Project Life

This year I decided I wanted to try something a little different with my scrapbooking.  I heard about this system called Project Life - basically just a simplified, back-to-basics approach to scrapbooking.  After following Becky Higgins' blog for some time, I convinced myself that I needed to try this out for myself!  It's so simple and fast, which sounds right up my alley (because I'm definitely not fast when it comes to scrapbooking)!

Becky's focus is to capture everyday life.  To capture those moments that wouldn't necessarily end up in a traditional scrapbook.  And this sounded awesome to me.  How great would it be for our kids to look back at how our lives were when it was just the two of us?  What did we fill our time with?  What was life like in 2012?  How was technology different?  And it would also have to be great even for Chris and I to look back and remember our everyday life because those are the memories that easily slip out of our minds years (or even months) later.

So with this system you basically just print out your pictures, write some notes/journaling, and stick both into photo sleeves.  You can get as complicated or as simple as you want.  I decided to order the Clementine edition (of the core kit, which has all of the cards you need to put in an album) because I just love the designs in that set.  And I just ordered the Signature Black Album last week to put it all in :)

Here's the first week of January that I (almost) completed last week - I still have one picture to print out...

I'm not focusing on taking a picture-a-day but just filling the two pages with pictures and stuff from the whole week.  This might slip as the year progresses and I might end up focusing on a month at a time instead of a week.  I'll just have to see how it works out but I'm gonna be flexible about it.

Oh, and this first week I started was Sunday thru Saturday since January 1st was on a Sunday.  I think I'm going to make my second week Sunday thru Sunday so I can get into a pattern of my weeks starting on Monday.  I just think this might flow a little better, especially for the times that we do stuff on the weekend (which would include Saturday and Sunday).  That way I wouldn't have to split pictures from those weekends into two different weeks.

I've only completed one week and I'm already loving it!

project: love, me

Today over lunch I was looking at some of my scrapbooking blogs (which I like to do often).  I came across an idea called Project: Love, Me since it was featured on Creating Keepsakes blog today.

I think this is a really great idea for capturing a lot of who you or I are as a person and the detailed information that doesn't come out in just any scrapbooking layout or blog.  The concept is that a prompt is given each week and then you make a layout to go along with that idea.  And I think the really cool thing about this is that you can scrapbook it or blog about it...you can adapt it to make it work for you and to be documented in the form you want.

If I could get back to the point where I make at least one layout every week, then I would love to do this.  I just might have to try a little harder to get back to scrapbooking more so I can do this project.  (I haven't scrapbooked very much, especially since we moved last fall.)

What do you think of this project idea?  Do you think your family would love to see these kind of layouts/blog posts?

missing Chris

I've been missing Chris a lot while he's gone on his work trip this time.  Maybe because I got used to spending a lot more time with him, with going to India and all.  Well, since I was missing him tonight and I was stuck in the house (with the snow storm/blizzard), I decided it was time to pick up a scrapbook album I haven't worked on in a while. 

I pulled out the album I started last summer with all of the pictures and memorabilia from the time that we were dating.  I originally started the album because I wanted to document that special time in our relationship and I know that I will love looking back on it in years to come. 

But the problem is that it takes me forever to complete a scrapbook so I needed to make it uber-simple.  So I decided that I would make each layout very simple.  Each would have pictures, a few embellishments, maybe some letter stickers, and a little blurb/journaling about what happened during that time.  On our 1-year anniversary (which was after we got engaged), I had written out the important and memorable dates from our first year together.  But this was just with Crayola markers on normal printer paper - not very archival-worthy!  That was another reason to do this album - to have a place and a reason to put those dates, events, and descriptions (essentially journaling) into a form that I would want to keep for a long time.

So...here's one of the layouts that I had previously finished:

And here are the two layouts that I did tonight:

(look at my incredibly long hair! i doubt it will ever be that long again. and chris' shirt with the duck says 'don't eat soap' :)

(look at how young Kaitlyn is! it's hard to believe it has been that long.)

I also have attached all of the pictures with photo corners so that any of them can be removed in the future to make copies.  All of these pictures were taken in the days that camera film still existed - it is a pain to get copies of negatives now!  I just used 2 photo corners for each photo - it's enough to hold each one in place in the album.

