the beginning

Roughly a year ago, I used my video feature on my dslr for the first time in the 3 years I had been doing photography. I was at a conference in Nashville, TN to connect with other photographers and enjoy some time with other creatives like myself. What I didn't realize is that I would walk away from that conference with a new found love.

I can't explain my love for cinematography. It just is. Six months after that conference, I was sitting with footage from a stylized shoot, that was beautiful and amazing. The photographs needing no editing. And the video... well, it literally moved me. I was just nervous about finding my voice in a new realm of creativity. Would it turn out well? Would it be as natural as photography? Where could it go?

I finally stopped asking questions and started learning how to edit, use my camera better and deciding on my style. I still have tons to learn and I'm very raw right now. However, just like photography, it's a natural talent I've been blessed with. As I mature in my new found love, I know it will only get better.

This is the beginning. The start of things to come. Learning, teaching, creating. Ealy Films is my new baby and I can't wait to see her grow!

project life: how i see it

Earlier this week, I posted about my first try at Project Life. Fast forward 5 days and I've picked up a lot of steam for this little thing called "memory keeping".  Well, it's not little, but hey...

Over the last week, I've been doing my research.  I've found people, products and tutorials that are going to prove to be invaluable to me. What I've found are truly inspirations to how I want to bring my own project life book to, well... life. I'm naturally a researcher and so finding what I love out there wasn't hard.  Also, finding ways to approach doing project life, since I'm not starting from week one, was a main focus.  Below you'll find some of the people, aesthetics and how to's that will make project life truly enjoyable for me.

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I AM IN LOVE with Natasha's aesthetic. I love the simplicity, the color choices and overall flow to how she approaches a lot of her layouts. My favorite color combos are black and white, but Natasha helped me see a spin with those color combos and a punch of another, playful color.  (Yes, I know that's navy she is using, but in my mind, I substitute black. Chill! lol) Although, I DESPISE pink, I do see the playful fun in it. So, I think I'm going to be using a hot pink punch of color throughout a lot of my layouts to keep them fun and spicy. I also am reminded to look at my layouts in full spectrum, so that when I open my book, I can have one flow of idea and aesthetic.

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Natasha also gave me a great idea about how to approach Jan and some of February, since I'm starting at week 7. I think it's week 7. *shrugs*  I'm just going to do a photo layout for January up to mid Feb. I can't remember everything that happened, but I surely took a lot of photos. I'm a photographer, so this is actually pretty easy for me.  It will also be great for weeks that I just don't have much to say. LOVE this idea!

 

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I fell in LOVE (yea, I love a lot of what I found lol), with Paislee Press. This gal's designs are top notch for me. I actually purchased quite a few things from the shop that I'll end up using over the course of years to come. One was a photo template. Well, it was free, but hey, I had to put it in the cart, so it counts! lol  I went to her blog to see how she used it and came across this idea of going back at the end of the year to do a recap/table of contents for the beginning of my book.  It's rather genius in it's simplicity and how useful it is. I had to blog it, because quite frankly, I'll forget to do it otherwise. 

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I just like the triangles.  So, I'm going to eventually try it.

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Amanda Rose Zampelli is truly a kindred spirit for me, even though she's like 10 years younger. GAH! She's going through some similar changes in her life concerning work, like I am, so I frequent her IG and blog a bit lately.  I also happen to love just looking at what she creates and the energy she gives. One other thing she does that I am definitely going to do, is incorporate my creative work into my PL. One of those things is going to be my hand lettering. Amanda has done a great job of bringing her brush script designs into her book and doing so gave me the idea of making sure my designs, photography and hand lettering appeared in mine as well.

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Since I am a photographer, taking photos as a means of documenting isn't new to me.  Getting photos printed, also not new to me.  Editing them, DEFINITELY NOT new to me. Doing an efficient process for PL is new to me. So I set out to find a good tutorial that would help. I think I've found one here using my favorite editing tool, Lightroom! She uses LR3 in her tutorial, but if you have the most up-to-date version, I'm sure things are still fairly similar. Yes, I haven't tried it yet, so my bad if things aren't as simple as they appear. If you don't have LR or anything similar, go HERE (same blog from those triangles from up above). This whole blog has been done with an iphone and iphone apps. So, using LR isn't necessary.

