Sep 28, 2015

DOCUMENTING AUGUST



August is in the books and I've fallen into the "monthly" habit that I seem to fall into every year at about this time.  Instead of working on my Project Life pages a week or two at a time - as I do at the beginning of the year - I tend to wait until the end of the month and batch process my layouts.

I know that I should be happy with myself for the fact that I got the pages done at all, but (after completing the first many layouts of the year week by week) I know just how much I am losing by completing all of my documenting in one shot.

I lose the details, the little stories, the quotes.  I find myself writing about what's in the photos, rather than other stories from the week, because the photos become my memory joggers for what actually happened in those seven days a month before.  It is hard to remember the little things that happened more than a few days prior.

I've been trying to make myself little notes in my planner and that definitely helps, but I'm not as good about this as I could be.

Instead, I often find myself thinking throughout a day, "Oh!  I have to remember this for our Project Life album" and then promptly forgetting about it.




I briefly mentioned above that I "batch process" my layouts.  What I mean by this, is that I have my process broken down into five big steps and often just do one step on a given day, waiting for my next bit of available time to work on the next step.

 These are my five steps for completing my pages:
  • I go through each of the four (or so) weeks and decide which photos to print.  
  • I edit each photo for both coloring (to "fix" the coloring or change to black and white) and also for size and orientation as I need it to fit in my photo pocket pages.
  • I print photos using my Epson PictureMate Charm Photo Printer photo printer.
  • I put photos in pockets for the appropriate week and decide on journaling cards to fill in the pockets without photos.  
  • I fill in the journaling cards with stories, quotes and lists of what's been happening for each week. 
This is the only way I can keep up with this project.  I rarely have more than a half hour to work on my album at a time.  This means that doing four weeks of layouts, sometimes takes me a week or more to complete.

In my ideal world, I would find an hour each weekend to get the previous week's pages done from start to finish.  But, this process works pretty well and fits with my actual world and actual available time.













Imperfect as it is - in both content and method -  I am happy to have another month recorded.  These books that document the story of our family, week after week, bring me joy.

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Project Life is a scrapbooking system created by Becky Higgins to simplify memory keeping.  I have been using the Project Life method since 2012 and am currently on Becky's Creative Team.

If you are looking for a no-worries, easy and "it will all go together" method of scrapbooking that won't require a lot of time, I definitely recommend choosing one or two of the Project Life Core Kits that fit with your style and using that exclusively.

I am all about mixing and matching, so I use cards from many (many!) of the available kits.  My very favorite (and most used) kits are SunshineMidnightEveryday and My Story themed cards.  

If you have any questions about Project Life or about the methods I use to scrapbook, I would love to hear from you.  Comment here or find me on Instagram.  

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