Project Life 2020 | January Monthly With Insert ft Simple Stories Hello Today
Hi everyone and welcome back to Project Life 2020! Today I am sharing my January pages, which is a full two page spread with an insert. I have decided for this album to use the Simple Stories Hello Today collection, and I am ready to get going with what will be an epic album, I am sure. If you’d like to see more layouts from this project, check out my link here: Project Life 2020. You can see my full process video below.
The Hello Today collection had some really awesome cut apart sheets, one for each month, which are all designed in classic Simple Stories colors. You can pull in quite a few of their other collections with this one to round out your pages. I felt like this would help make this project not feel quite so overwhelming. Trying to document a year in which the news moved faster than the speed of life feels like a big under-taking. It is not easy to be a memory keeper in these times! But product choices can definitely help.
I began my page with the January title card and added just a few simple embellishments. The stamp is from Elle’s Studio, and the puffy arrows were part of the collection. The numbers are from Kesi’ Art. The main story for this side of the page was mostly about how we brought in the New Year by celebrating Disney style at Hollywood Studios. They did a most amazing light show featuring Star Wars, and it was well worth the 2AM bed time! I also included the photo of Alan with the luggage cart, as we were checking out of Art of Animation. It was so sad to leave Disney but we are left with an overwhelming sense of gratitude that we were able to go when we did. The timing was uncanny. We had no idea in three months it would be completely closed. No clue.
For my Introduction Page I had included this acrylic word art from Color Cast Designs. It is mounted on a transparency piece to keep it suspended, and the back shows here in this layout. I left it the way it is. Literally the only thing I added to the 3×4 pockets here was the journaling and the arrow for my journaling card. Zoe makes an appearance, as always, and I only added a speech bubble that says Hello to her photo. For this side of the insert, I had a photo of our annual parade of boxes that carry all the Christmas decorations back upstairs. I also wrote a little bit about an inside joke that Natalie and I were laughing about at the time – the “wurst” things we could find, playing off of the German word that means meat. Ha!
The insert gave me more 4×6 pockets than I had cards for, so I pulled in some papers from older Simple Stories collections. I noticed there is a 6×8 paper pad that goes with Hello Today, but for some reason I did not purchase it. I brought in the wood grain card in the insert, plus the polka dot you can see on the front of the insert as well. Those were super fun cards to make, using foam elements and other stickers to tie it all together.
For this side of the insert, I used the wood grain and created a sort of title card. The photos on this page are all from Emberlynn’s birthday party! She wanted cake and to go to the trampoline park, and they all had the best time jumping around. I won’t lie, I cringe a bit thinking about how unaware we were at this stage, but that’s ok. We have learned so much since then. I am also glad that she had one more carefree birthday before lockdown, I would never take that away from anyone. The best part is documenting it here!
I also had photos from a date day Alan and I took. We went out to Southpoint in Durham, NC and spent the day shopping and eating and hanging out. Natalie discovered the fun of making a rainbow pour with watercolors, and I also included her letter from the school that let her know she was in AP classes next year. Smart children! I used the 3×4 card to begin writing about the pandemic and how at that time, we were just beginning to hear about it. It was just showing up in the news and it seemed very far away. I will be including more in the upcoming months, but for January I chose to simply share what life looked like right now.
I am already loving the vibe of this album and am having fun with the Hello Today collection! Thanks so much for joining me, I hope you are inspired to create today. See you again soon!
~Theresa