Tips For Creative Gorgeous Project Life Layouts

There are so many fabulous and inspiring women in the Project Life/ documenting memories community. I love how encouraging and uplifting we all are for one another, especially on Instagram. I'm always meeting girls who tell me "I love your layouts! So pretty!" So today, I wanted to share my tips on how to create gorgeous Project Life spreads.

Note- my personal style is "Bright, White, Light with Polka Dots, Floral Prints and Stripes." I love that gosh darn catchy tag line and it fits my idea of the perfect layout. This isn't everybody's style so these tips won't work for people who aren't into my layouts. But if my style is your jam, here's whats up...

My Tips for Creative Gorgeous Project Life Layouts

1. White space. Keep it clean, keep it simple. Give your photos room to breathe. White space is my all time fav.

2. Black & white with pops of color. I prefer my pops of color to be light blue or fuchsia; but as long as I start with a black and white base, I'm pretty much ganna love where my layout goes from there no matter what accenting colors I use.

3. Embellish. Pockets of sequins, wood veneers and glitter are some of my trusty embellishing techniques. I'm also a big fan of Thickers and adorable paper clips. There are so many options here. Don't feel confined to work only within the limits of paper! Play around with some new mediums and see what you fall in love with.

4. Mix brands. In each layout I create, I use a combination of brands, core kits, mini kits, pocket pages, etc. I love mixing my brands and kits so much because they compliment one another without being too matchy-matchy. Using only one brand/edition throughout a spread is too boring for me.

5. Patterned Filler Cards. I love using patterned cards with stripes, polka dots or floral prints in my layouts. They keep things feminine and gorgeous which is just my style. I already mentioned I like to start with a lot of black and white cards as the base in my spreads. From there, I choose a color that shows up often in my photos for that spread and try to pick patterned cards with colors that compliment or match the pops of color in my photos.

6. Use the same filler card 2-4 times. Seriously, this is one of the easiest and best ways to tie together a spread! I love consistency and coordinating my pages throughout a spread. The easiest way for me to achieve a pretty layout is by using the same patterned card twice or more in a layout. All of my favorite layouts use the same card two or more times!

7. Quality photos. They make all the difference in an album. When you start with great photos, you're already 10 times ahead of the crowd. I am so guilty of relying on my cell phone too often to capture moments- leaving me with grainy, warm or blurry photos. This year one of my resolutions was use a real camera more. It takes more intention to record your memories with a real camera, but it's so worth it. I still use a lot of cell phone pictures in my spreads, but I try to mix them in with my high quality camera photos to keep things looking decent.

8. Forgive yourself. It took me 6 months of "kind of doing" project life before I found my style and I fell in love with it. Sometimes you'll feel uninspired. Sometimes you'll hate a layout you make (and if you're anything like me, you'll take it all apart later and redo the whole thing.) Sometimes you'll feel like the whole project is too much work, too much time, too much money. And that's okay. Forgive yourself within your creative process (and in other areas of life, too!)



9. Use calendar cards. You can read about the ones I use here. I love using calendar cards to mark the start of a new month in my album, and I like to use a coordinating "month in review" card at the end of the month to summarize all the bigger moments that happened. I am usually SUPER bad at putting dates on my photos and I document in a monthly format, opposed to weekly, so these month in review cards are a great way to remind me what of the big moments that happened that month when I look back later.

10. Uplift others. Find your favorite creative gals on Instagram, follow their blogs, follow them on Pinterest. When they post something you love- tell them! Encourage, compliment and support others, always. This community is filled with the kindest most inspiring women. Keep it that way.

And there you have it, my top tips for creating gorgeous Project Life layouts. What tips would you add to my list? I would love to hear what your perfect style is!

xoxo,
Laura