Sunday, January 22, 2012

Project Life

I really like the idea of project life. I love the everyday life aspect of it. I love seeing random photos, notes and bits of life all together. It's fun to look back and remember the ordinary. I love that you can make it what you want. I love that tons of people are doing it and nobody's project looks the same. It's a great, real scrapbooking project.

Last year I was all excited for project life. Mid-January, I bought a kit with some amazon gift cards and jumped right in. The first month or so went great. But the rest of the year, well, I was not terribly successful. It may have something to do with the fact that I was a pregnant first year teacher finishing her teaching certificate courses and working on her master's degree for the first half of the year and a new mommy for the second half. My album went along great for the first couple months. I fell behind somewhere in March or April. My 2011 album has unfinished spreads completed through the month of June. I have a giant stack of memorablia and notes I kept to put in the album and have all my pictures filed by month on my computer. I would like to finish the album, at least partially. I've adjusted my view on 2011's album and will be happy with how ever it ends up, finished or not.

Here's a couple pages from my 2011 album. Cover page:


A finished spread from February:


Where things start to fall apart (you'll notice this is a multi week spread):


Fast forward to December and the all the buzz on the project for 2012. Given my unsuccessful attempt at Project Life in 2011, I was hesitant to commit to the project for 2012. I still love the idea of the project. The project seems to have gained in popularity and blogland is full of people participating this year. I knew I'd be sorry I didn't at least attempt it again, especially as I watched others share their albums. I've changed my expectations this year. Project Life 2012 will be a no rules, no stress project. If I get weekly spreads done, great. If I lump 2 weeks together, great. If I only manage a monthly recap, perfect. I will let the project unfold how it will and be happy with the results. This year, I'm using my stash and mixing up the page protectors. Making it more my style and less what I thought it should be. Some weeks may just be photos and ephemera. Some weeks maybe full of journaling. Some weeks may be embellished. Some may be plain and simple.

This weekend I finished up my cover page and my first two weeks. I'm excited about the project again. I'm happy about how things are unfolding. I hope I can keep up the momentum, but if not, I'm not going to stress about it. This time around however, the iphone is my friend. Most of my pictures these first couple weeks are instagram pictures and I've downloaded a couple apps to help me keep track of journaling and memories in case I do get behind.

Here's what 2012 looks like so far. Cover page:


Week 1:



I added an insert with a couple new year's cards we received:




Week 2:



2 comments:

justem January 23, 2012 at 5:30 PM  

this is looking fantastic! :)

Barb January 23, 2012 at 7:24 PM  

You have a great start! TFS.

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