Thoughts, Plans And Shenanigans
I spent some time last weekend updating my Project Life album. I hadn’t worked on it since my surgery at the end of February even though I have been taking pictures here and there and saving bits and pieces to put in the album.
I have to say, I am still loving this format and the kit. I also loved how I realized that there were quite a few pictures that, once I put them in here, I didn’t feel the need to create an additional layout in the family scrapbook. I had told the story here and captured the memory… why do duplicate work? I love that! My family book is becoming more of a place to capture more in-depth stories and moments and special events. Project Life is capturing the everyday.
I am even considering inserting some “regular” scrapbook pages in here and making it THE album for the family for the year. Haven’t decided if/how I will do that, though. Just thinking about it.
Here are some of the pages I did. Still have a little journaling to do, but I was not in a writing mood at the time I did this. I will go back and update those this weekend.
If you're visiting from The Mom Creative, welcome and please come back!
I’m having some surgery on Thursday… nothing serious… just making myself healthier. But, I’m freaking out just a little at the whole idea. It’s a lot to organize – knowing you are going to be out of the house for a few days and out of circulation for a few more after that. I don’t know what is freaking me more – the surgery itself, or the logistics of all the things going on around here that have to keep going even if I’m not here to do them.
So, with all that said, I may (or may not) be somewhat sporadic in my blog posts over the next week or so. Bear with me. I am coming back, I promise.
Ok, enough with all that –
Here are some Project Life pictures for the past week:
Want to see more Project Life pictures? Check out the Mom Creative for more Project Life Tuesday posts.
I promised circus pictures, but I have over a hundred to sort through before I do that. Maybe tomorrow.
Oh, and if you have read this far I have two more things:
1. Thank you. Thank you for reading my blog entries, for commenting, and for caring enough to come back and see what I have to say each day.
2. I wanted to know: what do you like most about my entries? What type do you like the best? The scrapbook layouts, pages,templates? Stories about my family adventures? Random observations about parenting? None of the above? Let me know! I’d really like to hear from you.
I hope that you enjoyed Kate’s guest post yesterday – and visiting a few new blogs as well! I had great fun hosting Kate and posting on Helen’s blog. We are hoping to do that on a monthly basis, so you’ll be hearing more from those ladies in the future. Let me know what you thought of the swap in the comments. I’d love to hear your impressions!
Here’s my Project Life post – a day late but better late than never:
And the pages are in-progress as well:
I am already working on this week’s pages – I went ahead and printed the pictures I had so far and stuck them in the pages.
You may notice that this week I used a white border on my pictures. I think I like it better than the rounded corners of the week before. I think it sets the pictures off a little.
What do you think?
I started my Project Life album this weekend. I got through the entire month of January in less than an hour, including journaling all except last week. I am just thrilled with that little statistic.
To me, that is one of the beautiful things about this kit. Everything is laid out for you, coordinated and organized. All I have to do is put my pictures in and do my journaling. How simple is that?!? Heck, I might actually make it all year if it is going to be this easy to do!
Here are some pictures of the pages I completed.
Cover Page
I decided to include a picture of the family on this page
and I stamped the year on one of the cards.
(you can click on the pictures for a larger view)For this week (the first week of Jan) I included a picture from New Year’s Day just because it was silly and I liked it. The rest of the pictures are from the snow that we had at the end of the week. All of the pictures are from a two day period of time, but I decided that it was a momentous enough occasion that I wanted to dedicate the whole two pages to it.
I have also decided to do my pages Friday-Thursday because New Year’s Day was on a Friday.
I have also decided to include more memorabilia this year than I did last year. Why I didn’t think about it then, I don’t know. Sometimes a piece of ephemera is more appropriate to capture a day’s memories than a picture. Anyhow, I used movie theater tickets for one weekend. We went to two movies in a weekend – almost unheard of for us – but with the cold temps and snow we had to do something to get out of the house for a few hours!
I have also decided that I am going to include bits and pieces from the girls’ schoolwork, awards, etc in this album. Because it is a 3-ring it is so easy to just pop in an 8.5×11 page protector and include the extras. I love that. I have always struggled with what to do with the things they bring home that I love and want to keep but that I didn’t really want to take up an entire page in a 12×12 album. This is a perfect solution.
As a matter of fact, I am seriously thinking I will move to the 3-ring format for more and more of my albums. I started out as a Creative Memories album exclusive kind of girl. Then, in the past few years, I have branched out and tried some post-bound albums. Both offer some great features, and both have some drawbacks. The 3-rings I have shied away from because the albums seem so heavy and bulky. But I am loving the ease of adding pages, moving things around, and my girls commented that it was easier to turn the pages when they are looking through the book. So, I may be trying a new album type this year.
The second page of this spread had exciting pictures like my dog, the scrap space and a sick girl, so I didn’t bother taking another picture.
I don’t know if you noticed, but I also decided I am not doing anything special with the “heading” card. I am just hand-writing the dates and circling the months. I decided that I was not going to stress myself out with this book by trying to make it “artsy” or extra-crafty. I am going to release myself from that expectation and just focus on capturing the pictures and stories. (and it feels good!)
Are you doing Project Life or a similar project? How are you approaching it? Leave me a comment and let me know (this means you!)
I’m starting my Project Life this weekend. I am looking forward to sitting down and putting the book together and getting my first few weeks of pictures in the pages. I am determined that this year I will stay more caught up than last year. So, I am hoping that I can sit down at least once a week (or once every two weeks) and get the pictures printed and the journaling done.
I thought I would share some of the pictures I’ve taken the last two weeks – they aren’t terribly exciting because we’ve had strep running amok in our house for the past few weeks. But that is part of what this project is about, right? Capturing everyday life in all it’s nuances. From the exciting to the mundane.
So, here are some of the shots:
Oh, and here is a great link to an article I read about making your Project Life/365 successful. Great ideas.
Thoughts Along Life's Highway 