January Project Life: Home and Away

So it's been a month and I am still going strong with Project Life. To the degree that The Belgian claims I am now more addicted to Project Life than instagram. Well folks, that is serious! 
I have completed most of January, but am now waiting to do a big Snapfish order to finish the last couple of weeks. I am finding  it useful to make notes each week and state which pictures I plan to use on the spread. I was going to take a monthly approach but have decided that a weekly approach may help me to be more selective with my photos - as January is sprawling on for spread after spread. It has been a busy month with a break in Belgium and a weekend in London with the Baby and sister. 
So my thoughts on creative a Project Life layout with holiday pictures? Just take the same approach as you would to any week otherwise you'll procrastinate producing it. I chose an orange and green colour scheme and just went for it.
It is also important to point out that at this point I had not yet raided my piggy bank and spent far too much at Hobby Craft so Project Life cards were in short supply. Instead I just cut up 12 by 12 papers and noticed that most American Crafts pads have cut apart pages with ready made journalling cards ready to use. I used mainly Crate Paper and Amy Tangerine on this layout.

I dug out my stamps and made good use of some sets I brought at Two Peas last year. The first is a Simple Stories set which includes the camera and 'Oh Snap' phrase. I think I will be using this stamp set a lot as cameras are my favourite and it works well with all of the little photos. The second set I was using are a Maggie Holmes set and they contain phrases like 'happy day' and 'oh so sweet' and I can see them being used lots on my Project Life pages too. 
My main embellishments here are Freckled Fawn enamel dots and washi tape that I purchased from ebay. I used my favourite free editing website - picmonkey to add text to the photo and I love this font too. 

My second layout is the 'home' part of January. I wanted to capture some of the more everyday moments of our lives - since its not all waffles and Belgian chocolate! So I got a sling selfie as we often go for a wander in the sling in the afternoon. I know there are more sophisticated means like a self timer app - but this does the job. I also documented our current obsession with Grey's Anatomy and captured the shot with our favourite snack - popcorn. I also included a photo montage that I created using an app on my phone - photogrid for the android. I printed these instagram pics with pologram which prints them in a poloroid picture style - which is super cute but I had to trim them to include them in this size pocket. I have also used origrami and was really pleased with the quality and effect and loved that you could get your caption printed onto the back of it too. 
I used lots of Dear Lizzie and Amy Tangerine and some of the Maggie Holmes Flea Market Project Life cards. The pastel colours fitted with the photos and the mood of the page. The bottom middle card I cut the word strips from a 12 by 12 sheet and then stapled them onto the card.

So I am still learning but felt pleased with how I used my existing stash to create these two layouts.

Have you found any ways to stretch your stash in a layout or Project Life spread?