Project Life: Week One

I was so excited to get my first week done, that I took some really bad pictures with my iphone and am posting them. (Sadly, I was all set to post the same evening I made this, but blogger's being a pain about uploading pictures!)

I have been on the fence about what kit I want to use for 2013. I was going to order Seafoam, but I had downloaded (and then printed) a bunch of free cards from the internet. I used some Snap freebies to create my title page:

This may change as the year goes on...I wanted a picture of each of us (I added our names and ages as of the start of the year on those little banner strips) and I wanted a picture of us on New Year's Day. The picture quality is bad (too late in the day and too dark), but I may keep it. I will probably add our Christmas card picture to the title page later in the year.

The first week:

I think I can get by with some snap products, the freebies, and things I have created on my own. A lot of the time I use pictures and memorabilia anyway, so I probably don't need a whole kit. 

Week 1: The first picture is actually from New Year's Eve which was Monday (I do mine Monday-Sunday, so sometimes I carry over New Year's Eve). I got the idea from Elise, and was able to play around in storybook. The quote card is a freebie from her as well.

 Page 2 with another few cards from the snap freebie set.

Then, Becky showed the new sets American Crafts is coming out with in May. I don't think I can wait that long, so I guess I'll have to wait to use one of those next year. *sigh* Rough life, right?

So I went to Archiver's yesterday and bought a bunch of snap 3x4 cards, 4x6 cards, and stickers (to make my own cards with the blank grid cards I have). Come back to the blog every now and then to see how it's going!

Project Life - Week Seven

Week Seven:

Valentine's Day and basketball in the house:

Two protectors inbetween. First, a 6x12 protector for 3 4x6 pictures to highlight all the stuff we did on Valentine's Day including: scavenger hunt for the kids, a few valentine's they received, Ryan's first basketball practice...

...and Scott & my date to "Million Dollar Quartet." The program, ticket, and very good review from the paper the next day! The second protector was 8 1/2x11 and has Ryan and Jillian's handprints (we made them as Valentine's for family and of course I kept a copy!):

On the back is a picture Jillian colored for me while she stayed with a friend today. Page two, lots of pictures (including two of me...one by Scott and one by Ryan. I love stealing pictures off Scott's phone!). Also, my feet in the picture of Bentley and I taking our first run together.

Project Life - Week Six

Week Six:

Pictures from some of the places we went and a portion of my work from a tutoring session:

Used another 6x12 protector for part of the program from the Grizzlies game (cover and line ups). Tab is a basketball sticker I folded in half:

And in the back of the 6x12 protector (which I again trimmed to fit the memorabilia in it) I put Ryan's class list for Valentine's. Page two had a lot of pictures, so I did all the journaling on a 4x6 card:

The "before" picture of Ryan flips up to reveal the during and "after" shots:

Project Life - Week Five

Week Five:

First page, lots of pictures/memorabilia, squeezed the journaling in on one card and on the picture for Monday-Wednesday. First time including a screen shot from my phone.

In the middle is a 6x12 protector that I stuffed with Ryan's wish list from his book fair...

...and the book fair flyer (showing the book we bought for his teacher's classroom). I trimmed the protector to fit and added half a tab. Also, the program of the middle school play Ryan. Jillian and I went to see Friday night, a picture Scott took while away on a business trip (one of his new properties in Wilmington, NC), and Jillian's first hair cut:

Project Life - Week Four

Week four is a bit incomplete:

You can see the sticky that notes what I still need. Missing a group picture from the birthday party Ryan went to and the picture of Jillian and I at our sushi lunch from Sunday. Journaling for Saturday is just a piece of the birthday invitation:

Under the sticky note is another of those flippy things (can I come up with a different name for them every time I post about them?) with the bad iphone picture I took at the party (wrote right on it with a white sharpie marker) and the better camera picture I took when I got home:

Project Life - Week Three

Really liking what I've done this week!

Had a bunch of memorabilia from Monday when the kids and I went to volunteer at Shelby Farms...the email a teacher sent out with all the service opportunities, the sticker the ranger gave all of us, and our groupd picture (label stamp from Papertrey Ink).

