Project Life® 2020 | April

Today I'm diving back into my 2020 Project Life album and telling the story of April. 

My approach to this project this year is fairly loose with my main goal being to simply tell a general story of each month this year. It doesn't need a ton of decoration or design - give me a home for my words and photos and a few embellishments and that feels like enough for right now (read more about establishing your own "enough" in memory keeping here). 

Here's a look at how April came together in my album: 

For this month I started using a few of the products from the April Stories By The Month kit and then also pulled a bunch of things from the new Ups + Downs Collection (which seemed much more in line with the stories I was telling vs. "spring cleaning"). 

On top of my 3x4 photos I added embellishments from the Ups + Downs Collection along with a few other things that were just sitting out on my table (often these are add ons or things from other Story Kits). 

I played around with a few different sizes including full page 6x8 and full page 9x12. 

One of my most favorite photos from April was the shot of Ernie hanging from the screen door. Yep. 

Our lives shifted dramatically starting in March and continued into April. My photos and my words speak to that shift. I included photos of the kids doing distance learning and a zoom call we did with our Creative Team. 

For April I decided to copy + paste a bunch of my written content from Instagram. I love that I can use that as a holding place for many of my stories. Sometimes I bring them all together like this and sometimes I add the text directly to my photos, etc. 

I added in another 6x8 page protector to accommodate the number of 3x4 photos I printed and also added a couple 3x4 journal cards from the April Stories By The Month kit. I like the opportunity to group "like" photos together (like the house projects we had started back in March before the quarantine). 

On top of most of my photos I added some kind of embellishment or sticker. I didn't stick to a specific design formula this time and simply added what felt good in the moment. 

Here's a look at how this project came together: 

SUPPLIES

• 9x12 Album (currently available)
• 9x12 Page Protector 3B
• 9x12 Multipack Page Protectors
• 6x8 Full Page Protector
• 6x8 4-pocket Page Protector 
• April Stories By The Month™ Kit (digital version available)
• Avery Index Tab
• Staz On Ink
• Epson PictureMate PM400 Printer (for 5x7 and smaller)
• Epson Expression XP15000 Printer
• Ups + Downs Chipboard Sheet
• Ups + Downs Plastic Circles
• Ups + Downs Paper Die Cuts
• Ups + Downs Puffy Sticker Sheet