Well, I'm going for it: I'm going to do a Project Life type documentation project this year! Project Life seems to be everywhere I look these days, from blogs and instagrams to conversations. I get why. {If you are not familiar with what "Project Life" is, you can see more here. It's a memory-keeping method developed by Becky Higgins in an attempt to simplify the process and make it do-able. } For me, in a very general explanation, it's going to be a week by week documenting of our lives for the 52 weeks of 2013, all compiled in an album full of page protectors. A photo album/scrapbook of our daily life.
I've just begun, and like I said, I'm super excited. I don't really have an official plan yet, like many who are experienced Project Lifers do. Well, my plan is to formulate it after some experience, I'm going to have to discover as I go what my process will be. So far, my main and most important goal is to stick with it for the entire year and get it done. I will keep that as my main goal: documenting this year for our family, and remind myself of that if I start to overcomplicate it to the point where I put it off or it stops being realistic. I really want to do this for our family; all the other benefits (the creating, the having a place for all the ephemera of life that I love but don't know what to do with, the committing to and completing a giant (for me) goal,etc.) are just side benefits to the main motivation.
Look at this cute video by Design Editor of her adorable twins looking over their family's book. So awesome that they will have these of their childhood (which brings up another big goal for me and this project - to not use it as a way to beat myself up for what I could have, should have, done; I'm starting now and I need to focus on that positive).
I had a lot of fun over the past week talking about documenting stories with Rebecca and Charlotte while away. (Rebecca, as many of you know, is quite well known for being a scrapbook author and designer as well as her stitching and painting and journal making mixed media artwork.) Anyway, Rebecca has a new post about feeling reinvigorated to play with pictures and paper and paint, so it'll be fun to see where that goes.
So far, it seems I'm going to be doing a hybrid type Project Life, a mix of Project Life products (like the page protector inserts) and ones I make (like my printables) or get elsewhere. I am super excited to actually be documenting our year in a way that seems pretty do-able, pretty simple (if I stay out of my own way), and also a fun little puzzle, figuring out how to represent each week.
I've used a hand me down album cover that a friend happened to give me recently (hello serendipity), and signed up for the Studio Calico Project Life monthly kit. You can see their hello card that I sewed onto a piece of paper and glued down. (btw- i think i might finally be getting the hang of these tape devices, because for once, i used it and it worked, vs. my usual stick down technique). For now, I've doodled and washi taped and cut out letters from playing cards (inspired by Rebecca) for the inside of the album. I'm imagining this will likely change over the year.
{By the way, I used a favorite new pen above, to outline, and my beloved Copics to fill in.}
I used one of my prints (cut down and adhered to printed paper) and added a flair button from Studio Calico (I believe). Here's what you see when you open the book:
And if you turn that first little page, the Life Is Good half page, you see this:
I used these alphabet stamps in our initials repeated over and over. The number stamps I carved myself, and yes, I realize that PGA and GAG are the recognizable words or acronyms...oh well, I did it by age order, without thinking about that. I kind of think it's funny, and am not going to change it; my project is not going to be about perfection, that's for sure! No time for re-dos.
Here's the opening page. Most is from the Studio Calico PL kit, but the Garrison was left over from something I received and I just collaged on the scraps from my print that was cut down for little flap page (see above).
I'm wanting some free time to read Julie's Project Life links, because I know she's taken a less traditional approach, and she did Project Life all last year, and because I loved reading this post of hers.
I'd also like to revisit Ali's (seeing hers over the years is the main inspiration for me to do PL), and new to me are Elise's, and Catherine's, and Liz's. Can you tell I've fallen down a new rabbit hole? Ha! Well, you know I love company on these journeys, thus all the links...c'mon...any takers? It's going to be fun, I can tell already, and I'm going to learn a lot which is fun too. And all these excercises like printing photos, or using services to order photos or or or are well and good in themselves, but the fact that they'll add up to a wonderfully personal book for the family? Even better!
