The Project Life Book

A huge thank you to so many of you who read, commented and joined in with the the one photo & twenty words meme. It is always daunting officially starting a meme but it was such a joy to see the posts popping up and reading your carefully chosen words. Thank you. If you haven't joined in and want to, the link will stay open all week so there is plenty of time!

Yesterday I shared a sneak peak at the project life book and thought it would be fun to follow up today with a good look inside...

Details: 

• I ordered this book through blurb. I have used them a few times before and they are very professional and the book arrived in less than a week. 
• It cost quite a lot to order but considering I hardly spent any money on supplies in the year it was definitely cheaper than going down the paper route. 
• The book is 110 pages long and 12x12 in size- a bit of a whopper really! 
• I upgraded the paper from the standard paper to the premium "lustre" paper. It has a slight sheen and is that bit thicker. After spending so much time making the spreads each week, having decent paper seemed sensible. 
• I used the booksmart software from blurb and one of their simplest templates- a large square photo with a little bit of border. 

I chose simple grey endpapers and, on the first page, wrote a little blurb about my process with project life in 2013. 

The title page. 

My only quibble with blurb books are that they don't lie flat. I'm not too fussed about this though. I kept a border around each spread to make sure that there wasn't too much content in the "gutter" of the spine.

These pages are big! I think 12x12 is the size to go for though. The writing is all clearly readable and the pictures are a decent size. 

I was so excited when I saw the way some of the big pictures turned out.

The colours turned out fairly accurate. I think they are slightly darker than what they were on the screen but I guess that is a risk of printing anything out that you have done on a computer. 

End page. 

 

The back cover

I am so so pleased I decided to do this project in 2013. This book of memories is such a treasure. I am already reading through each week and being reminded of conversations, journeys and things that happened that I would surely have forgotten otherwise.

I am sold on the digital style of project life and am also glad that I chose to print my spreads into a book. I can already see this being something that will sit on the coffee table for years to come and get flicked through in idle moments. 

Project life in 2013. Done. Onwards friends! 

Project Life in review or what I would say to you if you are thinking of starting in 2014

Project Life. I have so many thoughts as I come to the end of this adventure and I want to share them here. I'm hoping that in doing so you can assess whether this project is for you or not or if you are thinking of starting, here are some nuggets of information that may be useful! 

A whole year complete. I am so so glad I took up this project. It made me reassess my photos, my memory keeping and let me have a crafty pursuit whilst at Uni.
Whilst at times it was hard to distill the week into 16 pockets I am thankful that I did it. It allowed me to take stock of what had happened, to pair photos with words and emotions and to do something different aside to academic study.

If you are thinking of starting this project I would tell you that above all ,this project is a whole lot of awesome. At times it will be a chore and at times you won't be able to stop making pages but at the end of the day, you are keeping memories and taking photos and both of those things are pure joy.

So, at the end of 52 weeks here is what I would say to you about Project life...

It's a marathon not a sprint.
This project is great in January but not so hot in March. You will lose inspiration and you will run dry. I think being aware of this is important. It would be crazy to expect a bucket of inspiration every week without you putting in some work to top that inspiration up.
Try keeping a journal where you scribble down ideas for photo layout or journalling cards.
Follow a few Project life boards on pinterest and update your stash every few months.

Project Life is a long term project. Have your eye on an end goal. For me it was the prospect of making a big book of my pages at the end of it.
As many sweet blog friends said to me over the year, our inspiration levels and our motivation go in peaks and troughs, just as life does. Just go with the flow, rejoice when the pages come easily and let it go when they don't.


Being realistic.
The premise of project life is that it is a simple memory keeping system. It is simple if you are realistic with what you can achieve. I set out knowing that I could achieve a double page spread every week. For some that just won't be realistic, try a spread a month or when you have special occasions or just when there are a lot of photos. Project Life could work beautifully in all these formats.

Unrealistic aims can really stall this project. If i'm honest I think my aim for a double page spread every week was too high. This year I am cutting myself some slack. If there aren't enough photos, one page is just fine!

