here we go! 2014 Project Life Title Page

First, I just wanted to thank everyone for the great feedback on the Collect Photo App video tutorial. I've been wanting to share for a long time now and it just felt like I couldn't put if off any longer. Yes, I'm a perfectionist! And I work a lot. So that doesn't mix well for me with blogging regularly. Yes, there are people that can do it. I just happen to need some work in that area. And that's ok.

As part of the things I'm working on this year, one thing that I want to improve on is overcoming my perfectionism a bit. "Embrace imperfection" is what they say. I'm working on it a little at a time. Basically, I just want to get more things done. Finished. Be okay with them not being perfect. 

The reason I wanted to bring this up is because like many of you, I've been intrigued for quite a few years now on the idea of documenting my everyday life and using pocket pages like Project Life® to bring it all together. In my class at Big Picture Classes -- Project Life Lessons, I share my history with Project Life. Not the shiny, perfected or finished volumes you might expect. No, I'm here today admitting I haven't finished one completely. Nope, not one.

And that's okay. (deep breath here)

Because what we are attempting to do is quite amazingly daunting! To not only live our crazy busy and imperfect lives, but to then attempt to document it with photos and words and whatever products we want to add. And then, some are able to share it regularly! I just think it's amazing that we do this. I really do try to cheer on anyone attempting to do this. I truly do think it's amazing…and worth it.

So, to keep from rambling on way too long, I'll just say that 2013 was my best attempt at completing a Project Life album. I started very strong after I found the app Collect, and started using that to collect my photos and stories, and then simply printing those cards out. The nice thing is, I have a basic structure to my albums, and all I really need to do is export and print out a few more months, finish up some overview journaling and call it good. I'm actually pretty close.

And I'm pretty excited about that.

Which leads me to 2014. I debated how to set up my album. Would I continue with the same approach that I had in 2013? Change it up? Monthly? Weekly? Both? In the end, I'm keeping it the same (which is both.)  I'll post more about that in some upcoming posts hopefully this week. I'm trying to overcome thinking I have to share everything in one post. Hoping to be a bit more regular this year.

So without further rambling, here is my title page for 2014. I'm using a Design A Becky Higgins Project Life® page protector as the title and the intro page for each month (more info to come on that.)

My best advice for creating a title page if you are starting out? Keep it simple. Follow the placement cards in your Project Life® kit if you would like, add a photo, your name and the year and call it good.

For this year I am using Paislee Press printables, and printables from the digital Midnight edition of Project Life + pieces from my stash including from the Studio Calico Project Life® kit. The adventure transparency is from Tina Azmus (Life Love Paper) and was in one of the Studio Calico kits last year. The star paper is from Cosmo Cricket. White border added to the photo using a Tracy Larsen template from her Simply White collection. Here is another look at it in my album. Love that you can see a card from the next page peeking through the transparency. 

Planning on posting more of my plans and process this week, including how I use the Collect app photos cards. Thanks for all of your support and if you have questions, I'm happy to help!

Just Like Magic | Video Tutorial on Printing 3x4 photo cards for Project Life® from Collect Photo App and Persnickety Prints

Hello cute happy stack of photo cards! So happy to have been better about printing photos this past year.

Have been wanting to share this for quite a while. If you've been following my Project Life® in 2013, you will know that I've used photo cards printed from an iPhone app called Collect Photo App for the majority of my layouts.

First, a little history. I started printing these cards for Project Life® by saving each photo card (which includes the date and the journaling) to my camera roll, then cropping to 3x4 in Photoshop Elements, and then printing at home. It worked great at first because I was keeping up each week. As life got busier, I continued to use Collect to add photos and journaling, but cropping and printing out a month or more at a time felt very daunting.

So I tried uploading and printing from Pernickety Prints. I've used them before and really love their quality and customer service. Plus, they already print the 3x4 photos specifically to fit the Becky Higgins Project Life® page protectors. (I use Design F)

It was a trial and error, mainly due to complex things like photo ratio and print bleed. Thankfully, Chari at Persnickety Prints understands all of that and I was able to contact Stuart at Collect and both of them worked some magic.

Now, with the upgraded Pro version of Collect, you can easily export the photo cards, upload to Pernickety Prints, order them and then enjoy putting your layouts together when you they arrive. I usually do a month or more at a time to get a discounted rate on the 3x4 cards, plus that's usually when I finally get around to doing it!