Be safe, stay warm, and have fun playing in the snow tomorrow!  I'm excited to wake up in the morning and see what it looks like outside :)

Scrapbook Sunday XV

I've definitely been slacking lately on my scrapbooking posts.  I haven't had a lot of spare time with the fashion show and everything.  So here is a sort of update on the pages that I have done.

Here's another one from my family's Disney World trip to Florida.  I loved using my white pen around the outside of my pictures to make them stand out a bit.  I put some journaling along the right side (in the white stripe), but you can't really read it.  I also love the "memories" epoxy sticker :)

This year I've been trying to do a 2-page spread as a summary for each month.  So here are the pages for February...yes, it's May and I'm just now doing February!  That's probably why these pages are so simple :)

I wanted to try out a new technique that I read about recently.  It involves a way to save paper if you print something from your computer onto cardstock.  So I decided to try it out!  I did a test print on the right side of the page (regular computer paper), used the same piece of paper to attach my cardstock to the other side of the page, and then printed my text a 2nd time.

I have to say it worked pretty well!  And I loved the fact that I didn't need to send a whole piece of cardstock through the printer - I only needed to cut a piece as large as the area for the text. 

I love the way it looks on my layout.  It would've taken me years to write this much down (and I don't think I can write that tiny).  I was also able to copy and paste this text from a previous blog post.

This layout is for the 2009 Indy Mini :)

Scrapbook Sunday XIV

03.14.10

So I have two things to share today.  The first is the front of a b-day card I made yesterday.

Recently, I saw cards with rounded corners and I love the idea!  I think I'll start making more of my cards with the rounded corners.  It's so easy and it just adds that extra something.

And here's a layout for this week.  Nothing too exciting, but it's another page in my Disney/Florida trip album.  I wanted to use this bright green paper, but it is really bright.  I decided to tone it down by using the grey cardstock and the vellum.

Scrapbook Sunday XIII

02.28.10

Another page from our trip to Florida.  These pics are at Magic Kingdom on lots of different "rides".  I like the simplicity of it (and the fact that I was able to use some of my paper scraps).

Scrapbook Sunday XII

02.21.10

Here's the layout I completed this week (again from my trip to Florida with my family).  These pictures are from the "Share a Dream Come True" Parade.

I actually printed the journaling block off of Creating Keepsakes magazine's website.  They have a fair number of free downloads for various scrapbooking things.

Scrapbook Sunday XI

02.14.10

A simple page from my family's trip to Disney World.  (I just slapped the 4x6 pics onto a page from a scrapbooking kit I bought while we were there.)  Even though I was 19 at the time, it was so much fun meeting the Disney characters!

Scrapbook Sunday X

02.07.10

I made a different type of layout this week.  I made a "month in review" layout for January (and it was my first 2-page layout!).  It tells about the main events from the month.  I had seen this idea in several scrapbooking magazines I've read recently and I wanted to try it.  And I loved it!  It is such a good way to capture everything from each month - from a snippet of big events to everyday life.  I thought it was perfect since I've been taking a picture a day now.  It gave me a place to put some of my favorites.  I think I will continue this at least for the rest of the year.

You might notice that I made a list in the lower right corner.  These numbers are the date the picture was taken and they correspond to the ones on the pictures.  This gave me a simple way to tell what each picture is about.

01.31.10

I was a slacker this week and didn't get a scrapbooking layout done.  And no picture today.  Today was pretty busy between church stuff and getting ready to send Chris off again tomorrow for another week away for work.

Maybe I'll get one layout (or more) done this week.

Scrapbook Sunday IX

01.24.10

This week I decided to do something different - I made my first layout that is not part of a pre-determined album.  In the past I've always made a layout for a vacation or part of our wedding album, etc.  But there was a story I wanted to tell that just couldn't wait for an album to put it in.  What story would be worthy of this?

The story of Maggie eating the chocolate-covered coffee beans!

I must also note that this was the first layout I used pictures that I printed at home!

Scrapbook Sunday VIII

01.17.10

Another page from the Florida trip with my family.  I did a very simple page.  I especially like the pic of my dad just chilling on the bench with the castle in the background.