It is your project.
Cathy Zielske has written a ton about this and I want to echo her words that Project Life "should be 1. Fun and 2. Suited to how you work best."
It's as simple as that. I found it overwhelming at first to see so many beautiful PL pages and try and get mine to the same standard, but that isn't the point.
This project can be what you want it to be. For example the lovely Amy makes stunningly beautiful, clean Project Life layouts.  If you know her and her blog you will realise that they totally echo her style.

Let Project Life be in your style and start off the year trying to deduce what you want project life to be. Do you want a blow by blow account of the week? Do you want a lot of photos and simply five highlights from that month? Do you want lots of stories? In other words, what sort of result are you looking for?

Free resources 
I'm a student and I love free resources! Project Life really doesn't have to be expensive. Just type in "project life printables" into pinterest and a whole host of sites will pop up.
One of my favourite sites that collates a lot of free project life resources is One Velvet Morning.
Whether you go down the digital route (which is a very cheap option) and use the resources as photoshop files or you go down the traditional route and print them out, Project Life doesn't need to cost that much.

I love this project, I am so excited to start again in 2014 and I'm so glad I completed a year. If you are thinking about starting just do it. I am so chuffed to have a years worth of memories and photos sitting on my shelf. This project can look daunting but take it a day, a week or a month at a time and it is very feasible.

Project Life

Dear Project Life,  I have neglected you lately. My creative energy has been sapped into work and I'm sorry. But you know what, I have got home and those ideas they are coming at me in force.

So, because I enjoy posting it here and because I value when others post their project life pages, this is week 49 in all its glory.

Photos: 
The penultimate week of term so quite a few photos to document. I had a few silly stories I wanted to include such as our triumph at changing the bulb in the ceiling light of the bathroom.
I also had lots of photos from our secret santa evening. The top photo on the right hand spread had a good amount of white space. In photoshop I cloned out the picture that was hanging on the wall behind the sofa so as to make more space to write.

Journalling: 
I did my usual techniques for journalling this week- lots of journalling cards stuck directly on photos and titles written on too. I got out the graphics tablet again and really enjoyed adding some of my own handwriting to this weeks spread.

Techniques: 
I needed a few fillers this week and have really liked the more clean and graphic side of project life that I have seen appearing. I had a play around and created those three red christmas 3 x 4 cards in that style. If you would like either the "comfort and joy" card or the "merry and bright" card I have them saved on file and would be happy to email them your way!

Anything else: 
I started putting the book together this week! Yes, you heard that correctly, the book is in production. I am itching to get it all uploaded and sent off but am hanging in there because I know that blurb do some decent discounts and the size of this book could mean it will be fairly pricey.

There are some weeks I have missed this year, I think two, and I debated about catching up. I then decided that doing so would be counter productive. I have few photos from those weeks and I certainly can't remember the detail of what happened. In the years to come I am not going to miss two weeks. Keeping it real folks!

I am planning and sketching and thinking about next year and my thoughts on this year. Stay tuned for more details on where I want this project to go in 2014!

Project Life week 45

 I am slowly getting further and further behind on this project but am so determined to finish the year. 

7 weeks left and then the book can go into production!

This was week 45 and I had a lot of fun photos to play with and new techniques to try out. I really like how this week turned out. 

Photos: 

Lots of photos from both the ball, a pudding party we had to celebrate my housemates birthday and the boy coming to visit. I also popped in two photos from the fireworks night. A lot of photos this week were taken indoors so I ran them through one of my favourite black and white filters to get rid of the funny lighting. 

There were so many snapshots taken at the ball so rather than try and squeeze them all in I popped them straight into a grid and added it as a journalling card. They will turn out quite small in the final book but I like how many happy smiles are captured in just one square. 

Journalling: 

I think one of the things I have most enjoyed about project life is telling the stories each week. That photo of the boy and me for instance on the left hand spread. The journalling is more about how lovely it was to see him again rather than the photo itself but the joy of project life is that you can do that. 

It's been fun to look back on my first spreads and compare them to this. I definitely journal more on photos themselves than I did before. 

Techniques: 

As usual I did an inspiration sweep before I sat down and made this layout. I saw several examples across the web of using a quote across a picture in two pockets and tried that out on the left hand spread. 

