This year I have been trying to keep life simple and that idea has extended to include our yearly family album.  Initially, I was going to do that by choosing a digital kit from one of my favorite designers and including lots of photos from our everyday life.  It sounded like a great plan until I started working on the January pages.  Nothing was turning out right – the kit didn’t have exactly what I was looking for, the colours weren’t coordinating well, and the templates for the photos were too small.

There was only one thing to do…  start from scratch and design everything myself!

After a month of working on paper designs, tags, cards, word art, and other elements, I finally finished the Simply 2015 digital kit and templates that will be a part of our family album.

Remember last weeks post about creating handwritten elements?  Well, there are thirteen handwritten words included in this kit.  I love how they add a personal touch!

For the last two years I have used the same basic page templates (inspired by Project Life) and this year I will use them again along with some new templates.  It is easy to just mix and match templates depending on the photos you have.

So here is how I combined everything (templates, digital kit, photos, journalling) to document the first three months of 2015:

The only elements on these pages not created myself are the monthly cards – they are from Paislee Press.

This year I wanted to add more fun facts about the family, favourite things, and quotes from the kids.  Along with great photos and kids art work, these are the things we will want to look back on when the kids are older.

I will continue to update the pages as they are completed, so stay tuned for more layout ideas!

Leah