Project Life | 01

The only goal I have set for this year, so far, is this: to document every week of our year, in photos and words, in a physical scrapbook.


Last week, my MacBook finally gave out, refusing to even boot from a start up disk. With that comes the struggle of a hard drive that can't be read on our Windows desktop; more than thirteen thousand photos that I can't flip through, let alone print or frame.

Of those, perhaps one hundred have been printed.. photos from France placed into an album, pictures from the beach printed into a hard bound book, a handful of landscapes framed on our walls.

I'm hoping that Project Life will change those statistics.
More photos taken and more photos printed each week in 2014.


As I start this project, these are my intentions:
// to fit an entire year into a single 12x12 album (this is the one I will be using)
// to use primarily Design A Photo Pocket Pages (with smaller inserts for busy weeks)
// to record each week from Monday through Sunday
// to use consistent weekly title cards, these being from Caylee Grey 
// to print my photos and to create my weekly spreads every weekend, in real time
// and finally, to share each of those spreads with you

Some other products I am using to get started include a Project Life Core Kit - Midnight Edition, matte photo paper, vellum, scrapbooking pens, a paper cutter, and a corner rounder.

(I hesitated to begin this project, worrying about the cost of materials and the ability to print great photos locally. But, with some craft couponing and my existing craft supplies stash, I was able to get the materials for an entire fifty-two week album for under $70. As for printing, for now I will be printing at our local Wal-mart Photo Center to help myself stay on track. After printing to several labs in the area, I've settled on Wal-mart for their matte photo paper and surprisingly true colors.)


Left //

I couldn't wait for the first Monday through Sunday week to start my album and decided that instead, I would include the first days of the new year like homemade pizza for New Year's Eve and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the movie) on New Year's Day, even though we didn't make it to midnight this year.

I also included a funny quote from Trevor, something I hope to do often throughout this album -- as he said mid-way through the meal of New Mexican food you see above, "my New Year's resolution is to eat huevos rancheros at least once a day."

The details: For a New Year's feel, I hole punched various card stock pages to create confetti. I also printed directly onto my Project Life kit cards using this font and this guide. The lower right journaling card was printed onto vellum paper and stapled to card stock to break up the solid white of the layout.



Right //

I have no doubt that the majority of photos gracing the pages of this year's album, especially the early pages, will be of Miesha. Spoiler: I'm working on week two and the girls' got an entire page. For this week, I included a list of puppy moments. This week, Miesha learned to hide under the bed, under the desk, and even under the kitchen sink. She learned how to shake (after a shower with me), discovered she could play with two tennis balls at one time, dug her first holes in the yard, and got the last of her puppy vaccines.

The details: I printed one 4x6 photo and split it directly down the center to fill two 3x4 slots to help balance journaling and images on this page. The Miesha notes and recipe card were both printed directly onto matte photo paper using this font.