I have also found, throughout this album, that I like the combination of a handwriting script and a capital graphic font. I used two together on the photo of the boy and like that it adds a little bit more to that photo. 

Anything else: 

Still mulling things over for next year. I am keen to commit to three years of project life. One for each of my years in Durham. I am debating the best way to do that at the moment.  I will certainly stick to digital but will probably go for a different page template. 

Have you seen anything new/inspiring in the project life world at the moment? I am interested in collecting some ideas about how to tackle the new year! 

Project Life week 43

I'm nearly done catching up. I still love this project but gosh am I itching to get finished now. You project lifers, is this only me or are you too desperate to start fresh in January?

This was week 43 and it was one of those blissful weeks when the photos were abundant!

Photos: 
This was the week when the sun decided to get its act together and we were rewarded with some beautiful crisp Autumn days. We took the big camera out with my lens and snapped a few down by the river.
When I scrapbook with SLR photos I am reminded to take my big camera out more. Phone photos are great but these are something different in terms of quality.
I didn't plan the pages in this way but the left hand page seems to be more people focused whilst the right hand page is the details of the week.

Journalling:
I tried to play around with journalling more this week. Less journalling cards and more writing directly on photos. I am enjoying the combination of script fonts and strong capitals too. In many respects there weren't that many stories to tell this week so the journalling mostly focuses on thoughts and explanations.

Techniques: 
Each week I sit down before I get going and source inspiration from around the web. Once I have some ideas I jot them down in my notebook and try and include a few of them in the weeks spread. I saw the hexagon idea and loved the look and am happy with how my attempt turned out. I also played around with some transparent overlays. 

I like this mini challenge each week and am glad I have found a way to stay inspired. What do you do to keep your levels of inspiration up?

Anything else:
I think next year I am going to try a different template. I have seen a few floating around with square pockets which I think could be perfect for instagrams. Either way I need a change come 2014.

The "magic" transparency was something I made this week and was super easy to do. If you would like to use it drop me an email (the address is in my contact tab on the sidebar) and I can send you the photoshop file that can be dragged over a photo to make the effect!

Week 43. Less than ten weeks left!

Project Life week 41

Catching up and chasing my tail. A lot of this going on at the moment in my little word and it applies to Project Life too.

We are so close to the end now that I am very determined to see this project through. Once I get down to documenting the week I love the process. With only eleven weeks left (eleven!) it is finding inspiration that is proving tricky.

I am learning that the longer I leave project life each week the harder it is to make because the memories are just not so clear. So this week I am determined to have finished the spread by Wednesday. Nothing like a deadline to get me going!

So this was week 41...


Photos:
A nice mix of instagrams and big camera photos. I had a great selection from the sorting ceremony as well as snapshots through the week, including our first little dinner party.
I am missing using my big camera and am thinking I need to make more of a concerted effort to take it out with me rather than just relying on my phone.

Journalling:
The blog came in very handy this week. I used my simply a moment post to document the sorting as well as my twenty words for that photo of the parcel my mum sent me. I also wanted to record my thoughts on settling into studying again. The blurred out card contains journalling about a new job I have volunteering in a local school one afternoon a week. It's lovely to be back in the classroom!

Techniques:
I really enjoy making photos into graphics. That Harry Potter one came together really quickly. I also knew I needed a Dumbledore quote this week so pulled up the trusty chalkboard and added two simple fonts. I really like how this one has turned out.

Anything else: 
Before I start a page I visit some of my favourite places for Project Life inspiration. With a notebook at my side I scribble down ideas for photo placement, text and graphics. It is nice to build a library of ideas and I hope it keeps my pages fresh and interesting.
My go to sources of inspiration are:
Elise Blaha Cripe
The creative team on the Project Life website
The blog at Paislee Press 

I also gain inspiration through pinterest. I search for anything pinned from my blog, specifically project life pages. I then visit the board they have been pinned to. More often than not this is a dedicated project life board and my layout sits amongst many others. This often means that the layouts are of a similar style to my own and I in turn can gain inspiration from them just as the pinner gained inspiration from my layout!

Week 41. This book is becoming more of a reality every day.

Project Life week 39 and a free download

Thank you for all your kind words on my last project life post. I really do love creating these pages. There is so much inspiration out in the blog world and each week I write down a list of new techniques I want to try! 

