Project Life Epic USA trip Part 2

Hi everyone

So I'm back to share some more of my Project Life - documenting our trip to the USA last year.

I'm doing it in stages as it's such an epic project, and even the photographing and blogging takes time.

My last post (the first one) featured our time in Disneyland....truly the most magical place on earth. You can read about that HERE.

This time I'm showing the next two double spreads....LEGOLAND and

So first up....LEGOLAND

I used mainly bright colours and basically got the inspiration from the colours of Lego.

Here's the left side:

As we were there around Halloween time I included some pumpkin paper too.

Here's the right side:

Sorry for the blur.....the glare on the plastic sleeves.  Grrrr

I again included an envelope which I reinforced with cardstock and added holes to it.  This is a place to store our maps.  I really wanted to be to take out our maps from time to time and look at them. So this method works well.  It also prevents having to put holes directly into the maps. I just added a few decorations to the front (above).

 

 

 

 

Again I added lots of extra photos using my trick with washi tape to  create a hinge so I can add in journaling and photos without taking up extra pockets.

 

 

LEGOLAND really was fun.  

Lots of great rides and rollercoasters (yep I love them!)

The lego sculptures scattered around the place were amazing!!  Absolutely blew my mind! 

 

We had read that this park was for under 10's - our kids at the time were 15, 13 and 12 - but we really wanted to do it as the youngest is a HUGE lego fan.  Always has been and I think always will be.

So we made this day happen and you know it was soooo worth it. 

I think suitable for ALL ages. Definitely.

 

 

Next up is a spread about landing in Texas....where our family lives and how lovely and emotional it was, and how we got to have some down time after a crazy first week!

 

 

I went with American colours and also added in some travel themed cards.

 

Here's the left side:

 

 

Again the glare.  Yuk!

 

 

 

And the right:

 

 

 

Again more hinged bits created with washi tape.

 

 

I love how these create interaction.

 

 

 

A few of you have asked how did you decide which photos to use?

 

I took 4,000 photos and ended up with approximately 400 in the album.

 

Firstly as I'd scrapped spreads in themes, rather than day by day (for example, Disneyland, LEGOLAND, Family, a wedding etc) I thought about the most important stories within these themes and selected a few photos to go with that.

 

The themes I have created a spread for are:

Disneyland x 3

LEGOLAND x 1

Texas x 1

Family x 1

Family Wedding x 1

Few days spent with brother x 1

Few days spent with sister x1

Sports (we went to an NBA and NFL game whilst there)

Random stuff (things we thought were funny, our hire car - stuff like that)

Los Angeles x1

Universal Studios x1

Muscle Beach/Santa Monica x 1

Leaving x 1

 

I then thought about some 'iconic' shots from each theme, for example, at Disneyland meeting Mickey Mouse.  With these I selected just one. The best one.  Usually the one with all of us in it.  Each child often had a photo by themselves and then us altogether. So as much as I'd like to include them all, I limited myself to just choose one.

Although sometimes I selected a photo with a specific child in it if the story was more pertinent to them. For example, with the LEGOLAND picture out the front I selected the one with the child who adores Lego and was the most excited about this day.  In fact I have a great photo of us all throwing our hands up which I like more, but THIS day was for HIM so that photo tells the story better.

I also tried to put each person on a spread somewhere - so if I had a few photos of the same child - I would remove one or two and add in whichever child hadn't been featured yet.

 

It's really hard selecting photos. But throughout the process I would tell myself that it's better to just get it done, and that in 10 years I would be so glad for WHATEVER documentation I had done.

 

I hope this helps!!

 

I'll be back soon with some more spreads to share!