Project Life Mini Album: Vacation

My order from Persnickety Prints arrived today! I recently uploaded some photos of a cruise my husband and I took for our anniversary and ordered some 3x4 and 4x6 prints from PP. I usually print from home but I knew this would be a large undertaking so I was glad to have been able to do a big upload and order.

I pulled my photos, a Becky Higgins Kiwi Mini Album, Olive Core Kit, and two pens to create this album. I wanted to go simple and done with this so I could check it off my to-do list.

Here is a video of my process.

Project Life Mini Album: Vacation

One thing I did forget to share is that I cut two of the page protectors out of the book. I didn't have photos to fill them up so I cut out two of them from the middle. Blasphemous, I know, but my album is complete and I love it!

Becky Higgins on Creative Live

This week Creative Live had Becky Higgins on for a three-day workshop on cultivating a good life through Project Life. She highlighted some products, talked about how PL came to be, and shared stories, ideas, and examples of how people are using PL. they also talked about digital scrapbooking, journaling and taking photos.

If you are interested, they are extending the free rebroadcast of all of the segments this weekend only. You can purchase the series for $99 while it is rebroadcasting but then the price goes up to $149. I would recommend checking it out for free but I don't think I would pay $99 unless I was new to scrapbooking and Project Life. Here is a link for the rebroadcast: http://www.creativelive.com/watch2

I watched live on Wednesday since I was home with a sick kiddo and I was pleasantly surprised with the content. I couldn't imagine how Becky could talk for three days about putting photos in page protectors but it was much more than that. Parts were slow because she had to stretch out the segments but there was a lot of food for thought. Here are my takeaways:

1. Begin with the end in mind. She said this repeatedly. It made me think about why I am doing Project Life. For my kids? For me? For future generations? I think it is a little of each for me. I want my kids to see how much I love and value them. I love being creative and feel energized after some time in my craft room. I want to have photos of everyday life and everyday objects to show my grand kids what life was like for my family. 

2. I have a lot of project ideas! I want to keep current on my PL, do a mini album for our anniversary cruise this spring, make an album for my dad with the photos he found, work on my son's school album, and get my old photos out of the box. Sheesh! Priorities!

3. I am *this close* to canceling my PL subscriptions and going super simple with my PL for 2014. I can use my embellishments when I want to make a project or layout. We'll see. Becky made the simple aspects of PL seem very tempting. 

I hope you have a chance to check it out- I laughed and cried and was very grateful to know that there are people just as crazy about Project Life as I am!

Video: December Daily Kit Pull

I've finally finished my video of my December Daily kit pull. In my previous post I told you a bit of the direction I am heading but here are the things I've officially pulled to use this year.

December Daily Kit Pull on YouTube

December Daily?

How many of you are documenting December? Are you using a separate album or putting things in your Project Life pages? I have been thinking long and hard and have finally decided.

Ali Edwards trademarked the December Daily concept so I checked out her December Daily posts here. She is using the exclusive Studio Calico December Daily kit but the price tag was a little too steep for me. The products are lovely and the way Ali has prepped her pages has convinced me to do a separate December Daily for 2013.

Here are the reasons why I am going to do December Daily and Project Life:

1. I have plenty of supplies to use for both projects. Plenty.
2. December is a special month for my family- both of my boys were born in December. Apparently I can't have babies in any other month. My youngest was due in November and still waited until December to make his appearance into the world.
3. I know I will take a million photos during the holidays since it is our favorite time of year.
4. My plan is to take photos of everyday life and holiday happenings and not care if I have the same pictures in both albums. It's just not that big of a deal to me.
5. I love looking at my past years' December Daily albums during Christmas.
6. It will be easier than putting a lot of extra pages into my PL album.
7. I love the Snap/Studio Calico Handbook type of mini albums and page protectors so I can't pass up an excuse to use them!

I've already shopped a tiny bit (even though I have plenty of supplies) and here are a few things I picked out:

Glitz Finnley Collection- look at that adorable deer!



Midnight Core Kit- don't you think this will go well with the Finnley Collection?

Red Snap Binder from Simple Stories- I also purchased extra page protectors (4 3x4s, 2 4x6s, and 1 4x6 with 2 3x4s)

Holiday Mini Kit from Becky Higgins- I am pulling the Christmas cards out of here to use in the album or with PL

I will pull a few other items out and hopefully get a video together for you soon!


Project Life Iris Storage

 

Here's a little video to show how I am storing my Project Life kits.

You can find these Iris cases at Michaels (reg. price $39.99) or at Amazon ($23.19 with free shipping).

Quick Enabler Alert!

Amazon just put several Project Life Core Kits on sale at weird prices. Weird but fabulous! I'd recommend picking up Seafoam or Jade at these super low prices- less than $20!

 

 

There's an App for That

One of the other ways I keep organized in PL is to use technology. I use ohlife.com to record specific journaling for each day. Every night at 8pm (which is when I scheduled the site to email me) I get an email from ohlife that says "How was your day?" I reply to that email and it saves my journaling to a website. I also make a note if I took a photo that day. It is VERY helpful when I get behind in PL because I can look at the website and remember the specific dates of special events and have journaling to copy from that day.

Here are some other apps that might be helpful for you:

momento

Day One

Project 365

My365

Collect

Gratitude365

And a few other fun apps that you might enjoy for PL:

Instaweather

PicTapGo

A Beautiful Mess

Instagram

So- what apps do you recommend? Please post a comment with your favorite!