My First Project - Kassandra's 1st Year Album

[SgD DESIGNS]

Hello SgD Scrappers!

Kassandra will be turning 1 Year old in April 24th! I know... times flies! And for her 1st year birthday I want to make a digital scrapbooking album that I will print and show during her party.

The Digital Scrapbooking Album is -of course - about her 1st year.

I am giving myself one month to complete the albumn and I am a little worry that the one-month commintment, but as I think about it, I only have one month left to do it, since I send my layouts to get printed online and it can take up to a week to get them shipped back to me.

So, I think one-month is the only way to actually get this done. Plus, the closer I get to the birthday party date, the worse I am going to be with time and party preparations.

I am also only giving myself 1 hour a day to work on the project. NOT including the weekends. So, is like 5 hours a week. I am doing this because I also want to see if I can actually be a little more efficient on completing my albums. I guess we will see, if one hour a day is enough.


So, here is my master plan:

GOAL - To Complete Kassandra's 1st year 20 Page album by March 21.

GOAL Details and Schedule:

Week 1:
Select at least 25-30 photos for the albumn. Organize the photos by months. This will make it easier when creating the pages in cronological order. Make all photos adjustments, if they need them. Decide which photos will go together on each page.

Day 1 - Select 30 photos
Day 2 - Organize the photos in chronological order, decide which photos go on each page.
Day 3 - Make 10 photos adjustments
Day 4 - Make 10 photos adjustments
Day 5 - Make 10 photos adjustments


Week 2:
Select the Digital Scrapbooking materials and themes: kits, quick pages, templates, page titles and prompts. Select 20 QPs and 20 Templates, even though I only planning to create a 20 page album, just to give my self a little room to change my mind if I want to.

Day 6 - Select all digital scrapbooking kits to use
Day 7 - Select at least 20 Qps
Day 8 - Select at least 20 Templates
Day 9 - Identify 15 page titles or prompts
Day 10 - Identify 15 page titles or prompts

Week 3:
Create Layout Pages 1-10.
Yeah, this is scary, 10 pages a week, is like 2 pages a day. I am only giving myself 1 hour a day to complete this project - NOT including weekends. So, is really only 5 hours per week. So, the challenge here is to complete 1 layouts in 30 mins. But, if you think about it, the photos are selected, fixed and the prompt identified. So, it should be just a matter of "putting it together". Also, depending on how much time I spent on the 1st layout, I might just use a Quick Page on the second layout for that day. This will buy me time.

Day 11 - Create two pages. One using a QP, one using the template.
Day 12 - Create two pages. One using a QP, one using the template.
Day 13 - Create two pages. One using a QP, one using the template.
Day 14 - Create two pages. One using a QP, one using the template.
Day 15 - Create two pages. One using a QP, one using the template.

Week 4:
Create Layout Pages 11-20.
The same as last week applies here.

Day 16 - Create two pages. One using a QP, one using the template.
Day 17 - Create two pages. One using a QP, one using the template.
Day 18 - Create two pages. One using a QP, one using the template.
Day 19 - Create two pages. One using a QP, one using the template.
Day 20 - Create two pages. One using a QP, one using the template.


I will try my harderst to post my daily progress --the work that I got done on my daily digital scrapbooking hour. If not, definately weekly, but I rather do it daily. And of course, I will post all pages at the end of the project.

And here we go.... let the timers begin!


BTW - if anyone wants to join me in this project challenge to create their own album, just copy this post, modify it to describe your project ( I recommend that you live the projec schedule the same, unless your project is completely different) and post it as a new post under this forum category.

[SgD DESIGNS]

Day 1 - Results.


OK. Here we go. I timed myself and it did took me less than 1 hour to select the pictures. But, since I also had to make the pictures preview (below), then made me about 10 mins late.

Also, I couldn't just select 30, there were sooooo many. :-)

But that is OK. I copy them all to a directory name "Photos" under the Kassandra's Project directory. Just to get things organize. This will give me a little bit more room when trying to select the final photos, which will happen tomorrow.

Here is my Project directory structure so far:

Project

-Kassandara 1st Year Albums

- Photos
- Project Files and Previews

Organizing the photos in chronological order was a breeze because windows vista has the option of organizing the photos based on the date that they were taken, so it only took me a minute to do that. So, that was good.



Here is the preview:





Enjoy!

Norma

[SgD DESIGNS]

Day 2 - Results

On Day 2, I created 20 Directories and group the photos that could go "together" on a page, or at least that were related or taken on the same day.

