Scrapbooking 2014; my take on Project Life

Most scrapbookers have heard of Project Life, the pocket-page style of scrapbooking. I mostly see the weekly version where you create a page or spread for each week of the year. The “365” version is the “photo a day” approach. I’ve always liked the style and simplicity of Project Life, but I knew I could never stick to scrapping each week by the week, and DEFINITELY would not enjoy trying to take a photo every day. I finally thought to just do the pocket style but scrap however many days in each page/spread I wanted and (oh my!) even skip days if nothing happened that day. It freed me up to do this quick and easy style, and doing it digitally makes it REALLY quick and easy. So here’s our January: Spread #1: left side: right side: The first spread covers only the first 4 days of the month. But it was a BIG four days! I’m keeping VERY simple by using white cardstock for the background and mat every time (I can take forever to decide on paper colors & patterns and this really simplifies and streamlines the process). I choose one accent color for each spread and embellish minimally. Not my usual scrap style, but I am at a busy phase of life with my four kids (I have a high-schooler, a middle-schooler, a kindergartener, and a toddler!) and it’s quick-and-easy scrapbooking for me right now or none at all. Here’s the 2nd and last spread for January: left side: right side: Since the flu hit us, it made the rest of the month a pretty slow one. We didn’t even TRULY celebrate my birthday (the plan was for me and Ron to go to The Cheesecake Factory for dinner) because I was still feeling horribly. Hey, that’s life and I’m glad I gave myself the freedom to not try to create a page or spread for every week of the month. There was pretty much nothing going on from the 5th to the 16th and how would those pages have looked if I’d stuck with the by-the-week approach religiously? So there it is. I already can’t wait to see how the rest of the year goes, and then to create a hard-bound photo book using these pages (I will probably do a 10×10 book from Shutterfly) as our family album for 2014. Do you do Project Life? If you’ve posted images online, link me up in the comments!

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