If you're new to PL, like myself, hopefully some of these resources will be helpful for you as you start memory keeping.  If not, oh well, thanks for reading anyway! ;-)

Project Life: Day One

For a couple of years I've been hearing more and more about Project Life.  It's nothing new, just new to me.  Probably because the only real scrapbook that I've done was back in my senior year of high school.  Project Life isn't necessarily a scrapbook, but closely related.  It's almost a highlight of your life in pictures, words and cute cards.  (Well, maybe it is a scrapbook. *shrugs*) I recently decided that I needed to document this year of my life. Not sure why, but I'm rolling with it.

I'm getting a late jump on it for a few reasons.  The primary one being that I couldn't wrap my head around exactly how to do it.  I've seen so many examples out there.  Some who use a 12x12 format and those who use 6x8 (I think).  Then you have those who PL (project life) weekly, those who do it monthly, those who do it by events, etc.  So you can see why a visual gal like myself was having somewhat of a hard time, right?

THEN, the big concern.... COST!  I could quickly see that PL would likely suck me in and I would want to purchase all the stamps, cards, ink, etc that I could.  Not embellishments, though.  I'm a pretty simple gal and don't need 'em (I don't think).  I looked into digital stuff and again, I'm still trying to wrap my head around how it all works, however, I think it might be a cheaper route for me.

Over the weekend I decided to get a photo insert to start.  Not an album or starter kit.  Just the photo insert.  I have been itching to start, but needed to marinate on it.  I also wanted to try to wrap my head around it more.  I asked several PL'ers on instagram how they did what they're doing.  I looked on pinterest.  I even googled.  At the conclusion of it all, my OLW (one little word) and a helpful new IG friend +rukristin, ......  said DO it!  So today I did.

I've decided to do a recap of January, since I am still trying to wrap my head around this and I'll do the same for February since I'm starting mid-month.  I think once I've done both months, I'll be able to decide how to move forward.

The things I've learned so far:

1. The smaller pages might work better for portability.  I need to try them.

2. Making your own cards is just fine. It's my memory keeper.  It doesn't have to be perfect.  It just has to exist.

3. I'm really going to enjoy stamps.  I think I like the physical aspect of it and seeing it come to life.

4. I'm going to try persnickety prints to print my photos.  They are already set up to print photos for PL, so no need to make it harder on myself.

5. If I continue with 12x12, I need to get Design A.  It may feel less stressful to get it all done with less pockets.  Although, if I'm doing a weekly thing, I may want the extra spaces that Design F provides. (Small note: I was able to find things cheaper at Michaels than what I see on amazon.  Look around for a less expensive and quicker option.)

6. I need a smaller paper cutter.  I used the one at work today that's a pretty good size and it's already been a bare to deal with.

7. I'm going to be a hybrid gal.  A little pre-made, a little digital, a little self-made.

8. This is going to be therapeutic for me.  I've only done 4 cards that I made, however, they allowed me to create on a very basic level.  Which in turn, allowed me to escape and reflect and also DO!

9. DO! Yep, just do it already!  I'm just starting out. My pages won't be perfect and won't be as beautiful as those who have been doing this for a long time. All that doesn't matter. What matters is just doing it.

10. I need a scanner. There are some brush script items I'm working on that I want to add as well as art work from my son and any papers that I really want to toss but can't because I really want to preserve the memory.  A scanner will declutter my life and my storage quite a bit! lol

11. Storage is going to be a must! I'm going to end up getting some more ink pads, stamps and cards. As well as paper, colored pens and some other small items.  I want to be able to quickly pull from my stash in an organized manner and create.

12. Keeping it simple will be key for me.  I love to design, but I've always had a simplified style.  I will want that to remain in my PL book. Plus, keeping it simple will highlight those things that matter, have some order and will be visually pleasing to me.

I'm excited to continue creating and will likely work on it throughout the week or definitely Sundays. It's going to be nice to keep this up and have something to look back on at the end of the year.  Below you will find my start at my first page of my PL book.  It will be interesting to see how this grows....