2013 Project Life | Week 10 Deconstructed | Left Side

Hey there! I love how Donna (of 365 Days of Donna) has been "deconstructing" her Project Life pages, so I thought I'd give it a try too. :)

Week 10 has a lot of little photos that may be hard to see in the web-sized previews (especially on the Right Side), so I'll break it down into smaller chunks to show each area in more detail. Here goes!

Week 10 Left Side


Break it down, now... (do you have 90's hip hop songs in your head now? I do.)

Title Card


I've been using pretty much the same format for my title cards each week of 2013. I liked the one from the Amber Edition I used in Week 1, so I modified my weekly 12x12 template to include the pieces of the card.

Creating it was fairly simple. In Photoshop, I opened my 12x12 template, and zoomed in on the top left 4x6 photo spot. I added a new layer with a tall skinny rectangle for the months area and another new layer with a long, skinny, rounded rectangle for the date/week area.

With each piece on its own layer, I can move things around. This week, I added a pink stroke around the date/week area. To accomplish that and still have flexibility (in case I changed my mind later), I created a new layer just above the date/week area layer, and then with the new layer highlighted, I used ctrl+click to select the pixels in the date/week area layer. I then added the stroke to the selection on the new layer. Clear as mud? ;)

Papers: So Much To Say Paper Pack by Splendid Fiins
Months: Project Life Amber Edition Extra Elements
Drawn Box: Mark My Words by Chelle's Creations
Fonts: Impact (year/week) and Segoe Script (date)

Lower Left


First up, we have a movie poster, which I obtained via Google image search. Nothing exciting there, except that Braden really wishes Pixie Hollow was a real place. ;) One thing I always do when searching the web for images to use on scrapbook pages is to set the search tools to find only large images. That way, I can resize them to 300dpi in Photoshop before adding them to my layout, and they'll be clear and crisp when I get my pages printed (not fuzzy and pixelated like small web resolution images would be).

Next, is my filler card. The kits I used this week didn't come with pre-designed filler cards, so I put this one together using a background paper and two elements. Simple enough.
Papers: So Much To Say Paper Pack by Splendid Fiins
Elements: Sequoia Tree Elements by Sara Gleason

Across the bottom are just two photos from the week. The left one was taken with my digital SLR (Nikon D40), and the right one with my husband's iPhone. I love how the iPhone photos are the perfect size to fit in the 3x4 template spots. I do resize them to 300dpi before adding them the layouts. I don't know if it's really necessary, but I do it. :) Now that I'm using full Photoshop, I can create my own actions. I've made two so far. One resizes the image to 300 dpi, and the other resizes it to 3x4. I set it up so that all I have to do for my iPhone pics is to open them, hit F3 to make it 300dpi and then F4 to make it 3x4. This saves SO much time! Love it.

Upper Right


I had a lot of fun with this section. Cameron likes to pretend that the Little People houses are Bowser's Castle and King Boo's Ghost House, so I added those characters on the photo of him playing. I found these using Google image search as well, and again searched for only large images. I also added PNG to my search so that I would only find PNG images. I wanted PNGs (not JPGs) because PNGs can have a transparent background. To get the characters' images on my layout, I just opened them in Photoshop, resized them to 300dpi, dragged them over to my layout, and then made them smaller to fit on the photo. No white background removal required. :)

For the drawing of Princess Peach, I took a photo of the original with my iPhone and edited the color and lighting in Adobe Camera Raw (I do this for every single photo I use). Then I added a little frame that was included in the elements kit I was using. The frame was almost the same color as the background, so I added a gray stroke around it to match the inner border that was already there.
Frame: Sequoia Tree Elements by Sara Gleason

I got the Mario Party 8 Wii game cover via Google image search also. I tried taking a photo of the actual case, but there was a glare, and it didn't look right. I thought about scanning it, but figured I'd get better results searching for an image to use instead.

Journal Card


I didn't do much to this card at all. I considered wrapping the text around a path to follow the curve of the banner, but I couldn't remember how to do it, and didn't feel like doing the research. Ha. :) So, I adjusted the alignment and line breaks to fit. One bonus of full Photoshop over Photoshop Elements is the ability to set different alignments within the same text box. The top section is right aligned, while the lower part (under the banner) is justified. Details, details...
Card: So Much to Say Journal Cards by Splendid Fiins
Fonts: Bebas Neue (Mon, Fri), Segoe Script (dash), and F25 Executive (journaling)

Well, that's all for the deconstruction of this page. I don't think I'll be doing this every week (I'm too long-winded!), but I will be back to do the right side! :)