Project Life: Goals for 2015

I know that every single blogger out there who shares their Project Life spreads does a post like this near the end of the year, I figured I might as well jump on that bandwagon too. I've been browsing a few blogs to see their plans, and I've picked up a few ideas that I'd like to use next year. One of my fave creative people shared her goals recently, and inspired me to share some of my own! Kellie over at Give a Girl a Blog makes some amazing layouts, and stamps. She's such an inspiration, and I'm so excited to receive some of her stamps soon!

1. Stay in one 12x12 album (if possible). Our lives aren't "exciting" and I don't want to add in all the fluff that we had this year. I also want to try and keep the amount of albums I'll need to store in the future, as small as possible, but I'm in love with mini albums, so that might be a little tough.

2. Use my stash more. I have way more core kits than I'll ever use in this lifetime, and I'm considering separating out 1/3 of each of them to sell/share with family & friends who want to start Project Life, without getting overwhelmed by a whole kit. That being said, even after I separate out 1/3 of what I can, I'll still have so many cards leftover to get me through more than a year.

3. Jon's perspective. I want to include more of his memories, feelings, photos, etc. no matter how bad I may look in some of them. He hardly ever takes pictures of things, but I want him to start because this is OUR life, and I want more of him to be included in it. If he says no, I'll respect that, but I'd like him to say yes.

4. Selective photos. I want to be more selective when choosing photos to include. This year I included basically all the photos I took, which led to us having 2 albums for the year. If a particular spread is only one page long, and another is several pages long, I want to be okay with that. This is our life and some things will have a ton of photos, while other things may not have a ton of photos.

5. Design A pages. I want to continue to use Design A pocket pages. I love the consistency in using the same style throughout, and adding in a few inserts here and there when needed, regardless of the style.

6. Stress less. This year I mostly kept up with my weekly spreads, however sometimes I fell behind, and because I generally tried to keep a few short notes about each day/week, I was able to quickly catch up. I used a set of planner pages from a site that exists no longer, but these ones from A Vegas Girl at Heart are perfect for any Project Lifer, regardless of the design you use. I love that at the bottom it has space for you to draw the design of your pages and plan where things will go.

7. Go with the flow. Previously, I would have stressed a bit if I didn't take a photo from a particular event, and I'd try and find one that someone else took and I could use. In 2015, I would rather just enjoy the moment, and journal about it later, than worry if I didn't get a photo from it.

8. Start & end date. This year I started on the 1st of January. Next year, my plan is to also start on the 1st of January. I know that this means I have a half week ending this year, and a half week starting next year, but it's important to me, to keep the month of December together, as well as the month of January. Though this might change when it reaches the end of the year.

9. Weeks. If I do next year on a weekly spread basis, like I did this year, I'm changing my weeks from Sunday-Saturday, to Monday-Sunday. There were a few times that we went somewhere for the weekend and the trip was split in two because of my week set up. I was fine with it, but I think I'll make the switch to Monday-Sunday for the ease of documenting it. It'll also make it easier to find calendar cards, and I can stop altering my planning pages.

10. Mini Albums. This year I did the 30 Days of Me album, I plan to do it next year as well, around the same time. I'm undecided on whether or not I want to do a separate December Daily album, however this year I'm doing some fancy December pages in my regular album, thanks to some inspiration from Andrea over at Retrohipmama.

I'm sure as I get closer to next year, I'll think of a few more things that I want to add to this list, or change on this list. But I figured that a short list of Project Life goals would help some of you with your spreads, and inspire some of you to consider things you do and don't like about your current way of documenting your memories.

Have a great day!!
-Alexandria

Make Every Day a Scrapbooking Adventure - An Inspiring Video

Good morning! Unfortunately I left Wednesday evening for my Great Grandma's funeral on Thursday so I'm not able to create anything for this post, but before I left I came across this video. I shared it on my Facebook page, in all of the Project Life groups I'm part of, I shared it with my friends and anyone else who wasn't annoyed by my spam to ignore it.

 

I feel like this video from Shimelle Laine, needs to be seen by the world. She shared it in 2011 and I just stumbled across it this week. The first few minutes were the most inspiring for me. I want to be able to scrapbook the everyday without feeling like no one will care about it. I include all kinds of things from food to TV shows, to books and movies, to where we went that week, things that happened at work, dirty dishes, laundry and our dirty house. In 50 years I'll look back and probably think "wow those were obviously simpler times. Remember when we had that whole summer off during the renovations at work?".

I scrapbook because I want to remember, and be remembered. When I die, they may just throw out all my albums, but at least someone would have looked at them and known who I was and that I documented all this for them. I see my mom, who just keeps all her photos on her computer, and no one ever looks at them, and it breaks my heart. I don't want to try and scrapbook them when she dies. Most of those I have little to no memory of.

One goal in my life would be to get more of my family into scrapbooking their memories. I have a few albums on the go, one for my Grandma and the trips her and my Grandfather took when my aunt (their youngest) was still in highschool. Now that my Grandfather has passed away (quite a while ago) I want to get their memories down before my Grandma passes away. I also want to do a heritage album for my dad's side before his mom passes away. Ideally I'd do a Heritage album for both sides, but it's a matter of time, which we never have enough of. Enough of my long winded-ness. I'll end here and see you all on Monday. Have a great weekend!

Hello Darling - Project Life Inspired

Good morning darlings! I hope you all had a wonderful Wednesday!

First off, I made a few cards (like 4 or 5) and there was a giant mess afterwards. Today, instead of cleaning up my mess I simply made it worse. Now tomorrow I'll have to clean it all up.

Today's card is inspired by the Midnight Edition of Project Life. I was opening up my kits today, and flipping through all the cards. I'm so in love with the variety, and I can't wait to mix and match them throughout my album. I've decided that I'm going to start documenting things with Project Life starting in January. I have a lot of changes happening in my personal life towards the end of this year and  the beginning of next.

The Midnight Edition is black, yellow and grey. I rounded the corners to look like a Project Life card (only larger), and added ribbon to bring in more yellow. The gems were an after thought.

Here's a slight side view of the card. The "Hello Darling" is raised above the ribbon with foam squares, and the ribbon wraps around slightly inside.

I originally wanted it just to say hello, then I remembered I had this stamp, and it really tied the whole card together. I rounded opposite corners for a unique shape, and inked the edges with orange and yellow.

This card was so simple, and I love it so much! I love the yellow and black colour combo. It's bright and happy without being too in your face cheerful.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Thursday! See you all tomorrow, for one last post before the weekend! Maybe I'll do something a little more exciting! We'll see how much time I have after work!

-Alex