The first week in July was jam packed with fun stuff that I absolutely wanted to document (or, I wanted to save at least a full page to devote to the Mets game so I adjusted accordingly), so I included a full 12×12 insert to have four pages for this week’s spread, and I’m so glad I did: this is one of my favorite weeks in Project Life so far.

The left side includes one of the busiest weeks I’ve ever seen at work, made even crazier thanks to the short week, as well as a super fun and low key barbecue at Dan’s sister’s on the 4th of July.

Here I’m using an Ormolu flair button along with my absolute favorite Martha Stewart/Avery labels.

Dan’s nephew is getting so big and he’s so happy all the time. The bbq we went to was full of amazing meats (ribs! chicken! steak!) grilled by Dan’s brother in law, and easy funtimes with Dan’s sister and brother and their significant others. This was my first foray into using Photoshop Elements to cut out and combine two photos (the colors were off thanks to the warm indoor light + backlit sliding door so I’m glad I was able to salvage them to include them in my book after all).

This is the front side of the insert, which is a Design D page (which I incidentally thought I’d use SO often because I like taking vertically oriented photos, but it’s so easy and straightforward to just keep using Design A all the time, plus I love the consistency). This covers Thursday and Friday, in which we met up with our former-NJ friends who were visiting from PA, I got some pizza lunch, and then hung out with Amy and Emily while the boys were at their nerd weekend.

I’m really happy with how the scalloped card looks, and I had to include the logo for Dan’s nerd conference.

The back of the insert, full of photos and journaling from the Mets/Cubs game I went to on the 7th at Citi Field with Kelly, Jodi, and my brother.

Favorite use of Elise‘s “you are here” stamp to point out our seats on the Citi Field map that came in the mail with the tickets. And the screenshot of us on the replay of the game, of course.

I had the hardest time getting these photos to work with Design D. I kept coming up with ideas that worked with Design A and had to keep messing with them and reprinting. I’m so happy with the result – because I love both shots (that came out cute despite how insanely hot and sweaty we all were!) and really wanted to include them. I ended up fading a corner of the shot of Kelly, Jodi and me and typing some journaling right on the photo using Photoshop. Plus, I couldn’t handwrite that much in that space, so getting to adjust the size until it fit perfectly was definitely the way to go.

And the coup de grace, of course: a full page photo of Citi Field, which I’m SO JAZZED about. I attached my ticket stub, too, of course. I ordered a 12×18 poster print from snapfish and then cut it down to fit into the slots. The price and quality of the print were perfect, and I was almost sad to cut it up into pieces, except that I knew how worth it would be.