I'd like to say *hi* to all my new viewers...thank you so much for taking the time to stop by!! I got my week 6 done early then went to print my pages and realized I was out of ink. Thank heavens for Amazon Prime! :)
Here's my week 6 spread:
We've had the flu here at our house this week. My poor middle child missed 3 days of school this week. :( But thankfully after using lots of essential oils and figuring out the right combinations, we are all doing much better today.
Here's the left side:
It's super important to me to include things about myself and my husband in our album so that the kids can look back and know about us too! I was tagged on Instagram to do this, so I thought it would be perfect to put in as a card!
This card was kind of fun to put together. I got my Studio Calico kit in the mail today and these arrows were a part of it. I've got lots and lots of washi tape too and I've been wanting to use it in my album more. So that's how this card was born. Usually I create each card in Photoshop and then just print them out and into the album they go. But for this one I just printed out the picture and taped it to a blank journal card. I added the arrows and a stamp from the Studio Calico roller date stamp. Kinda fun and out of my comfort zone a bit!
I like the look of vellum, or see-through stuff...so I decided to add a see-through label to this card. I like it a lot, probably will be doing more of this!
I've said before that one of my very favorite things to include in my album are things my kids say. Over the last couple of weeks they've been full of witty comments, so I added a bunch here on one card. :)
The top card here was made in Photoshop, then I added the Studio Calico wood veneer geotag to the photo...I thought it was appropriate with the text on the card. :) The bottom card is a scan of my daughter's 100% spelling test! Her handwriting has gotten so clear and crisp this year and I wanted to have a record of it!
Here's the right side:
My youngest loves playing on my iPad and recently he's been playing my favorite game Flow. So I recorded a little video of him playing it and then created a QR code to view it. Traci Reed has a fabulous tutorial on how to do that HERE. I got the "faves" card from Nettio Designs and added a date stamp to the bottom. I thought this card would be a good addition to my "currently card" that I do monthly.
This was a fun card to put together. I had taken 3 horizontal photos of the fort the kids and I built together. I wanted to showcase them individually instead of putting them onto a clustered card...then I had an idea. :)
I sewed an extra 4x6 pocket onto the Design A protector, stapled a piece of ribbon for a tab and tada! 3 photos right there together. Love this look...I'll definitely be doing more of this in the future!
I also wanted to address a couple of questions you've asked.
First one was: What is your black and white conversion process?
I have recently fallen in love with b/w photos...I would say the majority of the photos in my album this year are b/w with some pops of color photos. As far as my conversion, I use a couple of actions by My Four Hens...her actions are amazing and perfectly easy. Sometimes I'll run an all over "helper action" that boosts the color, contrast and lightens them up a bit. Then I use the True B&W action from her Fair Haven II set and then on top of that I run the Filmy Feel action from her Evolution set. Just those two actions together almost always produce exactly what I want on my B/W photos!
Second question was: Do you print at home? Is it cost effective? What paper do you use?
YES! I print at home and I'm convinced that's the only way that I can stay on top of this project! I have a horribly ancient printer, an HP Photosmart C5100 but it gets the job done. Thankfully I can buy refurbished ink for it on Amazon and it's way cheap, which definitely keeps my cost down. And I only have to change ink every 100-150 pages I print. So for me, it works great. As far as paper is concerned, right now I'm using the Red River Paper Premium Matte 47 lb., but I think next time I'm going to try the Polar Matte 60 lb. for a heavier card. I have also used this HP Matte paper but I didn't like how thin it was for my cards. I like them to feel a bit thicker. When I print, I drag as many cards will fit onto an 8.5x11 document in Photoshop and save and print them that way. So usually it's 2 4x6's or 4 3x4 cards on a document. That way I can print multiple cards and it saves more ink and paper!
As always I'd love to answer your questions if you have any, just let me know!! Hope you had a great week!
