I’ve always loved summer. Growing up on the Gulf Coast acclimated me to the heat, and I’ve always enjoyed the carefree and nonchalant air that summer exudes.

When I thought about what inspiration I could share this month, I settled on the idea of documenting A Day in the Life, summer style. You know I love a story driven layout. We’re probably all familiar with December Daily, and maybe even A Week in the Life — but I wanted to dial it back and document all the little nuances of a summer day.

What does a summer day look like to you? Maybe you stay in bed longer, or stay up later, or both. Maybe you linger a little longer on the front porch or over a meal. Maybe you relax, or hide away in the cool A/C. Whatever your summer days hold, here’s your invitation to document A Day in the Life.

For my day, I chose nine blocks of time from morning to night: 6:30, 8:30, 10:30, 12:30, 2:30, 4:30, 6:30, 8:30, and 10:30. Then I thought about what my normal, routine day held during that two hour time period. I made a list of some ideas as I brainstormed and then I refined it down to nine. (Spoiler: I omitted playing games on my phone.) And then I went searching in all of my July photos for some pictures to support my list of my typical summer day.

I knew this needed to be a double page. I wanted the real estate to give each photo its time in the spotlight, and I wanted some room for embellishments, and also for my journaling. Working from a nine photo sketch, I selected photos that supported the sketch, that matched the orientation, and that would also hold a crop well. I chose to put my photos in chronological order and I enjoyed creating little time stamps to place onto each photo.

It wasn’t hard selecting paper, because Story Foundations: Carefree has so many bright and pretty papers. I selected the light blue to represent sky, the green to represent grass, the light orange to represent the sun, and the bright pink to represent all the pretty summer crape myrtles we have in Texas. The chevron cuts move your eye across the page, just like my photos move you through the day. I loved adding a little texture to the page by stitching along each chevron. I couldn’t resist the stripe or the plaid papers - both serving to tie it all together.

For my title, I went with the yellow alphas and I thought presenting it all lowercase lent a casual charm to it, much in the same vein as a summer afternoon. I placed it on the bottom left to balance out the embellishment cluster on the top left and the photo cluster on the top right.

For my journaling, I picked a cute journal card, and laid it down in paragraph form and placed it on the right side, lending some balance to the spread and some support to the photo cluster.

For the embellishment cluster, I just had fun with all the cute stickers. I anchored the stickers with two journal cards, and love how they look perched along the stripe. To me, one glance at the page and you can immediately tell it’s a summer story. The embellishments support the theme so well.

Finally, I chose my two photos for the cluster to be me with my people. All of the photos along the bottom represent more of what I do during the day, and I wanted to call out, or emphasize, my time with my mom and with my husband. I’m fortunate to live a very good life, and documenting it with this collection was truly a joy. I know years from now, I’ll be so glad I took the time the record this season of life right now.

I’d love to invite you to consider documenting a day in your own summer life. Maybe you choose nine time slots like I did, or maybe your story works better with five, seven, ten, or twelve. The number doesn't matter nearly as much as capturing the moments that make up your everyday life.

In fact, documenting A Day in the Life would be a wonderful project to revisit every season. After all, our everyday lives change with the seasons—and our everyday lives are absolutely worth remembering.

Here is the process video: