Project Life Tuesday: 1.10.12

Well, I’m off to a great start this year. I spent a good part of Saturday finishing the unfinished journaling in my 2011 Project Life album and ordered the Oct/Nov/Dec prints to finish up the album. That’ll be next weekend’s project – to put those in and get the project wrapped up.

I also began my 2012 Project Life album. I have been so inspired by all the PL posts I’ve read and photos of other people’s albums. As I mentioned last week, I was a little undecided as to how I was going to approach this year’s scrapbooking. After reading the posts and looking at my past PL albums, I decided that was the way to go. So, I ordered the Clementine core kit and will use the leftover page protectors I have from the last two years until I run out of those. I also found a 12×12 three-ring album in my stash, so things are pretty well set at this point.

^^ My album and all my new PL supplies in one place, ready to go. ^^

I decided that I’m going to approach this PL album as any other “regular” scrapbook. One of the blogs I read mentioned that she approaches each pocket on a pocket page as an individual mini scrapbook page – and that she works to coordinate the pockets on a page, but tries to be creative with each pocket. That had sparks going off in my brain. THAT is what I’ve been missing so far – I have felt like my albums were very basic – functional and served a purpose, but I’ve missed the creativity of “traditional” scrapbooking.

So, I made a trip to Archiver’s on Friday with a friend and picked up a few extras to use to embellish and step outside the core PL kit. I’m also planning to use some of the overlays and templates that Ali Edwards & Cathy Zielske have on Designer Digitals to add a little more flair to my pages.

^^ Some of the new goodies I got from Archiver’s ^^

I’m pleased with the results so far.

My cover pages are inspired by Cathy’s – (her post is here)

And this first week of January warranted two two-page spreads because I wanted to tell the story of the hike. I may yet change it and put a 6×12 page in there so I have more room for journaling and photos as I felt like I was having to truncate my story to fit it into the 4×6 slot.

But, overall, I am very pleased with what I’ve done so far. And very excited to get going. My plan is to print my photos at home (unless there is a great sale somewhere) and maybe use a little of the Project Life digital supplies, too.

I’ll be sharing pages here (I hope) weekly – my plan is to work on the previous week’s pages each Saturday night.

Scrapbooking in 2012 (thoughtsalonglifeshighway.com)
Scrapbook Tuesday (thoughtsalonglifeshighway.com)
Project Life, Take Two + a free download for you (cathyzielske.typepad.com)

Scrapbooking in 2012

I’m still deciding on what I want to do with regards to my family scrapbook for 2012. I am vacillating between doing an all-digital album and doing what I’ve done the past two years – a combination of Project Life pages and digital pages tucked in between. That’s worked pretty well so far and I’m thinking that may be what I do again.

I like the way those albums have turned out… I get to have the ephemera of everyday life along with the pretty scrapbooked pages all in one place. But they are BIG albums – take a lot of space – and I’m wondering if maybe I want to do an all-digital solution this year. The book will be smaller if I do a digital book, but I’ll lose that touchy-feely stuff.

I have time, though, to think it through. Last year, I was in the same dilemma, so I just gathered all my stuff, as usual, and then when I finally made my decision (I think it was in March) I just had to order the Project Life supplies and get started.

I’m thinking I’m going to go with the same format as the last two years. I like being able to include the kids’ school work and miscellaneous things from our days – brochures, calendars, church bulletins, and the like.

Right now, I’m focusing on finishing the 2011 album!

And my December album. That one will be all digital pages – but I’m putting them in an 8.5×11 book with page protectors. The 8×8 December album last year was just too small for my tastes and 12×12 seems a little overkill for one month’s worth of memories. I found a red 8.5×11 album in my stash that I had purchased for another project, so I’m going to use it.

I’m hoping to show you some pictures from that album later this week and then I’ll have everything printed up all nice & pretty over on scrappingsimply.com. I love their processing (and pricing) and prefer the finish to what I get on my printer at home.

As far as other scrapbooking projects for 2012?

I’m taking Move More | Eat Well over on Big Picture Classes. So far, I love it. Loving the project, the inspiration and the camaraderie of the message boards. Lots of folks doing the same thing I am – trying to get fit and eat right.

Other than that, I have no big plans for scrapbooking in 2012. As busy as life is right now, that’ll probably be all I can handle… unless the irresistible project happens to present itself.

One never knows…

Scrapbook Tuesday (thoughtsalonglifeshighway.com)
Journal Your Christmas – are you in? (thoughtsalonglifeshighway.com)
More Scrappin’ (hooray) (thoughtsalonglifeshighway.com)

Scrapbook Tuesday

Well, I’m caught up on my Project Life album!

Mostly, anyway.

I went on a “retreat” this weekend with a girlfriend and spent about twelve hours on Saturday working on my album. I got May – November pictures in the pages (which included sorting through a TON of memorabilia, school papers, etc. and photos) and I’m now in the process of catching up on the journaling.

The pages are not fancy – but they are done. And right now, I’m happy with that. I’ll be supplementing with some digital pages I’ve done so the “fancy” will come with that.

I have to say, though, every time I do a Project Life/Project 365 album (this is my third year) I get discouraged about mid-year and slack off. Then I pick up steam again whenever I get a scrapbook weekend to catch up and I remember why I love this concept so much.

I love being able to snap those everyday, mundane things that make up our lives and that I wouldn’t necessarily dedicate an entire scrapbook page (and subsequent supplies) to but that really capture what our life is like right now… what is important to us, what captures our fancy, where we are spending our time.

I’m also planning to add in some printouts of my blog posts that correspond with some of the pictures – why re-write all of that? Why not just include it here? After all, I figure my blog is my online scrapbook!

I also really love how QUICKLY it comes together (once I sit down and actually DO it!) I remarked on Sunday morning that I wish I had the discipline to actually do the work on a weekly basis when the memories are fresh and stay caught up. Alas, that never seems to happen. But, my current method of using an iris project holder to keep my memorabilia and ephemera works pretty well.

Last weekend, I just dug around in that, put things in chronological order, slipped it into the appropriate page protectors or pockets and then filled in with photos and journal boxes after that was done. It works well for me.

It also frees me from feeling like I have to do my “normal” scrapbooking chronologically. Now that I do that mostly digitally, I like being able to bounce around where the inspiration strikes and having my PL album chronological frees me from feeling like I might miss something by jumping around with my other pages.

I’ll share some more pages in the coming weeks – I didn’t want to post 100 pages today – that would be rather boring, I think.

Scrapbook Tuesday (thoughtsalonglifeshighway.com)
More Scrappin’ (hooray) (thoughtsalonglifeshighway.com)
Journal Your Christmas – are you in? (thoughtsalonglifeshighway.com)

Scrapbook Tuesday

I didn’t get as much scrapbooking done during the holiday as I had thought I would. Actually, I just wasn’t feeling the creative burst to do so… That, and I know I’ll be doing a LOT of scrapbooking this coming weekend, so I focused more on other things (like knitting and reading and hanging out with the girls) than on scrapbooking.

I did manage to get one page done –

I think it turned out well – and it captures a sweet moment with Little Bit and me that I didn’t even know SuperMan took a picture of. This was at the cabin in North Carolina when we met my mom and stepdad up there for the weekend.

I’ll have lots more to share next week, I’m sure!

Scrapbook Tuesday

More pages to share with you today – not much scrapping last week, and probably not much again this week, but I’m off next week and hoping to get a little time carved out to scrap some.

These are from our trip to NC in October. I still have a lot of pictures to crop and do something with – we took over 400 in four days!

more to come! as soon as I have time to get to them!

Journal Your Christmas – are you in?

If you’ve followed my blog for any amount of time – at least a year, anyway – you know that I have a yearly project that I do to capture our memories of Christmastime…

It’s a self-paced class offered by Shimelle on her website and is an online class which consists of daily email prompts and suggestions for creating your own scrapbook or journal to capture your holiday memories.

The first year I participated (2009) I created a combination of traditional and digital pages – here are some examples:

Cover of the album & first page

One of the prompts was to capture the weather:

And here are a few digital pages I did:

You can view more of these pages over on my flickr pages.

And the second year (2010) are here –

They are digital – which I liked because I could keep up with the prompts more easily. I also used my blog to write a lot of what I would later put in my journal as I took the time to do the actual scrapbooking.