So in the spirit of catching up here is week 39...

Photos: 

It was my birthday week so I had lots of photos and quite a few taken with my lovely new lens. I love weeks when the photos are abundant, the pages seem to come together easier although the pages I love most are the ones where I have had to search around for the pictures. 

I also wanted to include photos of moving into our lovely new student house. 

Journalling: 

I copied the text from my blog post on my birthday straight into that yellow journalling card. I like including blog posts in PL, especially when I am behind and am struggling for the right words. Going back to the blog posts can really help. 

I also included some sad journalling about the loss of our second cat who was hit by a car. It was really hard news to receive last week and it was hard to get that journalling down. 

PL is about keeping it real though and just because it was sad I didn't want to leave it out. Life is yuck sometimes and I think it's important to recognise that. 

Techniques: 

I played around with those two photos of me on the right hand spread. I wanted lots of white space on the journalling cards and just a simple line of text. 

I also created a new journalling card, "you make me laugh every single day". I love how it turned out and so have put it at the bottom of this post as a free download (for personal use only). 

Anything else: 

I can't get enough of that Laura Ingalls Wilder quote, "home is the nicest place there is". I used it on the spread I made when I came home for the summer and liked the circularity of using it again to document coming back to Durham. 

I'm all caught up now and boy does it feel good! 

The 3 x 4 card can be downloaded here. Enjoy! 

Project Life week 38

So I am playing catch up with Project Life. I hate being behind with this project but sometimes life gets in the way and it just happens. Before I know it we are at Saturday and I haven't touched the photos from last week.

But I had some lovely pockets of time this week and managed to catch up. I also haven't posted PL much on the blog recently so today and tomorrow I'm going to share my latest pages starting with week 38:

Photos: 
This was the week the boy took me to London for a pre birthday treat. We ate at my favourite American chain, five guys which has just opened in London. I wanted to include the photos of that as well as photos from a weekend babysitting three little girls.
That feet and arrow one is a current favourite so I knew it had to be big.

On the weeks when I am catching up I just try to keep it simple. In this case photos blown across several spaces and that simple Instagram template.

Journalling: 
I wanted to record thoughts on seeing Matilda the Musical (totally recommend by the way!). I also wanted to include that quote from the boy which I stuck on the bottom of the photo in five guys.

The hard thing with catching up is that writing about the week is very difficult so the journalling here is more fact based than what it normally is. I did though include a journalling card about upgrading to ios7. PL for me is about every aspect of life and upgrading my phone is as much a part of that. It will also be fascinating to look back on!

Techniques: 
Again, in the spirit of keeping it simple, I used those techniques which I know work. A simple quote card, a quick homemade graphic and a filler card. I also extracted the colour of that arrow and used it as a paint effect on the quote card- the joys of photoshop!

Anything else:
The further I get behind the more overwhelming it can be. I'm learning though, getting it down is the main point. The thought of a full book at the end of it is another motivation too!

Project Life week 36- a short film

Week 36 and I am shaking some things up!

I thought I would play around with this weeks project life and try and record my digital process. I sped up the recording, put it to some cheery music and voila, a little "in the process" short film. This is definitely not a tutorial video- it is far too speedy for that- more of a, this is how my afternoon looked! I hope you enjoy it! (It is best viewed small as the quality is ok but looks yucky when made big!) 

This week I joined in with Alinor's challenge to use just eight photos and eight journalling cards. Admittedly I cheated a bit and may have used more than the eight photos but I had great fun trying to stick to a rule and it really livened up project life for me this week.

Thank you for the inspiration Alinor. 

The spreads featured in the film are below.

Project life week 35

This summer has sailed by. I can't believe I am now sorting photos into the September file. I am excited for the change of seasons though and what these next few weeks will look like in project life...

Photos:
Quite a few this week and the right hand page is certainly photo heavy. A real mix too with some instagrams with are really just one line stories and some photos of the littlest one going back to school which is a big event in itself.

I wanted to include photos of some of my latest craft pieces. I think it will be fun to look back on in the years to come and see what sort of things I was making. I also popped in that fun picture of my mums shoes which I think make her look like Mary Poppins! I had to include photos of my jot page too- thank you for all your kind comments about it yesterday. I am hoping to write up the story of how it happened at some point.

Journalling:
Mostly just snippets this week. The right hand spread documents the pictures we took of the littlest one heading off to school for the last time. He finishes sixth form at the end of this year so it does feel like the end of an era in our family. I also included journalling about my Dad's new ministry as it is the beginning of an era in many ways for him.

Techniques:
After reading the latest issue of Jot I have a list of techniques I want to try in project life. Nothing wild this week though! I used that circle perpetual calendar on the right hand spread which is quite fun. I also adapted the black tag on the left hand spread to say "he bought tickets". I like how graphic this is and how it sums up in a few words my excitement at going to see Matilda soon.

Anything else: 
Big pictures made a come back! I loved all these photos of my little brother and they all needed to be big so I just went for it.

Week 35 and I feel in a really comfortable place with this project. The end is in site and whilst I don't want to be finished as such I am itching to get that book made!

Project Life week 33

Back to my normal routine of project life and it feels so good.


Photos: 
I had a lot this week what with meeting Sinead in London and then visiting uni friends over the weekend. I think on weeks like this it is easy to just focus on those two big events but I wanted to make sure I included some of those everyday instagrams. Each week has such a jumble of big events and little ones I didn't want my page to be pulled too far one way.

Journalling:
A lot of stories this week. I recorded a slightly more personal account of my trip to London to meet Sinead as well as my thoughts on seeing my uni friends again. I feel very blessed to have such wonderful friends. Alongside these stories I included the journalling from my "simply a moment" post. I have used blog posts several times in my PL spreads and always like how they fit in.

Techniques:
A lot of the usual but a few new things this week. First up I used a instagram template that has been flying around the internet recently. I liked the clean design of it, the little icon and the fact that you can customise the text underneath the photo. You can find the template from Cathy Zielske here. 

On the first page I used that instagram of the reels of cotton and added a create stamp. I liked the look of the time stamp on my holiday photos so recreated this. It was very simple to do. Just a blue circle with text in the middle and an adjusted opacity.

On the second page I had so many photos to use so took inspiration from my blog header and chucked a few of them in a semi circle with some simple words.

Anything else:
This project is still making me excited and is still challenging (in a good way) each week. I am so glad I stuck with it. I can't wait to see the progression of the pages as we move into Autumn.

Project life- scrapbooking a holiday

I came back from holiday with far too many photos. Normally this is a cause for celebration with project life. This time it left my head in a muddle. 

I didn't want to prune out a load of photos and thereby miss some of the story but at the same time I have a finite amount of time and will power to get these project life spreads done. I knew I needed to do them fairly swiftly when we got back because I have a memory like a sieve. 

I therefore set myself a few rules. 

a. I had a weekend to do it in ( you know how much I love my deadlines!) 

b. I could work over as many double page spreads as I needed to. 

c. I didn't have to create a page in the same way I normally do. I knew the pages would be photo heavy and word heavy and that was fine. They would be different but I chose to roll with that! 

So off I set and I'm pretty happy with how my layouts turned out. I split the holiday into three double page layouts. Weeks, 31a, 31b and 32. 

I knew that I would struggle in a few months time to remember where each of the places were so I created a simple time stamp with what day of the holiday it was and the place we visited. I then added this to any photo I felt needed it. I hope this brings a little bit of consistency to the pages. 

Other than that I just went with the flow and what felt right. Chronological felt good and I chose pictures based solely on which told the story best. I used the old technique of putting more than one photo on a journalling card to try and squeeze them all in! 

I guess I used less techniques on these pages. Most of the time it was just a journalling card or writing directly on the photo. 

Although I was set to go in a chronological order I knew I wanted one page at the back with photos and a little journalling card with my thoughts. I chose my favourite photos and let them speak for themselves. 

I am coming to realise that one of the joys of project life is that big moments and little moments sit side by side. That there can be two weeks like this where there is so much to cram in and there can be weeks when not a lot has happened when the photos mostly consist of the odd project or the view from my window. I think I'm learning to roll with it. Life is in no way consistent and hey, my album won't be either!