I still have more than 100 photos, but at this point, I though it could take a long time to take a closer look at each of them and figure out which should be removed. So I left them like that, thinking that today, when I actually get to "fix" the photos, that I could remove the ones that were just un-fixable or just not so good.

I endup with 20 directories with an average of 6 images... a lot!

That was it for Day 2.

Norma

[SgD DESIGNS]

Day 3 - Results

I was a little worry about today, since today was the day I was schedule to fix 33% of my images and I have more than 100 of them, scatter on 20 directories.

So, to save time, I loaded up all of the images under 1 directory into one big photoshop file. Photoshop has a very nice script that can load many files automatically on one single photoshop psd file. The script is under File->Scripts->load files into stack.

Once all of the files were loaded, I made the photo adjustments. I adjust the color, contrast and level. Then I moved to the next photo in my layer, but if the photo was not good enough or was too blurry or just plain bad, then I removed it from my layers and only kept the good ones.

Once all of the photo adjustments were done, I group the files on possible pages. Some directories had so many images, that I could make 3 layouts from them, so I decided to put the group files in order within the photoshop layered file and to also make notes as to whether the photos were going to make a one-page, two-page or a three-page layout(s).

As I did this, I started getting ideas about the journaling or title pages to use, so I created a text layer for each of those possible titles or journaling ideas, just so that do not forget them, because I know the minute I am ready to start writing titles, I am not going to remember any!

Here is how my photoshop layered file looks for one directory:





That's it!

Norma

[davidcoty@tx.rr.com]

This project just seems daunting to me! LOL
Although the reason I started scrapping was a similar project: years ago I wanted to create a scrapbook for my husband with all the Christmas cards we had sent over the years...simple enough, right? Well, that project got a life of its own and it turned into a year long project of scrapping (paper scrapping, mind you!) the last 10 years of our life! LOL But I did manage to finish that first huge book (actually, a set of two books) and I have been scrapping ever since. When I think back to that time I really don't know what possessed me to start!

If I had to do it all over again I would DEFINITELY do it digitally!
Good luck with your project! I can't wait to see the final LO's! Hope you'll share them with us!

[SgD DESIGNS]

yeah, that is what happens. You start with a simple project and it just keep getting bigger and bigger. Initially I wanted to just scrap 30 photos, but when I tried to select them within my schedule time frame, I just couldn't, so I picked most of her pictures collected thru the year, which added to more than 100! and I still can't decide which ones I am going to scrap and which ones are just going to leave for another occassion. I am hopping that once I decided on the templates and QPs, it will be easier to select and un-select.

We will see... and of course, I will definately share the layouts! :-)

[faye19]

Nice job Norma... Keep it up. In the long run you and your daughter will appreciate when its completed.

[SgD DESIGNS]

This week has been so crazy for me. Long story short - I was unable to give myself my one-hour-a-day to work on Kassandra's Album Project. So, instead I decided to give myself the 5-hour-a-week in just one day. And it has paid off.

I went into each of my photo directories and selected one or two templates that I think will go well with the group pictures that I have on each directory.

I also selected the journaling for each group/directory pictures. For some, I even typed in the poem or message that I will use in the page in a word text file and add it to the directory.

I also put link or previews of the kits that I am planning to use. I had been debating whether I should just use the "It's a Girl Collection" for the entire albumn, after all, I designed that collection just for Kassandra and this will also give the album a uniform look. So, I think for the majority of the album I will use that kit, but I *might* add other kits, like the "Girly Monkey collection" and the "Princes Papers" so I put them on my Digital Scrapbooking Material directory. I also put on that directory other tools, like scallopped templates, borders, doodles, and just tools that might come on handly.

I had been sooo tempted to start the layouts. I just want to jump in!!! But I know this is not the most efficient way... and I want to stick to the plan. I know for sure, this is the best efficient way to get my album done.

I am so excited about this album, I just hope the older sisters don't get jelous. :-) To make sure that this didn't happend, I promised them I was going to print the layouts that I created for them before to add them to their own scrapbook albums.

[davidcoty@tx.rr.com]

Good job Norma! I am so excited about this project! I can't wait to see the results!

[SgD DESIGNS]

So, this is where I am with Kassandra's Project... based on my schedule, I should had created six pages... and YES, I have!! Two are double, so they count for two. :-)

Page 1: Kassandra is borned!




Page 2 and 3: This is the book about me...








Page 4 and 5: And everyone wanted to hug me...





Page 6: Getting my beauty sleep