Project Life 2012

So last year I started Project Life- and I can’t believe it, but I finished it. Every single week. Even when we were moving, on a 2 week road trip, had sick kids, you name it. I love looking through the finished album – and so do my kids. They look through it more than any other album.

I love it so much, I’m not sure I’ll be making much in the way of traditional layouts. I’ve simplified it enough to fit into my busy life, but still make it creatively satisfying.
Here’s some pics of my 1st two weeks of 2012. I haven’t finished the cover page yet- work in progress. Not stressing about it though

Love this silhouette file I used to cut the Happy 2012. Another favorite is Marcy Penner’s digital journaling cards. I ordered a bunch of her badges as well which I love. They aren’t as thick as some of the others I ordered, so will be much easier to fit into the album without making it too thick.

Ryan is suddenly very interested in learning to read, so much of these two weeks is documenting that process.

Used one of Liz Tamanaha’s 4x6 free templates to make this collage of Julia’s first finger painting experience. It seems like everyone these days is doing project life, but one of the great benefits of that is so many free downloads to use.

This week I had some extra pictures of a cooking class we went to and decided to throw them onto a 6×12 insert. Back side is some of Julia’s finger painting samples.

This week I had some longer journaling from a phone conversation Ryan and I had on my commute home. Wanted to capture all the fun things we talked about, so when I got home I typed what I could remember in my Day One journal on my computer. Copied it into word and printed on some patterned paper in the top left pocket. Love this app- it synchs all my journaling btw my computer, phone and ipad. And each day it pops up with a reminder. It has been well worth the $1.99 and a good way to write each day. Plus, when I’m ready to document my PL, I just pull out my phone and everything I want to document is right there.

Some other great finds:

Found these free journaling cards which I printed out to add to my stash

My husband set up through IFTTT.com a way for his and my instagram photos to download directly from our phones into a dropbox folder on my computer. Now I don’t have to go in and copy his iphone pics to add them to my week.  Don’t understand how it works or what he did, but it’s awesome.

Martha Stewart has just released some Avery office products. Ordered a ton of labels for PL from Staples- much cheaper than the scrapbook version and what I use a ton of. They are slightly lower in quality for sure (not as thick or as nice of a finish), but work great for my album. You can see one in the bottom right.

 

December Daily- the finished album

Yay! It’s done! I am so happy to have the whole album done – it feels like such an accomplishment. Even more so when I see 4 years of these albums lined up next to each other. Love looking through them and seeing our family in different stages, kids growing up, traditions evolving. So love this project and so happy I took the time.

Here are a few of my favorite pages. You can see the whole album in my flickr account here.

I rarely use black & white, but they’re always some of my favorite when I do. Added a small felt heart in the corner & some journaling on the photo before printing.

This one I added some words for each photo- would like to do that more next year.

Love these little page protectors.

I know you’ve seen this one before, but still one of my favorites

Used some of Ali Edward’s word art, colored red & put down to 80% transparency.

same here

and here – lots of the same theme & supplies, but helped a huge amount to streamline the process.

Love adding in little fun bits in these pocket protectors. Some of my favorite bits this year were Jennifer Pebbles etsy shop. I have always loved her work since she was involved with AMuse way back, and was so excited when she released some of her own products. The “Christmas” words on the chevron paper above came from her.

This year I decided to stop on the 25th, which I was very happy about. We spend a few days after Xmas with my husband’s family, & then have Julia’s birthday on New Year’s Eve, so last year I tried to stretch it to the end of the year- tooooooo much! Just say no Now I have project life to cover those things.

So, after finishing 4 years of this project, I love it even more now. Here are some things that I have learned work for me.

Simplify everything. Use digital templates whenever possible, then add some embellishments. I’m okay that they’re not my most original pages, or they look like other people’s.  Limit my choices- if I have too many embellishments, paper, punches, etc to choose from I get nothing done. I pull everything out in November, put aside the stuff I don’t like or know I won’t use. Everything I think I will use I put into a container that can sit out on my desk. I try not to spend a lot of time with fancy techniques or cutting files on my Silhouette- this isn’t the right project for me to do that (unless I do it ahead of time next year).

Things I want to remember next year:

-my favorite pages are the ones with one large photo & simple word art or embellishments. I need to remember that next year. I don’t need to get every cute photo in the album- just one or two.

-I’d like to try and get down more of the little stories too. more of the snippets of conversations, quirks, etc.

I also finished my Project Life album for 2011- woohoo! I’m amazed I was able to keep up with both. Will try to post some of those soon too.

Thanks for visiting!