Project Life

 Most of you who know me well know how much I love to scrapbook. 

It's a craft I have been involved in for many many years (about 12) and really love it.

But lately, as much as I enjoy it, my desire to scrapbook has diminished due to the time consuming nature of it. Once I start, I enjoy it as much as ever. 

But, I haven't started any pages in a LONG time.

 I miss it. 

I miss being able to take my photos and put them

where others (esp my children) can enjoy them.

I want them to know someday years into the future how very much I love them.

I want them to remember our life; I want my grandchildren and great grandchildren

to know me, too, through my scrapbooks.

Enter PROJECT LIFE.

An amazing scrapbooking "system" invented by the esteemed Becky Higgins

Simple, quick and timeless.
All the fun, and none of the burden.

I have known about Project Life for a couple of years now, but this year 

I knew I wanted to make the most of this idea.

There are a lot of different ways to "scrapbook" this album kit, but what I have planned

is to chronicle our EVERYDAY life for one entire year.

Project Life makes this easy.

Take ONE picture a day.

Journal a bit every day about the photo.

Slide into album.

Done.

So I ordered my kit.

And right before New Years, it arrived.

In a beautiful white box.

It comes with hundreds of beautiful journaling cards, as well as decorative cards and date cards.

It also has cards with life quotes to use on the beginning page and last page of your album.

The quality of the kit is superb.

There are lots of slots for pictures..enough for a whole week of pictures and journaling cards on each open 2 page spread...all you need to do is slip a 4x6 photo and a journaling card each day into one of the pockets.

Here's a little glimpse of half of my first week...

 To make it even easier and user-friendly, I packed up the few little tools that I would use into a little basket and keep it downstairs right next to my album.

 

Now, because this is a 3 ring binder album, it's easy to move pages around or add things to your album if you wish.

I put in my own "opening page" --essentially a pictorial forward to the album.

I printed out a collage of our family....adding some text....

Then I printed out a picture (self portrait) of myself 

 and glued it to the other side of the collage photo.

I punched holes to fit the binder rings, and popped it into the beginning of the album.

That's the nice thing...anything/any size goes.

 There were some days in the first 2 weeks of this project that need more than one photo to describe.

 Like the huge storm we had last week! 

And Joe's 21st birthday!

So I printed out a collage photo (and a large photo on the back) of my favorite pictures from each of those days....

 

 Punched holes....

 And slid those into the album too.

I spent one night while we were watching TV and put in all the cards (I dated them too) for the whole year in advance. Makes it even easier to keep up.

So far, it's been loads of fun.