Project Life 2012: One Year

One of the most recent additions to my life list (things I would like to do in my lifetime) is documenting a year in our family's life. I have documented a week in our lives in both 2010 and 2011 and loved it. What I love about it most is looking back at the week once it's months gone and seeing the details of our everyday. What seems mundane at the time, isn`t so much once time has passed. Looking back at these two albums inspired me to do something similar for an entire year.

Now, I`m not crazy. The Week in the Life documentation, hosted by well-known scrapbooker Ali Edwards, is intense. It involves taking pictures all day every day for a week. What you eat, what you wear, where you go, what you do. I had literally hundreds of photos for both weeks that I did it. Some days a hundred plus for one day! That`s challenging enough for a week, but for a year? Simply unrealistic. This is where Project Life enters for me. Another well-known scrapbooker, Becky Higgins, created Project Life a few years ago with the intent of simplifying scrapbooking and preserving memories. Only one week in, I can already vouch that it does exactly that.

There is a complete kit that makes the whole process super easy. It comes with a binder, journaling cards, page protectors, day + number stickers, and extra paper, all designed to coordinate. All you need to do is add photos, personal memorabilia, and write some notes. You certainly don`t need it to do this, but it makes it much more manageable.

image from here: http://www.beckyhiggins.com/products/

Originally created with the photo-a-day concept in mind, the basic system is set up so there`s space for seven photos, one for each day of the week, and eight journaling spaces to explain the photos. (See, way less intense than the week-long process). For me a photo-a-day simply may not happen. Some days there are lots and lots of photos, other days there are none at all. Instead, I`m following the approach many others who do Project Life are using and taking a week-at-a-glance format instead. I`ll be inserting pictures and stories that make up our week, which may or may not include a picture from every day that week.

That`s what`s fun about this whole thing - it is totally customizable. The complete kit is designed so you don`t need to be a scrapbooker to do it. Just think of it as a more detailed photo album. Or, if you`re into the scrapbooking scene, than you can go hog-wild with the creativity and treat each space as a mini-scrapbook page. You can also purchase just pieces of the kit if that`s more your thing. In my case, I have the whole kit and will fall somewhere between basic and hog-wild. I plan to add a few bits and bobs from my scrapbooking stash and jazzing it up a little as I go and as time allows. If I have an easy week with time on my hands, I might go a little more hog-wild. If not, I`ll go with just the kit. My goal is simply to DO it. To document one whole year in our life.

Without further ado, here`s my opening page for the year and our first week:

The opening page for the album.

I did some add-ons to this page. The base card came with the kit, and I added
and layered a few word stickers, button, and twine.

Our NYD family photo makes the front page. I sized it smaller than 4x6 so
the background card could be visible and then added some tape and stickers.

Here is the first week in a two-page spread.
Some pics + some journaling + some life "stuff" = simple. Love.

a closer look at the left side. The card in the top left came with the kit and has the dates Jan 01-Jan 07 stamped.
The rest are 4x6 and 3x4 pics, some notes and some add-on stickers and such.

Love this face.

 

On the right side, I included a couple of movie stubs from our date night.
The movie was great. The company better!



I started half marathon training for real this week. Pic of sneaks obligatory.
Jazzed up with some letter stickers for fun.

So that is it. One week captured, easy peasy. It feels great to actually use some of the stuff I normally accumulate into a "to be scrapbooked someday" pile now instead of someday. It is truly nice to just capture, document and preserve memories now. I plan to share more of this project as our year goes on.

Wanna know more about Project Life ... go here and view the video on the bottom and follow the plethora of links Becky provides.