**PLEASE NOTE: Be sure to select the Project Life 3x4 size if you are using Becky Higgins pocket pages. These are just slightly smaller than 3x4 and Persnickety will trim to 2.88x4 inches versus the full 3x4. 

Here's a sample of the cards I ordered in October. This stack was June - Sept 2013. I'm still working on getting them finished up but most all of these are in pocket pages and in my albums. I'll try to share the finished versions eventually.

Here's a sample of how I use these in my Project Life®.

In this video I show you through how to export from Collect and upload to Persnickety Prints. I use their LifePics app on my phone to upload, and then when I log into their site, those photos are there waiting for me. I love it. The first part of the video shows exporting from Collect and the second part shows uploading to Persnickety Prints.

And there it is! Hope that helps! I'm thinking about sharing another video on how to put two of the card s on a 6x4 (landscape canvas), and then you could use that to either print at home or send to your favorite photo developer. I use either an app called PicFrame or Photoshop Elements. Here's a link to a tutorial from Ali Edwards to get you started.


The steps to export: (in Collect)

1. Go to your calendar view. Tap on the bottom left rectangular box with the arrow on it.
2. Tap Export Photos.
3. Pick your dates. (leave it as it if you want to print the month you are in)
4. Tap Export Style.
5. Choose your photo size. (I choose 3x4 for my Project Life® pages)
6. Be sure add print bleed for best results.
7. Tap on the Back arrow at the top left.
8. Tap the bottom grey bar titled Export to Camera Roll
9. Photo cards will be found on your camera roll.

Steps to upload and print:

1. Download Life Pics app and connect with your Persnickety Prints account (skip this step and just upload from your computer if you choose after transferring your photos to your computer.)
2. Open Life Pics
3. Find the photos you want to upload on your camera roll (I make a separate folder to make this easier sometimes)
4. Tap the photo to select them.
5. Tap Upload.
6. Log into Persnickety Prints, find your photos under the date you uploaded.
7. Select what you want to order and select "Project Life 3x4**" size. (scroll down past the first 3x4 option)
8. Order and then enjoy them when you get them! Persnickety Prints has great customer service and will help you with any problems.

**Be sure to select the Project Life 3x4 size if you are using Becky Higgins pocket pages. These are just slightly smaller than 3x4 and Persnickety will trim to 2.88x4 inches versus the full 3x4. 

For more information on Project Life® by Becky Higgins, click here.

For more information on Persnickety Prints click here for info on their site about their mobile app and here for information on printing for your Project Life® For the link to the iPhone Life Pics app, click here.

note: I did receive some print credits while figuring out the printing process, but I'm sharing this tutorial because I wanted to share something that has helped me tremendously with my memory keeping this year. 

2013 Year in Review using Collect Photo App

Oh the year in review. I always mean to create a fantastic year in review and somehow I never get around to it. Until this year.

Since I've already collected the photos and stories, this was as simple as creating a video in the Collect Photo App, saving it to my camera roll and sharing! Just like magic.

Here's my 2013 Year in Review! Enjoy!

2013 Year in Review using Collect Photo App from Annette Haring on Vimeo.



also trying out different ways of sharing these. and yes, i still need to finish up the captions for November. (I took up Jamaica's idea of Do Nothing November and loved it). Amazing I got some photos done! So happy with all I was able to Collect this year!

January 2014 | New Beginnings and an Introduction to Collect Photo App

Hello 2014!

As a new year begins, many of us choose new projects to work on through the year. My main photo project this year is to continue Project Life ® and continue using the Collect Photo App to collect the photos and stories for my album.

But first, a little back-story.

I began 2013 looking for a way to do better at keeping up with Project Life ®. I knew I wanted to primarily use iPhone photos and stumbled upon Collect thanks to this article from Photojojo. Now, I've tried 365 projects before and they have always been an epic fail. For some reason, this just works for me.

I hope this helps if you are thinking of starting a new photo project and want an easy way to keep up with it on your iPhone, or if you are using Project Life® and would like a way to keep up with iPhone photos better. I'll be back to share how to print these in my next video.

The basics: I simply add a photo to the calendar, add my caption and then print it out to use in my album.

There are lots of other fun features you can use, but that is the main idea.

The cool thing is that I kept up the best I have ever done at both this and Project Life ®. To check out a few sample layouts of how I used the printed cards, click here.



Collect Photo App Introduction from Annette Haring on Vimeo.

Note: if you click on the link to the video on Vimeo it will have the HD version is a bit clearer.

Thanks for watching! Also hoping to be a little more regular here on the blog. In the meantime, you can find me on Instagram.