Looking back at the pages, I am getting really excited about getting started on this project again. I am going to start scouring the digital scrapbooking websites to find a good kit that has some pretty pages and embellishments to use. I think this year I will print the whole thing as a bound book (last year I printed the pages and slipped them into page protectors just in case I wanted to add anything that was last minute and non-digital content).

One of the things I like about Shimelle’s class is that, while the prompts are similar from year to year, I have found that my albums are so different each year. Depending on what is going on in our lives, with the kids and our friends and family, and what traditions or memories are resonating with me for the year.

This year, I’m hoping to get the girls more involved – maybe let them do some of the journaling and capturing their thoughts about the holidays.

There are quite a few other holiday scrapbooking projects – December Daily (Ali Edwards), 12 Days of Christmas (Big Picture Classes), etc. – but I find that Shimelle’s seems to inspire me the most. I love the fact that her prompts are not simply scrapbook-focused prompts. I can journal, write a blog post, take pictures, whatever. If that is all I do, I’ve still captured the story. If I decide to take it further and make a scrapbook out of it, then that is even better, but it’s not necessary.

I also like the self-paced aspect. I don’t feel like I HAVE to do something every day… I can do as I have time and am inspired. Both years, I’ve found that I tended to do two or three pages at once and then nothing for a few days. But you couldn’t tell when the project was finished because the prompts are so diverse.

So, what are you going to do this year? Anything? How will you capture your family’s holiday memories past and present?

I’ll be sharing my progress over the next month or so – if you are doing a holiday memory project, I’d love to see what you’re working on, too! Post your blog link in the comments and if I have enough, maybe we’ll start a weekly link up to share!

Scrapbook Tuesday (thoughtsalonglifeshighway.com)
Journal Your Christmas (all the posts from last year)

Scrapbook Tuesday

Okay, I’ll admit I haven’t done a very good job of keeping up with the whole Project Life thing – it just seems like, well, LIFE gets in the way of doing the project!

But, I have been busily scrapbooking again. Enjoying using the new StoryBook Creator 4.0 software (I love it!) and scrapping the pictures from our recent adventures.

Additionally, since I’ve given up on the whole Project Life thingy, I’ve decided to do my 2011 pictures in digital pages – so that gives me tons of pictures (and stories!) to capture… Now, instead of being overwhelmed and feeling like a loser for not doing anything with my PL album, I’m feeling energized and inspired to get some scrapbooking done again!

Here are some pages I did this past week… loving the fact that digital scrapping means no mess and it’s so easy to do a page or two here and there without a big production.

Anyhow – here are the pages – enough rambling!

More Scrappin’ (hooray)

I actually scrapbooked this weekend!!

Now, don’t get all excited.

I didn’t pull out paper and glue and scrapbook, scrapbook.

That would be shocking – especially since I haven’t done that in almost nine months or more…

But I did digital scrapbook.

And that counts, right?

I spent a good bit of time on Saturday doing some scrapping and it was simply heavenly. Watched a marathon of the Dog Whisperer and scrapped my heart out. I loved it.

Here are some of the pages I’ve done:

I’ve got more in process, but not quite ready to show you yet.

Just a little bit of scrappin’

I’ve been so busy lately – busy and sick – but this week was the first week where I actually felt like my old self again – and had my old energy levels back. Which is such an awesome thing! I missed being the Energizer Bunny of the house and it was so nice to get that back again.

And one of the things the new energy levels allowed me to do was to sneak in a little scrapbooking in the evenings.

I haven’t done a lot and a couple of the pages need some more work but I’m planning to spend a good portion of my weekend either knitting or scrapping – I’m in a crafty sort of mood. Besides, it’s supposed to be chilly and I think staying inside is a good idea.

That’s my story, anyway, and I’m stickin’ to it.

So, here are the pages I’ve been working on –

As you know, I’m working on a Project Life album – or I started one, anyway – but I am seriously considering making my 2011 family album a completely digital one – maybe even ordering a book of just the digital pages. I’ve never done that before, but since I’m doing the majority of the pages digitally anyway, I think I just might go that route this year.

I’m also working on some other little projects – Christmas cards and a Christmas gift surprise for some of my family – but I won’t be sharing those on the blog right now. Don’t want to spoil the surprise!