Project Life 2020 | February Monthly Layout ft Simple Stories

 

Hi friends and welcome back! Today I am sharing a layout from my 2020 Project Life album. This is a bi-monthly spread from February, using the Simple Stories Hello Today and Sweet Talk collections. You can see more projects from this album at this link: Project Life 2020. I have a process video for you, let’s see!

 

I decided to use the Hello Today collection to help me document the year as a way to try to simplify an already overwhelming project. This was a really good decision, because it turns out that you can incorporate lots of the other Simple Stories collections to fill in spots where you need. That is exactly what I’ve done here! I had lots of the Sweet Talk collection still in my stash from last year.

 

 

The month of February last year feels in a lot of ways like that last little bit of “normal” ever. Looking back at those photos I see two people who had no idea what was coming for the world and for our community. At that time we were still going about as normal, but were beginning to sense the urgency. For now, we were still enjoying our last date night – the Winston Salem Symphony performing an evening of John Williams. We had some snow and ice. I also got to have a wonderful lunch with my friend Heather, of Heathers Crafty Life!

 

 

For my title card, I simply used the February card and only added a very simple stamp + puffy hearts. Those were from Elle’s Studio. For the photo of the snow, I only added a label _ stamp. This little dusting actually caught us off guard, and we were going to the store as it was coming down. Usually that is a no-no here! Ha!

 

 

To help fill pockets, I added a few patterned papers. This lovely plaid makes a great backdrop for the photo with Heather. I printed that at 3×3 and then layered the tag along with it. The 3×4 pockets I kept really simple, just adding the cards and a few stamps, and writing a few words about what we knew about Covid at the time. I will say that my documentation of Covid will ramp up in the month of March, and I plan to do a blog post and video about how I am including that then.

 

 

The second half of the layout is mostly about our date night, plus a photo from the day that I threw all the windows open, ripped all the sheets off the beds for washing and did a complete deep clean of the entire house. This was when we began sanitizing and making more of an effort to control the germs and bacteria in the house, but it also is a coping mechanism for me. Every spring I go through this purging and cleaning cycle, just to refresh from the winter and get a new start.

 

 

I did another tag on top of patterned paper card, using the house cleaning photo. This is a great formula that you can repeat over and over again: patterned paper, square photo, tag with twine, and a single puffy sticker (optional).

 

 

We really did have the best date night, we were all dressed up and we had our very own special section in the very back. The performance was incredible – John Williams wrote so much of the music for the movies of our childhood, including Star Wars, Superman, ET, Looking back, these memories are even more treasured knowing it was our last date night out for a long time. I am so glad we got to experience that! My favorite card on this layout has to be the bottom right one, with the hearts and the puffy hearts that I added on top just for fun.

 

 

Thanks so much for joining me today! I loved sharing these pages and I hope you are inspired to document your 2020 in some kind of way. See you again soon!

~Theresa