I've been having a ball with Project Life by Stampin' Up! As much as I love traditional scrapbooking, this has become the only way for me to document my memories for now. And I love it more than I thought!
I used to spend hours creating 12x12 scrapbook pages that I loved. It was a fun pastime and I really enjoyed the creative challenge as well as the satisfaction of the finished product. After having my first child there was less time to scrap, but I managed to keep it up since I didn't go to a job. Most of my creative work was accomplished during the wee hours of the morning while I dealt with insomnia during my second pregnancy.
After giving birth to my second, it all came to a screeching halt. I had one last push at his first birthday so I would have an album ready at the party, but I knew that this involved style of scrapbooking was simply too time-consuming now. I had been looking online to try and find ideas for page layouts, and buying layout templates to help me come up with something that looked good. I felt I had no creativity left, but I was still intent to DO SOMETHING with ALL THE PICTURES. It had become more challenging than fun, and I found myself putting it off most of the time. I collected "things to be scrapbooked" in a giant box for years. The Box hung over my head and I just felt guilty and increasingly overwhelmed.
I wasn't sure about it, but I decided to go ahead and give Project Life a try. My thoughts? Boy, is it easy! I can't believe I waited so long to do this! There are still some special pictures I will create a 12x12 page for when the inspiration strikes me. Now I intermix those pages with my new favorite method of memory keeping - Project Life!
Y'all, it's seriously so easy! Just slide photos into the pockets, write on some cards and slide those into the pockets, and that's it! A completed album!
I started with my wedding - the biggest project I had been putting off for almost five years! There were hundreds of photos and I couldn't stand the thought of coming up with layouts for all of them that would create a cohesive, beautiful album. Well, I bought a black/white card collection (Love Story, now retired) and set to work. It was so simple and within about 9 months I had my wedding album DONE! The relief was incredible and I love to look back at this album. It will be our anniversary tradition along with our wedding video. All those memories and mementos were finally out of The Box and somewhere we could honor them.
Next I made a vacation album from a trip we just took, and was amazed to have the whole trip documented within 3 months of returning! I only worked on it a little at a time, but it went by quickly and now we have an album full of memories that are so much fun to look back on! Plus, it was one more thing out of The Box!
With these two events out of the way, my confidence had increased and I knew I was ready to really make a dent in The Box. To get a handle on all the pictures and doo-dads that had accumulated, I decided to do yearly albums. A sort of family yearbook. As of this writing, I have nearly completed my 2014 album in less than two months. I got more efficient with each album, and now I have a system down and know what works fastest and best for me. That makes it go even more smoothly than before. I'm a stay-at-home mom of two, running a business from my home - it's just not practical to spend time on my albums every day. I would estimate I spend about 2 hours per week on it. And it is paying off!
Are you curious about how to get started on this process? Do you have your own dreaded version of The Box? Soon I will be making a process video to show you all my own strategies for successful memory keeping with Project Life. I have always been the kind of person who needs things broken down step by step, with lots of visuals, so I will spare no detail when sharing with you what has worked for me.
In the mean time, check out this video showing some of the new Project Life products I've just gotten. Let these cards inspire you and then tune in for my next video where I walk you through my process! If you like my video, give it a thumbs up and subscribe to my YouTube channel so you won't miss my upcoming process video!
Your demonstrator,
Rachel
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