Hey there. I started a new daily habit this year, and along with it, a new album project. When I was younger, I used to be a HUGE reader. Like "read a book a day" kind of reader. Somewhere along the way, most likely when I had the girls, I stopped reading. For the last several years, I've been telling myself that I wanted to get back into reading. But I just never seemed to make the time for it.
Well, this year, I'm doing it. I started reading my first book of the year at the beginning of January, and just finished my forth book of the year last night. I set a goal to read 25 books in 2020. I'd like to say I can read more than that, but I also know life gets busy, so I want to be realistic and not aim too high. I feel like I'm right on track already, having read 4 books in two months.
Book #1 | Talking As Fast As I Can, by Lauren Graham.
I knew I wanted to create an on-going album to document the books I read - an album that I can easily add to as I finish new books. I brainstormed quite a bit on what format and album size I wanted to do. I figured a 6x8" album would be the best fit.
I had two of these 6x8" black albums from Seven Paper (a short-lived spin off brand of Studio Calico) that I had found on a deals website years ago. They have bigger spines than the 6x8" albums I usually use, so I knew that I could fit a lot into these two albums.
While I picture myself using the pocket page with four 3x4" openings the most, I also have lots of the full sized 6x8" pages, the pages with two 3x4" openings and a 4x6" openings, and the one filled with fun 2x2" openings - so I will work with those as well, here and there, to use them up.
Since I want to do a title page of sorts at the start of the album, I used a full 6x8" page and printed my first book as a 6x8" photo to go on the backside. I'm taking simple photos of my books, using the same background to keep with the same look. And I've learned to take the photos of the books BEFORE I start reading them - since once I start reading, the cover doesn't lay flat anymore. Lol.
I got hung up trying to get this simple album going, and I think it's because I was trying too hard to use the digital reading themed products that I have. I will most definitely be using lots of those products, as I have a lot of filler type cards, journaling cards, and tons of digital stamps. But I'll also be using other Project Life type cards that I have in my stash, as well as patterned paper when needed.
I decided to do a card to go along with each book that has the book number for the year. So for this first book, I have the "book 01" on a PL filler card that I had on hand. I used a label from Kerri Bradford Studio's Label kit, opening it in Photoshop and sizing it to fit in the upper corner of the 3x4" card (knowing that I would be trimming a little off the edge).
I added the "book" to the label, using a digital stamp from Studio Calico's On The Shelf stamp set. Once I had one label ready, size-wise, I copy and pasted it to fill an entire page, and then printed it out. I now have plenty of "book" labels on hand and ready to go. I'll be stamping the numbers using Kerri's Printers Block | Numbers stamp set.
I will be adding a digital journaling card to go with each book, like the one above which is from In A Creative Bubble's Read Journaling Card kit. I wish I had it in me to do an actual review of each book - but I'm really not that deep. Lol. So this journaling will most likely be short and sweet, and somehow related to how I enjoyed the book (or didn't), why I picked it, etc.
The pocket pages above, each with four 3x4" pockets, will be the ones I turn to the most. They make perfect sense for the photo/cards I want to include. And while I know that not all of my book pages will coordinate side-by-side, it does make me happy that books 2 & 3 did coordinate, color wise ;)
Book #2 | Marriage Vacation by Pauline Turner Brooks.
I used a piece of pink and white striped patterned paper for my number card, and went with yellow for my stamped numbers to coordinate with the yellow ring on the book cover.
I used another digital journaling card from In A Creative Bubble's Read Journaling Card kit. The floral filler card was printed from the Project Life app.
Book #3 | Tempting Fate by Jane Green.
Once again, I used a digital journaling card from In A Creative Bubble's Read Journaling Card kit. I'll most likely be creating my own journaling cards for a lot of the books, using the wide variety of reading themed digital stamps that I have.
Both of the filler cards on this page were printed from the Project Life app. I thought the yellow with the navy blue hearts was perfect, as the book cover is blue with yellow text.
I'm really looking forward to filling up this album with books I'll be reading this year. I just finished book #4, so I need to get that added in next.
What a great idea. I have been reading so much this year but mostly on my i-pad and unfortunately I should have been writing down which books I've read because I can't always remember because I have so many LOL. I could see making an album like this but my photo's would have to be a digital picture of the covers since I don't actually have the physical books. Fun idea and a great way to remember if you liked the book or not too.
Posted by: Deneen Cook | March 05, 2020 at 02:54 PM
I absolutely love this idea! I have recently created a scrapbook layout based on a series of books I read and liked because I had some papers that reminded me of the cover but I never considered keeping an album of the books I read this year. I am a book-a-holic so this will be fantastic. Thanks for the inspiration!
Posted by: Korey | June 11, 2020 at 12:11 PM