Project Life Weeks 1-18

I've been a terrible blogger lately. My local scrapbook store closed its brick & mortar store front, so for a month I spent a ton of time cropping there, since it's going to be hard to get together with the ladies I met there. Also, school is kicking my butt. Seriously, who knew French Cinema & Literature could be so time consuming. But I LOVE it, so it's all worth it. So first off I thought I would catch you all up with my Project Life, instead of photos I decided to whip out my webcam and give you a little video, so that you can see up to March 17th, then I will be caught up to what I have finished and what I've posted here. Plus I have loads of newly photographed layouts to share with you here & now that I have MY VERY OWN SCRAPROOM!!! I have been making videos like crazy, but editing is a pain, so it takes a while. Anyways, thanks for hanging in there. I hope you enjoy the video & if you have any questions, leave me a comment and I will be happy to answer them! So without further adieu, here's my Project Life Weeks 1-18:

Project Life Week 4: December 4 - 10

This week was particularly hard for me to remember to take photos. Finals week is SO stressful and the last thing that was on my mind was a photo per day, so I gave myself a little wiggle room, added the photos I had and then filled in the rest with memorabilia and journaling. Simple as that. I actually used 3 different photos from the same day, my little cousin, Stephanie's Chorus concert, mainly because it was her first concert ever and she was really excited, plus I am super proud of her for following her dreams of singing. Anyways here it is, thanks for looking!

Project Life Week 3: November 27-December 3

Back to school. That's what this week was about for me. Trying to get back into the groove after a week long Thanksgiving Break + preparing for the end of the semester & exams. Yikes. Glad I'm past that! :)

So as you can tell, I added one insert. I used an American Crafts 6x12 Page Protector, trimmed just slightly at the top to 11 inches, to accommodate letter size paper. I trimmed down 2 of my French papers from class, I'm hoping this will give me insight one day into what I was interested in at this point in my life. 

I also added a journal spot from My Mind's Eye, that is much larger than the 3x4 spot, I wrote in my top favorite television programs at the moment. 

At this point I was still using Becky Higgins Grid Journal Cards for MOST of my journaling, and adding my own touch with stamps, mists, & labels. 

That's pretty much it. I tend to follow the same flow every week, giving the Project my own spin, making it uniquely mine. So... Until next time. 

My Process

So now that I'm a few weeks into sharing my Project Life I thought it would be a good idea to give you a look into how I go about creating my weekly layouts. I jumped into this project without a clear plan in mind, and when I say clear, I mean specific with all the details written out, pre-planned, anything. I knew what I wanted it to be, which is a complete story of what spending 1 entire year with me would look like at this point in my life, I knew that I had FAILED EPICALLY at every other project I have tried to start that entailed and entire years worth of photos, in one album that didn't include tons of negative space and lots of embellishment. So I wanted to give myself so freedom, without giving myself the ability to fail. Less rules = more capability, for me. So in the beginning, I felt like I needed my photos to at least kind of go in order by date. Today, I don't even think about it.

First off I should probably warn you, I'm slightly obsessive when it comes to the organization that works for me, in all of the areas of my life. So my photo organization works perfect for me. I create yearly folders inside of my main photos folder that came standard on my PC, inside of the yearly folder, there is a folder for each month, labeled like this: 01 January, 02 February, etc. This keeps them in order of month. Inside of my monthly folder, I have a dated folder, labeled like this: 01-01-2012, 01-08-2012, etc. That way if I know I need a specific day I can go straight to that folder. After I've moved my photos off of my camera into their rightful folders, I see which days I have "camera" photos for, if I don't have a photo on my camera for a specific day I reference my Momento App, I have all of my social networking feeding into it, this usually gives me an idea of what I did that day if I can't remember, and it will give me my other mobile photos such as my instagrams. If I don't have a camera photo I usually have an instagram. 

While I'm checking which photos I have for the days of the week, I am working out a general plan for my weekly layout. I usually draw my page protectors out on grid paper (Marcy Penner just shared some planning pages on her blog which I will probably be using from now on), with pen, then use a pencil to layout my photos, so I can erase as much as I need (which is usually quite a lot). After I layout my photos and journaling on my hand drawn plan I write exactly which photos I NEED to have printed for that weeks layout underneath, if I have instagrams I create 4x6 canvas, using the same technique I did here & place 2 2.5x2.5 or 1 3x3 photo on a 4x6 canvas, then I move them back to my memory card to take to my local lab. At this point I will usually get my photos printed within the next few days and I just put my PL on the back burner until after the photos are printed. Then if I NEED to make any changes to the layout I haven't written my journaling landscape & it turns out I need it to be portrait. So I wait to put everything together at once. 

I hope this gave you some insight into how I complete my weekly layouts. Everyone is different, but sometimes hearing, or in this case reading, how someone else does it, can help you decide if you need to make some changes to your process to make it fit your creative style more. I would love to hear back from anyone on how they approach their weekly layouts. :)

Next on my list to share is my tiny Project Life Bin, well to me its huge, but compared to what I've seen out there as far as PL stations, my is TINY. 

