After watching your video, it just dawned on me to just focus on one week at a time....maybe seasonally....and use the PL kit as a collection of A Week in the Life projects!! 4 weeks out of the year is certainly doable as opposed to 52 weeks! And since the kit is so large I can fit several years worth of WITL projects in it! Thanks so much for the inspiration!

Hi Ali,
I'm sure you've answered this question a thousand times:) in your blog but could you tell me what kind of pen and markers you use for your journaling cards?
Thanks!
Sompa

First of all, it KILLS me that you're wearing long sleeves in August! I'm so jealous!

How interested is Chris in this project specifically and your scrapbooking in general?

this is awesome.....I don't have my completed album uploaded to a blog but you can see the whole thing here :)
http://www.acherryontop.com/gallery_viewer/,14640854,cid,,9,,149374

Love this! Is the "Week in the Life" "Edwards Family" a sticker that you placed on the photo or something you did in Photoshop? I can't seem to find this in your list. Sorry if I missed it somewhere.

...please don't forget that it's not summer for everybody! it's winter down under :)
this was my first time participating and I questioned whether the particular week would work for me but I did it anyway and am so glad.
I do like that you pick a different week each year. I look forward to doing one in "my" summer.

Ali, I loved seeing your finished album. I have learned so much by following along this year...about myself, my family and also about scrapbooking techniques, flow, etc. One funny thing I learned is that my younger son chooses whatever clothes are on top. I guess We do laundry often enough that he is often wearing the same thing in the pictures. I promise though, he does shower and change his clothes.

I also learned that next time, I will do more writing. I used the daily sheets more like notes for myself and now wishing I had fleshed them out a bit more.

Thanks for sharing yourself and the journey.

Enjoy the rest of your summer,
Leora

Hi Ali, your work is just fabulous. I didn't do WITL this year as Project Life and a 5 week overseas trip album are taking up all my time (with 4 & 2 year old boys, lol, what time?!!), but I loved seeing all your posts about it and hope to do it next year.

I have a question about Chris as well - I noticed he isn't in too many photos, obviously because he's out of the house working all week. I am concerned that this is happening in my Project Life album - lots of pics of the boys but only sporadic ones of my husband. I'm worried the boys will think he was never around when they are older! I try to make the weekend photos more about him, whether on his own or with the boys, but it doesn't always work out, especially if we are visiting family, the pics are then of them.
Anyway sorry to ramble on a bit but I was wondering if this is something that concerns you and what you do about it? Thanks, and again, love your style!!

Ali--

I admire your attitude on scrapping and love that you keep your focus where it belongs: getting things done and enjoying them, rather than letting yourself get mired in the details. That is an amazing gift, and I am inspired by your blog to do the same, though it is not an easy feat for me. I can easily see that I would be likely to want to keep all my albums "the same" over the years, so that they looked pretty on the shelf, but I would get bored with the same style. By freeing yourself from that, you free yourself to evolve and grow and continue to experiment. It's awesome! :)

Often, I have to fight my tendency to organize, because it can overcome my desire to create, and then things only get half-done. You manage to blend organizational skills with an acceptance that things don't have to be "perfect" to be "good enough." I want to be like that when I grow up!! ;) In reality, though, your posts have encouraged me to create projects I would never have considered...and I LOVE the results. Your posts have made my scrapping experience more fun for me and helped me to embrace the perfect imperfection of them. Thank you.

Thank you for the inspiration and the guidance through this project. I'm almost done mine. As I've been working on it, I keep saying "wow, this is so much work" then my oldest child turned 12 this week and my youngest turned 4 last week. Last night I realized that yes, it's alot of work but wasn't it just yesterday I was holding a baby in my arms. I'll never have this time again and I want to remember what it was like to have a pre-teen and a pre-schooler at the same time. Thanks for the revelation.

Ali, I love what you've done with WITL - it looks absolutely fantastic!!!

You've inspired me to try this myself, and I started last Monday. So far all is going well EXCEPT I have a question I'm hoping you can help me with about one of your products. I bought "The Story of Today 8.5x11 Overlays" and want to know whether I'm able to change the size of the journaling box, ie make it bigger with a smaller space for the photo at the top? Also, is there some way I can use just the outside border for my right-hand page? I want it like you did your 2008 album, but can't work it out myself ...

I'm using PSE and have looked at several of your digital scrapbooking posts, plus those on Designer Digitals, but still can't figure it out - and this is my first time trying any digi scrapping. Please help me!
Thanks so much, Kylie

Hey Ali! I absolutely love what you have done with your Week in the Life album! I haven't done it yet, but I am planning on doing it soon! I was going to do it this year with you, but I just got back from a mission trip to Africa and I was super jet lagged and so I was not organized at all for that week. I think I might start in a couple weeks once school gets started. I'm a college student and I just changed majors to nursing so I think it would be interesting in the future to look back and see what my life was like during my first month of nursing school.
I did have a few questions for you. 1) I'm just curious what the purpose of the black plastic thing in the WeR album you used. I have always wondered what this is for. 2) Do you think that the daily journaling sheets would work for travel as well? When traveling, I always have a problem with getting overwhelmed with keeping a journal. I was thinking that this might be a great way to capture what we did each day in addition to my feelings about the day. 3) How is Lily doing. I have been thinking about her and your family lately. I have a 15 year old dog who scared us like Lily did several times in the last 6 months. I know how you're feeling and I'm praying for you, your family, and Lily.
Thank you for answering my questions and for inspiring me to create!