Project Life Cards

For 2013 I started Project Life for both of my girls scrapbooks. I love scrapbooking, but with all of the things I do in my life I found I wasn't getting much of it done. I needed to be more organized, which is sometimes a struggle for me.

The other thing I was struggling with was that I was scrapbooking all of the "pretty" pictures of the girls, not the stuff that they'll want to remember when they're older or the things they'll want to share with their children. So for 2013 I decided to take a photo a day for each girl's album. Most people I told thought I was crazy, especially since they know me - I start off big and it's usually a struggle for me to finish. But I'm happy to say, it's now the end half of February and I've managed to take a photo every day for each girl. Sometimes if it fits for both girls, I'll use the same photo for both albums, but most of the time I try to make each day's picture something different for each girl.

I've found a great system that's been working for me and I thought I'd share it here. I spend maybe an hour or two a week on getting the week scrapbooked for their albums which is not hard or too time-consuming. I have 3 ways I can take a photo, two of which I have with me most of the time in case something happens that I want a picture of that day. One is my iPad, the other is my little Nikon that fits in my purse. I also have my big Nikon that takes better pictures, but isn't very easy to lug around with me everywhere. On Friday night I upload all of the photos I've taken for the week and send them to Sams Club to get printed in an hour. Saturday morning is picture pickup day. The girls LOVE to go to Sams on Saturday so they can visit every "Taste & Tips" booth they can find. ;) When I get the photos home I get out my Stampin' Up! corner rounder and round the corners before I slide them in the photo pockets. Then I print the date with my P-touch labeler and stick it in the pocket where the journaling card goes once I get it made.

Becky Higgins has created kits with pre-printed journaling cards that make doing a Project Life album super-fast, but I still need to get my creative fix in so I either make my own 3" x 4" journaling cards or I jazz up the ones in the kit. For the cards above I used her basic grid cards then printed the days of the week out on patterned polka dotted paper. I cut them into strips and made a notch on the end so it would be a little banner. I added a strip of Crumb Cake down the side and sewed it on with a small zig-zag stitch. I punched out a little flower and added a jewel to the center.

A lot of Stampin' Up!'s colors match Becky's kits almost perfectly, which I think it pretty cool! If you are doing Project Life too, check back to the blog - I plan to share some fun digital things I make for my albums.