Project Life 2012: In the Beginning...

I've been promising and promising that I would share my Project Life pages. I am finally coming clean on that promise. It only took me two months. I'm breaking it up into pieces since the posts will otherwise be crazy long, but we're getting started today. I mean it!

I will tell you though, it was not without some serious stressing on my part. The first problem came with the fact that I forgot to request the pocket page protectors when I made my Christmas list. When I went out to get myself some (on the day after Christmas, mind you) they were sold out! The nerve. I had to wait and wait and finally got them two weeks ago. In the meantime, I've been using the pocket protectors from We R Memory Keepers. A very good substitute and they have added more variety to my scrapbook - something I always like. The second issue was the photography. I couldn't get them to properly scan due to the height of the pages. I love my scanner, but apparently that extra 1/2" is just too much for it. So...I tried regular photography. Fail. Flash blobs everywhere and I couldn't go without flash because (as we all know) I tend to procrastinate and do my blogging late at night. Attempt #3...the light box. This may end up working find for regular pages, but again, the pocket protectors posed problems and...well...I just got pissed and gave up.

This week I decided it was time to suck it up and just go with it. So...I found the best light I could in my apparently dark and shadowy house and took photos of the pages...in...their...binder. The horror. I'll admit, not my proudest moment, but too stinking bad. This is what we're going with. You can no longer call me a liar...at least with this project. We won't talk about the Christmas projects I still haven't made tutorials for. (Pretend you didn't read that last sentence.)

My stash...the turquoise kit with binder and POCKET PAGE PROTECTORS.

For those of you not familiar, Project Life is an ingenious product created by the wonderful Becky Higgins. Everything you need comes in her little kit (if you remember to buy the pocket pages. BUY THE POCKET PAGES!). You just add photos and journal. It all gets compartmentalized into cute little pockets. Easy. I'm finding that I really like it. I will still continue to do my regular scrapbooking, but this works fantastically for creating our family album for the year. I'm planning to continue to do one for each year.

Initially I was afraid that I wouldn't have enough photos...I'm doing a 2 page spread for each week and I was worried that most of my pockets would remain empty. I'm finding that this isn't the case. For the most part they fill up quickly and I end up with extra photos.

This is where I confess...I might be a little OCD. Just a tad. I decided that I couldn't do this without some sort of organizational system. I needed something to keep track of what happened when because I am a serious procrastinator when it comes to journaling. Like a lot. So I jumped onto Publisher and made myself a Project Life Planner. And since I'm so nice...I'm going to share it with you...

Here it is:

I'm a little nuts. I admit it. Ok...so this is how it works.

The left side page has diagrams of all of the page protectors. Once I know which pages I'll be using, I indicate them on the page. I write into each piece as I know what I want there. Sometimes this takes a little rearranging...like when I have a horizontal 4x6" space, but a vertical 4x6" picture. But it definitely helps.

The right hand page is - for all intents and purposes - my daily journal. I track the day/date and what each one of us did, the highlights of the day or recipes that we tried. In the far right column I keep track of the pictures I have taken or want to take and the items I want to add to that week's pages.

This all helps take off the stress of putting the book together. If I don't have time to work on it one week, then I just jot down the daily activities and I'm good to go for later. I like it much better that way.

If you want to use these pages for yourself, feel free...here are the links...but if you mention them on your own blog, please give me credit and/or link back to this post.

Project Life Layout Plan

Project Life Planner

Finally...I'm going to go ahead and show you my title pages for 2012. Hey...it's a start. And...as always...clicking on the photos will blow them up larger for you.

The title line took me forever to decide how to do. When I first started, I had cut out the title in brown cardstock using my Pazzle. It just ended up looking too drab. So...I traced around it thinking that would make it pop more. Meh. It was okay. I ended up pulling the cardstock off completely and coloring in the outline using my white Uniball Signo. (I love that pen.)

The opening photo is our annual photo from The Farmstead, a local pumpkin patch. This one was taken in October of 2011.

 

I have always been a huge fan of rub-ons. I loved being able to capitalize on the presence of this circle. The quote seems fitting enough.

I am also a big fan of Ali Edwards. Ali supports a campaign she created called One Little Word. She challenges scrappers to base their family scrapbooking for the year around one word. Mine seems simple enough. To me, the biggest importance of our family is being together. So that was it...together is my word for 2012.

Some scrappers move right into the week by week pages after their title. With my One Little Word approach, I decided that I needed to explain the theme a little before I moved into weekly photos. So I added this extra spread.

The left side page spewed out of me. I just sat down and started typing. This was actually before I had officially chosen my 2012 word, but it became pretty obvious as I wrote that together was going to have to be the word I used. (For those of you wondering, the font I'm primarily using for the year is another Ali creation, it's CK_Alis_Hand_Official. I love it!)

For the right had page I further set up our family togetherness by using photos of us from 2009 and 2010. While looking for these photos I also realized that I need to start making sure we get more photos of the three of us together through the year. We have very few.

And that's it...the setup. Now hopefully I can stay on the ball and regularly post the weekly layouts. Because I'm a total sloth at journaling, I'm going to aim for one 2-page layout every other week. That should give me a sufficient buffer to get my crap together. If I'm doing better than that, well...then I guess you'll get lucky!