Project Life ~ Week 2, left side

Description

I knew I wanted to do my PL digitally this year, since I've fallen in love with digital scrapbooking (and since my photo printer is totally dead!), but when I started experimenting with it last year I had some trouble adapting the traditional PL layout (basically a 12x12 page with a top row of 2 4x6 photos, middle row of 4 3x4 journal cards, bottom row of 2 4x6 photos) to a digital form. When you're not slipping photos into physical plastic pocket protectors, you have to think about things like what the background will be and if you want borders or shadows or frames or what around each photo and journal card. I tried different things but none looked right to me. There are digital page protectors, for example, but they washed out my photos, made me have to shrink down my photos to fit in them, and looked a little messy to me when I tried to use them, although I have liked the look when other people have designed layouts using them.

Then I came across Kimberly Kalil, who blogs her Project Life pages on her blog, This Kalil Life. She is a genius, as far as I am concerned. She totally cracked the code and solved all my dilemmas. She does a patterned paper (nothing too busy or garish) as the background in some color that coordinates with the rest of the materials she uses. Then she puts colored borders - just a simple stroke border in some matching color - around each photo and journal card spot. Sometimes she also has a slight shadow for these elements, sometimes lets them look "flat" on the page. She also has great design sense in how she puts all the other pieces together, element decorations and tape and so on.

I'm still pretty new at scrapbooking with any kind of ornamentation or creativity (I'm used to just slipping my pics and premade journal cards into page protectors). So I decided as a learning exercise I would try completely scraplifting one of Kimberly's PL layouts. I would try to match up what I did with my material (which obviously would be different than hers in terms of words and photos) with what she had done with hers. I thought would be a great way to learn new techniques and get a feel for laying out a page the way she does. I had already been toying with the idea of making a "homemade PL kit" (journal cards and so on) from the gorgeous free kit Storyteller, so when I came across a Kalil layout using that very kit, I knew that would be the layout to try!

So take a look at Kimberly's pages and you can compare to see how I did as a design-newbie copycat: http://www.kimberlykalil.com/2012/12/project-life-im-on-roll.html. This layout design is made with deepest gratitude to Kimberly Kalil for the valuable inspiration and lessons her work has taught me.

Credits:
Scraplifted 100% from This Kalil Life
Papers and elements: Storyteller free kit from Persnickety Prints
Fonts: CK Ali, Indy Pimp, Hero, Bebas, Pacifico