Welcome to the March Project Life Blog Hop!
For those of you who haven't visited my blog, I want to introduce myself very quickly. My name is Jen and I've been scrapbooking since I was 16 {13 years now!} Even though I call myself a scrapbooker, I hadn't actually completed a layout for more than 5 years...until Project Life came along. I participated in Project 365 2 years ago and failed miserably. I purchased my first Project Life kit last year, but haven't actually put a single picture in that album yet. This year I got the Clementine core kit, and the project has been successful so far. I can't say enough how much I love this project!
I've been married to my wonderful husband, Mike, for over 2 years now, and we have 2 furbabies: Molly who is a pug, and Abby who is a husky. We live in on farm in small-town Nebraska. Mike works with investments, and I work for senior living communities doing marketing & fundraising. We raise cattle on our farm, and we're opening a small boutique called Gather that will sell home decor, vintage goods, wedding stationery, party decor and just about anything else I think is interesting!
On to the Project Life layouts! I had fallen behind on my layouts because I ran out of page protectors and was waiting on them to get back in stock. I finally caught up on Weeks 4-7 on Sunday, and should have weeks 8 & 9 done by the end of this week!
During Week 4, I decided to try something different with my photos and go all black and white. It turned out I didn't like the way it looked, so I tried to add some extra color with embellishments. The stamps on the journaling cards are from an Ali Edwards' set, Life in Pictures.
Week 5 was full of color, which I loved after all that black and white! On the left side, I took a photo of Buffalo Enchiladas I made for the anniversary of our first date. Next to it, I used a folded journaling card to write the recipe down. {To get the recipe, visit my Pinterest page: www.pinterest.com/gatherboutique}
On the right side, I asked Mike to do some journaling with me. I'm really blessed to have Mike's help on this project whenever I ask for it, and I'm glad that when we look back over these stories, I'll have his perspective as well.
Week 6 was a different kind of layout for me. I decided to focus on one main story, my nephew's 6th birthday party. I took a lot of pictures of details and of all the activities we did. I also included the Pit Passes that I made for the guests at the party. On the right side, I used Design D photo pocket pages and did some journaling on 3x4 grid cards. I used the top card to tell a shorter story, and the bottom two cards to tell a longer story.
I liked this kind of layout for a change. After being a traditional scrapbooker for so long, it was comforting to focus on one main story from an important event in our lives. In the grand scheme of things, this album won't feel like it's missing some of the other stories that happened during the week.
And finally, week 7. I added some embellishments to the grid cards on the left side just to give them a little more color. On the right side, I photographed some paints at work that reminded me of an art project I used to do with my grandmother. I wrote the memory on a journaling card to go with the photo of the paints.
All in all, these updates took maybe 2 hours for me to complete. I love that I was able to get so much done in such a short period of time!
I tend to keep my Project Life album open on my dining room table so it's always accessible and it reminds me to be on the lookout for picture taking opportunities. I have some Martha Stewart organizational products to hold all my core kit elements and other embellishments. I want to make this project as simple as it can be so I'm sure to keep up with it throughout the year.
For more information on my Project Life, visit my Project Life related posts. You can also check out some of my Project Life inspiration on Pinterest.
Make sure you visit the other participants and see what they have to show you next week. Up next is Sarah.
Don't forget to visit the other participants:
Have a great day & thanks for visiting my blog!
Nice layouts Jen. Isn't it just great how quickly you can catch up - I love that about Project Life.
ReplyDeleteGood idea to keep your album out - I do that too - it does keep me reminded to take pictures and keep the album up to date each week.
Thanks for sharing.
I use the Design A pages as a base but love to add a variety of different designs. And even more variety by cutting them up. Your layouts are wonderful.
ReplyDeleteFantastic layouts, Im loving the mix of different page protectors, I only use the "A's" as a base but reall want to expand and try some of the other page protectors
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