Project Life: July 2014, Part 1

It's been so long since my last Project Life update!  I almost decided to just skip ahead and start showing 2015, but since that's what I did last year, going from April 2013 to suddenly it being the start of 2014 I thought I would continue showing the end of 2014 so the whole year will actually be blogged.

I'm picking up in July, after getting back from our trip to Chicago.  This is one of our busiest months of the year because we have four family birthdays besides the normal business of the summer.  I had a collection of random photos taken over July that I wanted to include didn't always have space for them chronologically.  So on the left side above, I've put them in sort of a monthly opening page.

On the left side are pictures from my daughter's over night stay at her Grandma's.  This was actually after the Fourth of July, but since I had enough photos for half a spread, I placed it here in the album.  I figure that since I date most things, it's okay to have things occasionally out of dated order.

On the Fourth of July we have been going to my son's Godmother's house and they come to ours on Memorial Day.  It's nice to kind know what the plans are for these patriotic holidays and not feel like I need to find something special for us to do.

Did you know that Simple Stories 6X8 pages fit right into WRMK albums?   This design can blend into the Design A page beneath it, so I put a paper tab on the right side to help it stand out.

Here is the left side of the July 4th spread.  Most of the supplies used on these pages are by Bella Blvd, the All American collection.  On top of the red "fun" letters, I even used the title part from a piece of paper and turned it into a flag.

The reason why the pictures from my daughter's sleepover at Grandma's didn't fit in chronologically is because right after we picked her up we went to my parents' house.  These photos took up a full spread and I thought the store was told in a more cohesive manner when it was all together on one spread and not with the start on the right side, with the rest on the back of it.

We had to spend the night at my parent's, right after picking up my daughter because my Godmother wanted the kids to help demonstrate motor development for a class she was teaching at a college near my parents' house.  It was early in the morning so I didn't want the stress of getting them up early and then driving for over an hour, probably longer with the morning commute, in the hope of arriving on time.

The day the kids were part of the demonstration, was also Brad's birthday.  After the kids helped out my Godmother, we had to get back home to finish preparing for Daddy's big day.  That's on the left side, followed by an insert and a 12X12 layout about Big Truck Day at our library.

I think Big Truck Day was one of my son's favorite days of the summer.  It's was part of the reading program and we got there early so he'd have plenty of time to sit in everything.  He loved it!  I wanted to use up some of the cute construction themed supplies I've been collecting so it was fun to break it out and do a very basic layout.

Since I had a full layout, I decided to do another on the other side but as you can see, for both layouts, I stuck with a grid theme to make it easier and quicker to put together.

I had a lot of low quality cell phone pictures from this trip to Ikea that I wanted to use but didn't want to devote that much space too.  A trading card page protector was the perfect way to include them.  I used Simple Stories Sn@ap supplies throughout this spread and insert to help tie everything together.  Lots of pictures and lots of color but I don't find the over all result too visually busy because it all coordinates.

For the last page in Part 1, here is a more typical weekly spread.  I'll be back soon with more from last summer's July.  I've got beach trips and birthdays to come!

I have linked this post up at: Day to Day: Project Life Monday.