This is the first year that I’ve participated in Project 365, and I have to admit that I’m really proud of myself. It really has become habit for me to grab my camera at a couple of different points throughout the day to photograph whatever happens to catch my eye. I don’t keep it with me ALL the time, but it is out and accessible, and that makes it easier for me (or the girls, for that matter) to pick it up and grab a shot.

Because I do this several times a day each day, I often end up with more than one photo to highlight each day. For my general Photo 365 project, I do select just one picture on which to focus and briefly journal about each day. (You can see my weekly archives here, and read more about how I plan to organize my printed project here.)

What I love about these photos is that they do a great job of revealing lots of little details about the people who live with me: my husband and my two girls. (Of course, the photos I take also reveal something about my own personality, but that’s a topic for a different post). By reorganizing the way that I keep these photos archived, I have plenty of scrapping material at my fingertips when it’s time to create a new layout.

Once I’ve chosen my weekly photos for my Photo 365 project, I move a full-size edited version of that photo to a monthly folder within a larger folder named, appropriately, Photo 365. Then I put another copy of that photo into one of the following folders: Cass, Cami, Chris, Beatrice, home, places we go, work, or miscellaneous. Then, when I’m in need of something to scrap, those folders are one of the places to which I turn. I’m usually looking for common elements within several photos that will help me to scrap several pictures from different days.

Take this layout, for example.

Credits: Everyday Celebrations papers, elements, journal bits, and flair from Audacious Designs; Wonky Templates 5 from Lauren Reid Designs; Rockabilly alphabet from Audacious Designs

I noticed that several of my photos feature a number of quirky things that Cami does – things that I know I want to remember, because they are very much a part of who she is at 8 years. Converting the pictures to black and white helped to unify them, and the tags gave me a fun location for my journaling.

I turned this layout into a template, and it’s now available in my shop: Quirky Tags 12×12 Template.

Even better, you can get it for FREE with the purchase of my new Defining You: Self-Paced Journaling Kit.

This journaling kit is designed to help you capture every tiny nuance about the important people in your life. Containing a two-page lesson on characterization, the kit offers strategies for journaling those oft-overlooked quirks of personality, the little details that really help bring a person to life in your scrapbook pages. It also gives you a way to use some of those random shots you end up with that never seem to fit anywhere. The kit includes 80 journaling prompts and 5 8×8 templates, perfect for putting together a mini-album.

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About Audrey Neal
Sometimes I’m really surprised at the things I’m lucky enough to be able to say about myself in bios like this. I’m a wife and a mama. I’m a teacher and a grant coordinator. I’m a picture taker and a story recorder, a digital designer and a scrapbook author. I’m a book devourer, a music lover (especially live), a wannabe globe-trotter. I’m happy, I’m geeky, I’m incredibly blessed.

You can connect with Audrey at the following places:

blog | audacious designs | twitter | facebook

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Thank you for guest blogging Audrey!

audacious designs giveaway
I am sponsoring a $5 gift certificate giveaway to Audrey’s shop: Audacious Designs. To enter for your chance to win simply leave a comment below. You have until Saturday, May 1st at 9:00 pm (PST) to enter. You can get an extra chance to win if you tweet/facebook/blog this. Be sure to come back and post links to your tweet/facebook/or blog as a new comment entry for EACH thing you do. ONE winner will be drawn at random and announced when I return from vacation, after May 3rd.