Project Life and Paperclipping Roundtable

[Warning: Photo Heavy Post]

Good Afternoon, dear reader, (or should I say readers since there might actually be more than one now and best of luck to you all in the giveaway). Today I am back with two pocket page protector projects to share, and how is that for lovely alliteration?

The first is my week 9 for 2013 Project Life. I am very motivated to keep up with this by the amount of time the kids spend looking at these layouts, in fact, while photographing this one, I was being nudged insistently out of the way by the two of them trying to have a look. I plan to share the most recently completed layout on a weekly basis.

Details
  

It was a fairly normal week, yet as always I had plenty enough photos to fill every pocket and more besides. I often seem to read in forums that scrapbookers are struggling with too few photos, but honestly, I am forever pulling out my iphone to take endless photos and end up having quite a hard time selecting those that best tell the story of the week. I have found Noell’s advice on this helpful and have referred to it more than once.

Speaking of Noell brings me to the second project I wish to share today, and that is my plan for the Paperclipping Playalong, which is an invitation by Noell to join her in trying to complete an incomplete album.

I love creating layouts and have undergone quite a journey in my crafting, from the classic post-wedding bride with too many photos and insufficient scrapbook skill, to scrapbooking my babies, then kids, to finally discovering the joy that was in the process of creating, rather than in the finished product. This discovery led me to a lot of scrapbooking where the experience of creating was the value I was deriving from it, and I felt no compulsion to show anyone albums. Like reading a novel, I had gained my joy in the making of the art. The wind of change blew this year with my jaunt into Project Life. My kids cannot stop looking through that album, and their enjoyment makes me want to share my other layouts too (once again).

Most of my albums have been in broadly chronological order and more precisely in the chronological order of layouts that I have created. Anyone who has had a stack of layouts get big enough to start destroying the layouts is wise to learn their lesson and put their layouts straight into albums, no matter the order! I have actually taken a number of classes in album processes, including Shimelle’s Cover to Cover and Stacy’s Photo Freedom (currently in session) and both are excellent and have had some impact on my organisation, with which I am slowly progressing through my older albums. I have some special albums including a first year album for each kid. Well except it would be best if you didnt look at those… if you know what I mean?

Enter Paperclipping playalong and I am ready to take the challenge! Noell says in her post:

Would you love to hand someone a finished scrapbook in full smiles and confidence with no explanations or apologies?

Then play along with me and finish an album this month! I’m not talking about starting a whole new one and finishing it within a month. I’m talking about taking one that is pretty darn close, and completing it so it is totally viewer-ready.

Sounds good to me, Noell. My album originally started with Becky Higgin’s Project Life Predecessor, a baby album kit (amazingly still for sale here). The kit included some semi-complete 12×12 pages where you fill-in-the-blanks and some divided page protectors, with extras to fill in with. This is the standard opening page:

(information details blurred for privacy) – All I needed to do was stick a photo on, add the included frame and write some details to fill in the lines. Not exactly fun to do, but it was making it easy for a first time Mum with a newborn. Some I didn’t finish filling in e.g. missing grandparents

and no journalling about parents:

Honestly, this album was so BORING to work on that after a while I apparently gave up and had a lot of pages that looked like this (photos and journalling stuffed into a page protector along with some sort of intentions to fill in the blanks later. – does anyone else do this?

The pencil marks at the top indicate the predsigned page it was supposed to go with.
But that was then and this is now, (queue angels singing)
Spurred to action by Noell’s invitation to her readers to join the Playalong, I pulled out this album and did a few things before I had good light to photograph it. Firstly I get some of my Project Life page protectors (which are significantly better quality than the original ones in this kit, by the way, if you are thinking of purchasing it) and in the second half of the album, which was a month by month breakdown of photos, I put almost all of the photos into simple pocket page protector layouts, and left a few in 12×12 pages, and the put the rest back into my photo-boxes and away from the album. Some months only had 5 or 6 photos, and others had 30 or 40 photos, so this was an important step, culling the herd.

In each month I put either the 3×4 month card from the kit or the circular month embellishment. A simple and consistent title option. In some spots I stuck random bits of scrap paper from my scraps basket, as this is just stage one, and I want to work on them one at a time, but right now it is nearly at a point that these layouts could be shown as is, if not quite shown with pride and joy LOL.

I suspect I will need more journalling space now that I look at these layouts, but it was a good starting point. Month’s 7 and 8 were a bit short on photos and are both in smaller divided page protectors

So I think I still have a lot of work to do, I need to figure out what I want to do with those full layout pages (I think that will be great fun!), I want to work through each pocketed page and write, write write, in fact I might try to get my husband to help with a few of these by emailing him specific memory prompts like “Can you remember the first bath we gave James at the hospital?” or “Apparently, when James was 7 months we all dressed up like Gangsters for some reason, can you remember what that was about?” or even “What are some of you favourite things you remember from his first year?” and then just include them wherever they will work the best. I really love to have his voice in the album when I can manage it, and email is a much more successful way than any other (except perhaps text messages). Then I want to go through the album and make it feel unified and complete. At least Milly’s first year album is good to go, since I did it as a quick Shutterfly digital album!

So bring on March and the playalong challenge. I look forward to seeing what Noell has in store for us.