If you're taking on Project Life this year, good for you! I am so happy I decided to accept the challenge back in 2010! Welcome aboard and be sure to enjoy. This isn't meant to be stressful. It's a wonderful way to simplify scrapbooking and memory keeping. If you're looking for inspiration on what others are doing with their Project Life, you can check out my board on Pinterest and be sure to link up on The Mom Creative!
Sunday, January 1st - Happy New Year! Micah has been on a big Star Wars kick lately and the boys were literally acting out the final light saber fight between Luke and Darth Vader as it happened on the screen.
Monday, January 2nd - Rose Bowl!! The Badgers from my alma mater, the University of Wisconsin, made their second straight appearance in the Granddaddy of them All today. Unfortunately, they lost for the second time in a row, but at least my little Badger fans looked adorable.
After coming in from outside, the hat left Micah in a bit of a tousled state. I grabbed the camera quick and asked him to smile. This photo just kills me because it's so hideous that it's actually quite cute!
Tuesday, January 3rd - We gave Isaiah this play shaving kit for Christmas and the kids busted it out for the first time in the bath tonight. I swear they would have gone through the whole can of foam if I had let them.
Wednesday, January 4th - Thomas has started sticking his tongue out every time he smiles real big and I just LOVE it!
Thursday, January 5th - I signed up for Weight Watchers Online at about 11:30 pm on New Years Eve. This was my fifth full day on it and I couldn't resist weighing in a little early just to see if I was on the right track. I was thrilled to find out I had already dropped five pounds! Of course, 197 pounds is still pretty horrifying, so I'm bound and determined to drop this weight! Watch for me to be Tweeting under the hashtag #gettingmysexyback!
One of my big motivating factors for dropping the weight is feeling more comfortable being in photos rather than just taking them. This is a start!
Saturday, January 7th - Last night my husband signed up for Weight Watchers Online for Men and I can't even express how proud I am of him. I set his cereal out for him this morning before I left for work with a little love note, reminding him of how I am his #1 fan in this.
And the weather today was absolutely INSANE!! It's January 7th, but Evan was able to grill chicken breasts outside on our charcoal grill....in a sweatshirt. It was in the high 40s today, a legitimate heatwave for Wisconsin in January!
Now that you've seen each photo on its own, here's how the layout turned out for the first week. Not a significant change from last year, but definitely more flexible!
One of my favorite things that I was able to use on this week's layout was the "I'm Totally Tweeting This!" card. I found it on Pinterest and just had to snag it for my own use. I loved grabbing this little tidbit from with Twitter feed to add more to a big topic for this week. It was a free download! I've provided the Pinterest link for you below if you want it.
Remember, Project Life is meant to simplify scrapbooking. It's easy to get overwhelmed if you see all kinds of amazing albums, but I really like to keep mine simple. Here's some other fun tidbits on how I spice up my Project Life and my process for 2012.
I love to use Thickers letter stickers to add the year or a little embellishement to the title page. Here's how the title page fore 2011 turned out:
As for additional products, I like using the 12x12 Big Envelope Pages to hold additional material, like in this layout from 2011 when I wanted to keep some newspapers after the Packers won the Super Bowl.
I also use regular 8.5x11 sheet protectors pretty often for including things like printed blog posts, notes from school or the doctor, or print outs of important news stories.
As for 2012, I am trying to work on the weekly layout as the week occurs so I don't fall behind. My other goal is to get my photos printed at Walgreens every Sunday so I can just pick them up after work and put them in the album when I get home so I'm all set for Project Life Tuesday every week. Here was my process for this week:
Choose and edit photos. Place a Post-It on each spot so I know what element/photo will go where. This made it very easy to change my mind and move things around.
Once I know where the photos will be that need journaling cards to match, I can start prepping those. I write out my journalling, stamp it with the date (date stamp is from the 2011 kit) and put on the arrow sticker to point to the right photo. Now all I need is the photos!
Hope you found this helpful if you are new to Project Life and enjoyable if you're an old veteran to it.
Have a wonderful week!