Project Life Week 2 November 20-26

So now that I am officially out there with my Project Life, I feel like I have a little bit of EXTRA motivation to keep me going, holding myself accountable if you will. So here's my second week

 I've been finding that I love to add inserts and extra smaller page protectors to my weekly layouts. It gives me the chance to add more smaller details, which to me is what this project is all about. I've been adding tons of memorabilia & smaller photos (i.e. instagrams & hipstamatics) into the smaller pockets

This week Ryan and I went to our "local" art museum (the High Museum is located in Atlanta, which to me is close enough for us to consider local) we saw an AMAZING exhibit called Picasso to Warhol, featuring 14 modern artists, for me I KNEW I would need extra room to write about what I loved about the exhibit and about the rest of our day in Atlanta. Not only did the insert come in handy there, but also for Thanksgiving.
I like to journal about everything, from what we ate & wore, to our schedule for the day. It was so nice having that bit of extra room for plenty of words.

Unlike most people, you won't find any pics of me shopping on "black friday" in my Project Life because I spent the day with the guys, I don't know many women who would choose video games over shopping, but I know I'm glad I did, no hustle & bustle over a few items I could get for a similar price later. I did think about going out, but just like most years I talked my self down off of the ledge, so to speak lol.

xxKatie

Hiatus

I have bad luck, through & through. I bought a new laptop in August & right at 3 months later, my hard drive FAILED... that's right, FAILED. So happy I'm OCD about backing up all of my photos & documents. So after unexpected crazy mishaps, I'm back on the blogging road. I have a LOT of Project Life to catch up on sharing. I've been so proud of myself, I love this project, it's so simple to keep up with & so much fun to make it my own. First off I want to share my title page.

My idea for this project is to document my life from the day I turn 24 to the day I turn 25. By only buying the Page Protectors and the Grid Journal Cards I have been challenged to creating all of the "FUN" stuff on my own. I've been using TONS of stamps, my Silhouette SD, washi tapes (like this, this, this, & this + MORE), my Tiny Attacher, pre-made journal cards from my favorite collections, & lots of pattern paper. I've been trying to keep it in my style by using colors I LOVE, like grey, yellow, teal, orange, pink, etc. I absolutely love bold hues of colors.

Because I don't think that sharing the title page is enough, I'll share my first week, which was November 13-19, it worked out perfectly for me that my birthday fell on a Sunday, so I made my week layouts run from Sunday to Saturday. Without further adieu,

I hope you enjoyed looking into my project life, I'll be in a week with my second week and so on until I can get caught up on my posts. Seriously, this was the best decision on a year long project I could have made. I love it so far, and if I can keep up the momentum, I know I will be able to succeed in finishing it. I have to say that the best part of this project is the community though, I'm apart of the Big Picture Classes Community, & I am always up for seeing anyone's project life, so if you want to share, leave me a link in the comments. ;)

A New Adventure

I decided, just days before my twenty-fourth birthday, that I wanted to document it to its fullest. Meaning I want to capture everyday. I have been admiring everyone's Project Life albums, they are all so awesome, from the most simple to the most detailed. I love it. Seeing several of my friends PL albums have made me WANT to do this so bad, but I've been afraid to start, afraid of failure. But, I'm not going to let fear dictate what I capture about our lives. So there I was, starting Project Life in the middle of November, on my birthday. And almost a week later, I am having so much fun. 

I ordered several things from Becky Higgins through Amazon, which was amazing. I have Prime, so I had my order 2 days after I ordered it and I was able to get everything ready for the first day. I only ordered the Big Variety Pack of Pocket Pages, Grid Journal Cards,  Album Dividers, and the BIG Pockets. I want my album to be all me. So I'm going to be customizing the album from start to finish. I love adding in the smallest details into my scrapbook pages and I want that part of my process to continue in this project too. I don't  necessarily want my book to look like every other book out there, what would be the fun in that, right?

So far, I've been doing my journaling every night, what we did during the day, sometimes what the weather was like, who we talked to, what/where we ate, funny things the cats are up to (you know I have to include them), etc. Plus every night I upload my photos to my computer, add a outline I created in PSE and the date. Then I upload them to RitzPix, my preferred local printer, so there is NO EXCUSE to not have them printed each week. I don't own a photo printer, nor do I have the desire to destroy myself trying to find the perfect one, that I can get the best prints from, for the best price. I just buy a 300 prepaid print card to Wolf Camera, while they are on sale of course. This allows me to get a few prints or lots anytime I want for a good price, plus the instant gratification that comes with local printing rather than online, makes everything so much better! :)

As of right now I am totally going to need more sizes of photo protectors. I know it. Already. I can tell by what I want to add that I don't need so many 3X4 journal card spots, but more photo spots. Not sure as of yet how I am going to resolve this. I'm just glad I'm only 2 days of shipping away from any Amazon order I make. <3. I think I'm going to be editing my photos farther than I am now, by making smaller prints to get more out of what photo pockets I have now. I love technology. So much. 

I'm a terrible blogger, so maybe this type of project will help me keep up with this more as well, win win right? My life isn't what I would call exciting by any means, I don't have kids, I don't live in a fancy city, nor do I have a fabulous job. I am me though, 100% and I know how much I already cherish all of the scrapbook pages I have made, so I think this project is perfect for me, right now. At the end of each week I'm going to try and share my photos and a little bit about our week. Then when my page spreads are finished I will be sharing those too. Promise. Seriously. 

I hoping that by putting all of this out there it will be my motivating force to keep up with the project and not let it fall to the wayside, like last years attempted 5 photo 365. Pathetic I know. lol.