It's Here!!

My Project Life kit, that is!! I'm so stinking excited. I almost answered the door when UPS came. (I didn't, but I thought about it...I'm not a fan of answering our door. Yes, I'm a freak.)

Anyway, here's a sample of just about everything that comes in the kit (I got the Amber kit).

There's 12x12 cardstock that you can use for whatever you'd like in the album (there's no specific purpose). The flyer comes with as sort of an introduction to the project, as well as instructions on how to set things up in the album to get it all started.

The page on the left there is the beginning of the album, and there's a similar set up for the last page. I went ahead and put those together first. There's also a title card for each week, so I set all those up for all the weeks.

The album is already getting thick! (That's part of the last page in the picture.) (By the way, excuse the lighting in these, it was terribly dark and I couldn't wait to take pictures!)

So, in addition to all of that, there's also journaling cards that come in these cute little card boxes:

This one is my favorite pattern of the card boxes, so it's going in my purse for journaling on the go. There's a ton of different patterned cards in each of the 4 boxes.

I'm entirely too anal to use two of the same design of card in one layout, so I shuffled mine up "Go Fish" style.

Then I went ahead and put them back in their boxes, but this way, I won't accidentally reach for the same card two days in a row.

So, here's just a few things I'm thinking about for how my album will go over the course of this next year:

1. I plan to get my photos printed in bigger batches. I get emails from Shutterfly.com all the time for 50 free prints. So, chances are I'll get one of these offers at least once a month through one of my accounts and I'll go that route. I like the quality of their photos.

2. Because I'll get my photos printed in batches, I want to make sure to keep up on my journaling after I figure out which pictures I'll use. I plan to journal on a regular basis and then add my pictures once they're printed. Like this:

3. I was trying to figure out what I plan to put in my weekly layouts. My life is fairly boring, so I need to figure out some things that I can take photos of every week. One thing I want to do is take a picture of my surroundings. I'm constantly amazed by how beautiful it is living in the country (I hope that doesn't go away no matter how long we live here). So, why not take pictures of all the awesome things I see on a daily basis? Like this one, I took of our sunset through a bush:

The other thing I want to do each week is pick a recipe, take photos of the finished meal, and write the recipe on my journaling card. There are larger journaling cards included in the kit that are pre-folded and fit in the same pocket the journaling cards do, so I'll probably use those. I think it'll be interesting to look back at the meals we make and how they differ over the course of the year...and how my cooking habits change over the years. (I would have never guessed some of my typical meals would be what they are when I learned to cook a few years ago. Or that I would even learn how to cook.) Anyway, I think it will be fun to have 52 of our favorite recipes along with the photos of our everyday lives.

(I reserve the right to change my mind on any of these ideas if they don't work...or if I get lazy!)

Needless to say, I'm so happy that my kit it here and I'm finally able to work on things. I hope that I'll manage to stick with it all year, but I'm glad that it's flexible enough that I don't have to worry about falling behind and giving up.