Project Life Year II and how I made it easier on myself this year

I jumped on the Project Life bandwagon last year. I did not do a weekly spread but a monthly spread. I have a husband and a cat and a pretty boring life...how could I fill up 52 weeks worth of interesting?

I liked the 8 1/2 x 11 approach and I used the We R Memory Keeper 9 pocket page protecters. The cards/pictures I created using my Silhouette. I made a rounded rectangle at 2.625 x 3.5 and made a bunch of copies. I would then import my pictures, size them to the rectangle, crop and cut a sheet at a time...BUT...my Silhouette is giving me a hard time lately. It keeps jamming up when cutting and the software keeps freezing up especially when doing something with this many pictures and multiples of shapes. I carried on though, cursing every time I made a layout. I finished 2013 and have to say I really loved doing this and decided I was going to take another go at it but something had to change!

I am a basic Photoshop user and know how to make a digital template or two so I decided I would make a template in Photoshop instead of Silhouette and cut the cards/pictures by hand. This only meant I could not have rounded rectangles (as I would not be using my Silhouette to cut the shapes). Once I got over the horror of it all I went to work on the template. I could only fit 6 shapes on my 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper but again, I will get over it. Now I just open my pictures, size them up a bit then do a clipping mask and WALA! (wala is too a word).

Here is an image of the template though so you can see what I shoot for. If anyone by chance would be interested in the template I would be happy to email it to you.

Here is part of my January page in Photoshop before I printed it.

See the top middle image? My husband bought me the pasta making attachment for my KitchenAid Mixer! Holy Pasta Making!


Back to project life.....so after I have the page printed I can simply cut it on my paper cutter or use a blade as each rectangle lines up perfectly. In the pockets they go...no rounded corners but I am trying to get over that ;)  I do the same thing with my journal-ling and other filler cards to fill all the pockets. Sometimes I do a 2 page spread and other times just 1 page it just depends what I have to say that particular month.

I will try to create a You Tube video of my process this weekend if I can get the darn software to cooperate. We have issues we two....