Loving my Project Life album and am doing a great job with keeping up. I've attempted this before and lost interest after a few months. I think that is because I was trying to do the photo a day approach and I ended up taking photos I did not love just for the sake of taking a photo that day. This time around I am focusing on filling up a spread each week (not necessarily a photo each day) and I am LOVING it. I'm doing a combination of ordering prints and printing from home. I found that I like filling the smaller pockets that are for journaling cards with iPhone photos sometimes as well. Although I have it in the original album right now- I am thinking of switching it to an album that will match the ones I already have.
Here is a look at how it is coming along. There are still a few parts that need a bit of journaling here or there.
January: week one |right side
Notes on January, week one: Because of winter break everyone was home. We spent a lot of time just hanging out and taking it easy. One morning Jude was sitting on the floor and then he just took off crawling. He had shown more interest in cruising furniture than crawling up until this point and I was certain he was going to skip crawling all together- but he proved me wrong.
January: week two | left side
January: week two | right side
January: week two |insert
Notes on January, week two: The beginning of the week was spent finishing up my new work room. I spent some Christmas money on some much needed clothes with a 40% off coupon at Gap (score!). Justin's brother came to visit- this was his first time meeting Jude. I documented Jude meeting his uncle on a separate 5x7 page protector and slipped that in. The little tab on top is a 2-Day Hooray Flapper. I love these because it keeps the pages from slipping out and adds a little something to the top.
Justin agreed to fill in those journaling blocks on the right page later where there are primarily photos of him and his brother. Reiley actually took all the pictures of them on the right side while they were playing pool one night and I was surprised how well they seemed to come out considering the lighting. She did a great job.
January: week three | left side
January: week three | right side
Notes on January, week three:
I noticed with Reiley back in school I take a lot of photos of Jude so I decided to focus on what we do each day. In the upper left corner of the right page I put a timeline of what our days look like. For the left side I included a piece from a Netflix and a pink slip from Reiley's school just telling her I would be picking her up in a different car since mine was in the shop.
January: week 4 | left side
January: week 4 | left side
January: week four | right side
Notes on January, week four: Reiley got to go to Cirque Du Soleil with her ex-Girl Scout group at the beginning of the week. She went with her grandma as her guest so I had her journal about it. Jude also discovered the pantry this week and took full advantage of the box of Cheerios in there and even snuck an Oreo (the kid is no fool). Reiley also showed me a writing assignment her class did on the school website (it is almost like a mini message board for her classroom). I printed it off and placed that in here also. I liked how she wrote about her brother and how having a baby brother changes a lot of things. One thing she mentioned was how it changed her morning.
She wrote: "I have a baby brother. He changes a lot of things, like just today I wanted to read but I had to feed him, and that changed my plans"
What is funny is I actually was making her lunch and just asked her to put some more pieces of toast on his highchair tray from the plate that I was feeding him from. Apparently that changed all of her plans for the morning.
The right side is actually a We R Memory Keepers page protector (this pack). I am using those along with the Project Life kit.
February: week one | left side
February: week one | right side
February: week one | insert
Notes on February, week one:
Reiley had a couple of consecutive snow days due to cold temperatures. She spent a lot of time dancing to Taylor Swift in our future dining room (since it's empty right now she makes it her dance studio). I inserted a 6x12 page protector and used one side to document all of Jude's accomplishments this week (he learned two signs, crawled up the stairs, waved bye and started giving kisses). On the other side I documented how Reiley spent her two days off of school (which was actually three because she didn't go on Monday as well). Both of those pages are just layouts I designed in InDesign. I also included a piece of paper that Reiley was teaching Jude to scribble on. I didn't journal on the journaling card yet...I will though.
This is such a fun project and I am glad I am doing it because when I went to organize my layouts for 2010 I had only one page. One page. I did some for Reiley and some for Jude- but nothing documenting our family as a whole. In reality this is a perfect time for me to be documenting our family and I was pretty upset to find I had only one page.
I have the entire album laying out on my counter so I can work on it throughout the week and several times people have come over and looked through it.
One day Justin was looking at it and noticed I had printed off all of the pictures of his brother visiting and he said, "Oh, you printed these out? That is awesome! I just love that you are a scrapbooker"
Last night Reiley was looking through it and she also said she really liked it and how it shows all of our family and what we do every day. I actually ended up giving her my older kit pieces I had left over so she could work on one along side with me. She is still picking out photos she wants to use in it and then we will go have them printed so she can start filling up hers.
So with that I have a little more motivation to continue working on it because I know it is appreciated within our family and I like that everyone is wanting to participate as well. Makes me happy and at the end of this year I will have much more than I had last year.
I am in awe. I just can't get into scrapbooking daily. I so wish I could.
Very inspirational...beacuse I know you have a littel one too and a business.
Go YOU!!
Posted by: veronica | February 11, 2011 at 12:48 PM
This is looking great - I'm also doing Project Life but my own version using up my own supplies and adding in some new ones. You can see it here.... http://sharonmanning.blogspot.com/2011/02/inspiration-from-many.html
Thanks for your inspirational blog - yours is one of my regulars!
Posted by: Sharon Manning | February 11, 2011 at 05:59 PM
Veronica- It has been SO easy. Seriously. I don't stress about doing it each day so much. Instead I just jot down any notes using an iPhone app (Memento) each day and at the end of the week I upload and print and fill in journaling.I was originally planning on just doing a two page spread each month but I realized I had too many photos so I went for week to week.
Posted by: Kaitlin Sheaffer | February 11, 2011 at 07:14 PM
Sharon- Yours is awesome! I love how you are using your own supplies and I love your page dividers you made. I think we are approaching it the same way- just let the album fill itself and not worry about it each day. I also tend to leave it out and work on it every few minutes since it is there. It will be so great at the end of the year to have an entire album filled with this years memories :)
Love your photography also- just beautiful!
Posted by: Kaitlin Sheaffer | February 11, 2011 at 07:21 PM
Hi! I know this post is almost a year old, but I just found it today after doing a Google image search for "Project Life." :) I was wondering... where do you get the 5x7 page protectors? Thanks!
Posted by: Jenny B. | January 19, 2012 at 11:27 PM