Scrapbook Sunday VII

01.10.10

This week I made another page in my book of my family's trip to Florida that I've mentioned previously. I just love the pictures in front of the castle at Magic Kingdom!

This was also the first page I got to use something I cut from my new Cricut that I got for Christmas! I cut the stars from it on this page.

01.05.10


My scrapbook area is organized a little better now after my work in there over the weekend. At least I have room to work. It's not ideal, but will have to be fine for the meantime.

Scrapbook Sunday VI

01.03.10

So I haven't done any scrapbooking this week since we just got back into town on Thursday (and I was sick too). The last few days I've actually been organizing the room where I have my scrapbooking stuff. It got pretty messy before Christmas and I had some new things to put away, so it needed to be done to be able to work and keep my sanity.

On my last scrapbooking post, I mentioned that I was making 2 mini albums as Christmas presents. I gave these to my 2 sister-in-laws. I hope they enjoy adding pictures and writing in them to make the albums their own. My favorite page would have to be the cover of Kaitlyn's book (pic below) because it's colorful and I just love the paper I bought for her album - it suits her personality (and the fact that she's almost 13) very well.

Scrapbook Sunday V

This week I've completed two mini albums that I'll be giving as gifts at Christmas. So I thought I'd share a pic from each. (I wish I could share different pages, but I don't want to give away who I'm giving them to.)

I love this paper! You can't tell very well, but it's glittery!

First page of the second album.

I'll have to share more later after I've given these away!

Scrapbook Sunday IV

I did a couple more pages in Maggie's book this week. Here's one of them.

I love the letters with the little dogs. And the pictures are so cute because they're from when Maggie was a puppy. Look how small she is!

I thought I would also post a pic of something else I've been working on - two mini albums. I'll be giving these to people at Christmas, which I'm excited about. These are the first ones I will be giving to someone. The recipients will be able to put in their own pictures and, if they want, writing. I'm only partially done with them now. I just have to finish tabs on one and putting stickers, embellishments, and pieces of cardstock in both.

I know it's going to be a busy week and a half with putting in more time with work before the holidays (because a new project was just released, yah!), finishing Christmas presents, having a party, packing, baking...the list goes on. Here's to this busy but joyous time of year!

Scrapbook Sunday III

So this year (yes I started this past summer) I've been working on a scrapbook of Maggie. Right now I'm on a section called "Maggie's Favorite Things" - these are all things that Maggie appears to love. I decided to go back to Maggie's book this week and complete the pages in this section. The page below shows a few of her favorite things.


After this section will be another section called "Memorable moments" - just a mix of some favorite pictures and some interesting stories from Maggie's life.

Go here for some pictures of ealier pages in the scrapbook.

Scrapbook Sunday II

Sunday
Here's my scrapbooking picture for the week. This is in the same scrapbook of my family's trip to Orlando/Disney World.


A new technique I tried was stitching some sequence as borders on the top and bottom - another idea I found in a magazine. I liked this idea because I have a little bit of sequence that I'm wondering what I can do with and I have to hand-stitch because I don't have a sewing machine!

Also, while we were visiting my family over Thanksgiving, my mom showed me some homemade cards that she bought at a craft show recently. After looking at them, they seemed pretty simple. I've never been much of a card-maker until I started making cards for friends and family for special occasions over the last year. This is something that I might have to try out and maybe start selling some cards to make money. I'm typically slow at making things, but if I make several of the same cards, it won't take that long after the first one is done...hmmm, something to think about.

Scrapbook Sunday I

So I've decided my Sunday "picture-a-day" posts are going to be about scrapbooking! I thought it would be something fun to write about. And, mainly, it will help keep me accountable to hopefully get at least one page done a week.



Currently I'm working on a scrapbook of a vacation my family took to Orlando in January 2004. This page is about the flower garden we walked through near the foot of the castle in Magic Kingdom. I made some rosettes to put on my page. I found these rosettes in a magazine recently and wanted a chance to make some. They're really simple - you just cut a strip of paper with edge scissors, gather/pleat the paper to make it into a circle, and use a button and thread to hold in place. (The wider the strip of paper, the bigger the rosette.) I'm excited to make more of these in the future.