Those Missing Pieces

I have been a subscriber to the Ali Edwards’ Story Kits since she started making them a ways back. I used them occasionally but I would say I was more of a hoarder. I anxiously awaited the release of the class content but would skim over the words looking for the layouts. And occasionally I would note a layout that caught my eye and would think “I can use this for xyz photo(s).”

What I didn’t really realize until a few months months ago, was that although I was a subscriber of the kits, I wasn’t really a subscriber of the philosophy. I was missing out on so much content and inspiration that I never even realized the world that awaited me. I think it was the Type class that started changing that for me. That’s when I REALLY started to listen to what Ali was saying on the videos. And something just clicked for me. AHA! This is what I am missing! The story!

I started rewatching some class videos and running back through a lot of the content with new eyes. I was totally inspired and all of these stories started running through my head. I started using 6×8 size to get a bunch of them down and was able to crank out several layouts over the last few months.

About two weeks ago, I sat down to work on some Project Life layouts in the app. I have done this about a dozen times over the last several months. Sat down to work on it. Launch everything, stare at it, then close it down and play a game or do some other time sucking activity instead. It came to a point where I was really disappointed in myself because it was something I was dreading rather than something that brought me joy.

Late last Saturday night, I had one of those moments and went to bed really disappointed. But as I lay there, I realized, part of why it wasn’t bringing me joy anymore was that I was trying to force it. I had to remember “my reason why” as Ali puts it. I got into scrapbooking and Project Life because I originally loved photography and family history and storytelling and wanted a place to put it all. But I found this year that I wasn’t taking as many photos, so trying to fill up a two page spread per week left me putting photos in wholes just to fill it up. Not necessarily because I loved the photo or it told a story. Just a filler. And that was no where near a reminder of my reason why I was doing this in the first place.

So I decided to start over. I know, GASP!!!  But that is part of the beauty of the app. It’s super simple to try something different and make copies and move stuff around if you want to.  I was ok with what I had done for the month of January so I left those as is. But I looked back at February through May, most of which I had at least chosen photos for, if not already done a very uninspiring layout for and considered everything with new eyes. I looked at layout after layout and realized on some of them, I liked all of the photos and wanted to keep it as is, but on others, I only liked a few, or even one photo and I could combine what was originally four uninspiring layouts into two that I loved!  And in one day I did layouts for February through May and I totally loved the results!  It’s not a layout per week, but I have 24 layouts for 2017 done so far and I can tell I am inspired to create more again!

Here are a few of what I came up with. These are for May. The first two pages took place in one weekend, while the next two are my favorite photos or stories from the rest of the month.

As Jess Forster would say “Done is better than none!”