Project Life

Yes, I got sucked into it too.

Mostly by the realization that I hadn’t done anything much with my photos since I stopped designing. You would think that I would have scrapped more, but no, somehow it went by the wayside with the hundreds of other project I did instead. And I got my creative outlet with the Art Journaling and crafting I was doing.

 

But, there were all the photos. And a glaring gap in albums for the year 2011 and it looked like 2012 was going to be much the same.

I thought of just putting together some photo books, but somehow that wasn’t very satisfying. Then I came across Project Life and it seemed like the answer for me. I could do as little or as much as I wanted, I could embellish or go for the clean and simple look, or both! And I could use a lot of my physical scrapbooking stuff as well as my digital! Perfect!

So my Project Life was born! Unfortunately none of the Becky Higgins Core Kits were available at the time, so I stocked up on the photo protectors and just got started. Yes, it meant not starting at the beginning of the year, but for this year, I just don’t care.

Like with so many things in my life, I wanted to give up the preconceived notion of what had to be in place before something could happen. I am trying more and more to start where I am, with what I have and do my best!

 

And you know, it was actually really easy to retrace the month that had already passed. Between my photos, my calendar and some Facebook updates to help, I managed to reconstruct things pretty well!

 

I’ve been learning along the way while doing this project, my likes and dislikes, what works for me, what doesn’t, how I want to organize things - even my scrapping style. I have never really paper scrapbooked before. I was always digital and have only started being hands-on again at the beginning of this year when I started art journaling.

But I have to say that even though Project Life was fairly work intensive initially, mostly because I felt the need to catch up on 3 months all at once, and I was making most things myself, I’m having great fun with this project! 

I spent a good amount of time with my Silhouette Craft Cutter initially, where I designed and cut a lot of tags, embellishments, words, arrows, letters etc. Even though that took a lot of time, it also saved a lot of money and it will the process much faster for me from here on out!

 

 

{Just imagine whole sheets of everything. I wanted to get a lot of the cutting out of the way while I was doing it!}

 

 

{I love tiny tags, so I made lots!}

 

 

{Ok, so I love tags in general!}

 

 

{I cut decorative borders and elements in a variety of patterns and papers.}

 

 

{And words!}

{I also made some  DIY decorative tape - tutorial coming soon!}

{And numerous sheets of alphabets in all sorts of sizes, colors and fonts!}

 

But maybe best of all - my children are having great fun with it too. They love to come and see what I’m recording, read what I have written, look at the pictures and add their own little cards, stories or pictures to it. They seem to be much more involved with this particular project than my digital scrapbook layouts. Don’t get me wrong, they LOVE those too, but Project Life gives us more of a chance to be hands-on together!

I also love that I now have a place to put so many more of the little bits and pieces I had kept in various boxes and folders. Report cards, little “he said/she said” quotes from the kids, ticket stubs, etc.

It all has not only a place now, but it has a story! And I am much faster at this than scrapping a full page for everything, which is always a bonus!

 

So, here are some photos of my project life folder. So far I have completed April, May and I’m almost up to date on June!

 

 

 

 

 

{For this page I scanned in the Letter from School with Max’s Test results. I also included this letter in the envelope page protector in the back though!}

 

 

 

{On this page I have a general day overview for the month, documenting anything slightly out of the ordinary. I also did a little card documenting some of the books the family read this month. And a card on how the garden progressed and I also scanned the pictures the kids brought home from school. The first  one is a self-portrait the kids drew at the beginning of the school year and the second is one they did in May!}

 

 

{Mother’s day! Since most of the cards I got from the kids were way too big to go in this folder, I quoted them on some cards. I also took screen shots of the electronic card  and gift I got from my husband!}

 

 

For the report cards I made an extra effort - well, they are our first report cards! I scanned in the outside of the report card pockets as well as the report cards themselves. Then I designed a print and cut in the Silhouette software and recreated the actual report cards with envelope, only on a 3”x4” scale. The report cards pull out, just like the real ones!  I also documented the weather for the month, which is somewhat of a page filler but still a great thing to look back on in years to come!}

 

 

 

{Tickets to a game are stapled onto a journaling card. The journaling is visible when you lift up the tickets!}

 

 

{I also like to include current events and news!}

 

 

{And when facebook tells a story too! In this example I had already written about the kid’s stomach virus. But then a day later my husband and I went down with it too, so I added that status screen shot!}

 

 

 

{It’s hard to get photos of myself into this album too, as I am usually the one taking the photos. So I took a car mirror snap shot with the phone while running errands!}

 

 

{I love to photograph the kids while they are sleeping. Not only for the cuteness, but also to show how their sleeping styles are changing over the years!}

 

{Some road trips really have nothing much to document other than that it happened. The scenery can be a little dismal and uninteresting around here, so I took a photo of the road ahead and used it for journaling.

 

So, this was a rather long and picture rich post! If you are still with me- thank you!

Are any of you doing Project Life? How are you getting on with that? Any tips and tricks to share?