I journaled Monday-Wednesday al on one card:

Then come some inserts. First, a 6x12 protector for my friends' save the date. I think she got the idea off of Pinterest, but she designed it and assembled it herself:

And the inside. The knot tied as you opened the card (so cool!). I still need to add a little tab to it:

Second insert is 6x12 for 6-4x6 pictures. It's from Saturday when the kids and I had a day of high's and low's:

And the back:

I need to add one more insert with the pictures from Scott's trip to Detroit for the Auto Show. I have all the stuff for the insert, but the insert I want is out of stock. I like cutting down full size ones, and thought the stuff I had from his trip would fit nicely in one like this.

Finally, I did one of these little flipsters so I could do do three pictures for Sunday (hike in Stanky Creek, first finger nail painting, tornado warnings):

The labels on the last two pages are from a stack I've had FOREVER. Never really thought I'd use them, but I turned them over and the white side is perfect for this!

Project Life - Week Two

Not too much excitement in week 2. BTW, did I mention I am doing 2012 in the Cobalt edition of Project? I love the color combinations in this set!!

I included and journaled on part of the assembly directions for Ryan's new desk chair. Two pictures for Tuesday (one of each kid):

No picture for Friday (part of the flyer from the Sienna's oil change. Three days of journalig on one card. two days on the other to accomodate the extra pictures. The picture of the kids and the trains were taken by Scott and texted to me while I was away on our scrapping weekend:

The label in the bottom right corner is a stamp from Papertrey Ink.

Project Life 2012 - Week One

I want to be like Ali, and Cathy, and Elise, and all the other women out there on the Project Life Bandwagon!

This is my 4th year using Project Life. I did a photo a day in 2009 when it was Project 365 from Creating Keepsakes. I am just about finished 2010, but did that much more at the pace of our lives and just let it fill in as it did. I have the kit and photos and memorabilia to do 2011, but haven't started it yet. And, I decided to go back and do 2008 (which never got into a traditional family album because I started doing PL in 2009) in this year's Clementine set. I am up through May on that one and liking the speed with which it is getting finished!

For the first time, I am going to try to hold myself accountable and do 2012 a week or so at a time. Posting here will hopefully help!

Here's my title page right now:

For now, it holds all the little cards that are "supposed" to go there. My method in all my albums has always been to pick my favorite family picture (and now pictures) from the year to go on the title page. So I will not be finishing this page until December. You can see some other great title page ideas here. And more here.

Here's week one:

My weeks are usually Monday - Sunday, but since January 1st was on a Sunday, this first week is Sunday-Sunday. This first page is actually all pictures from New Year's Day. The journaling blocks are for Sunday-Tuesday.

You can't tell it here very well:

But here you cansee that I included a 6x12 insert that holds 6 4x6 pictures. The ones on the front are from Monday and Tuesday to match the previous journaling blocks:

On the back are Wednesday and Thursday. I used a tab on this insert that I got in a pack from Office Depot.

On the last page are pictures from Friday-Sunday. I love how using some of these extra inserts allows me to add more pictures when I need to. I got the idea from Ali Edwards and you'll see me use it a lot this year!

Thanks for looking!

Project Life

I did Project 365 in 2009 and was really happy with it. Mostly how I could tell the big stories and little ones that might never make it into a traditional scrapbook. So I bought Project Life for 2010. And didn't do any of it until my girl's getaway weekend. I knew I might not have a photo-a-day in 2010, but thought I could just fill it in with what I had. And until I did some of 2010 to decide if I liked that approach, I wasn't going to buy one for 2011 no matter how cute it was! Here's me ready to go on 2010:



And I did like how it was coming together, so here is my 2011 edition:

I'll keep you posted on how it goes!

Project 365

You can read about the whole Project 365 saga here, but today's post is about me finally doing it!

I have decided that this will be my family album for 2009. This way, instead of being a year behind, I can easily work on it a bit at a time and be done by the end of 2009 (or soon thereafter). Plus, my album will contain lots of little things that define and illustrate us as a family, rather than just the big events. Big events may get their own pages within the album, or a mini album all their own. As for the biggest event of the year (coming in just a few weeks!), she gets her own album anyway. :)

So, everyday I take a picture, and everyweek or so, I print them out, journal about them and put them in the album. I am not doing much extra...an ocassional stamp or sticker, but pretty much using what came with the kit and getting it done. May be the first time in my scrapbooking tenure (12 years worth) that I am "caught up."

Here's my workspace:

And a few completed pages: