What I wouldn’t do for a Project Life type of book from our newlywed life. Sure, we have pictures and scrapbooks and I am so grateful for those. But we missed so much of the “little stuff” with our camera back then. It would be remarkable to have something similar of my parents’ younger life. And oh, to imagine what it would be like (!) to come across a book of my grandparents’ lives, not just about the trips and family portraits, but the little details in their world during the time they were, say … raising a young family just as we are today.
This is on my mind because I think of Jason & Kyra (our niece) — freshly married two months ago. They remind me a lot of what we were doing at that stage in our life. They’re both working, both in school, figuring out married life, figuring out how to cook for two, making all sorts of memories. This is a unique time for them. It’s the beginning of their life-long journey together.
I don’t want them to forget the little stuff. I want them to remember the details about their jobs — what they like & don’t like about working there. I want them to remember their favorite take-out food and what they do on dates and details around their first apartment. I want them to remember what classes they’re taking and what they do with their spare time and what they’re reading outside of school. I want them to remember the flirty texts they send each other and the preparations they’re making for the future.
So I gave Jason & Kyra Project Life before they got married. In fact, we’ve given Project Life to several newlywed couples lately. This is their story. And guess what? They’re really doing it.
My heart sings.
And not just because of all of Aunt Becky’s mini lectures about “If I knew then what I know now…”.
They really get it. They know that record-keeping like this is not only a fun project to do together, but they get how valuable this will become over the years. Jason & Kyra are ambitious enough to do the picture-a-day format (good for them!) but remember — Project Life doesn’t have to be used this way. So far they’re keeping up. They’re both contributing. They both add journaling. They both take pictures.
I’m seeing some emails and comments from readers that aren’t sure if Project Life is for them because they don’t have kids. Um. Now would be a good time to clarify: Project Life is for anyone that lives a life. Young or old. Kids or no kids. Newlywed or empty nesters. Homebodies or world travelers. Single or married. Male or female.
I’ll also mention this: I was scrapbooking for 9 or 10 year before our first child came along and I have oodles of scrapbooks filled with pre-kid pictures. It has always surprised me when I hear of people who think scrapbooking is just for moms. No, it’s not just for any one group of people. Scrapbooking is for anyone who wants to preserve their story with pictures & words.
As I step down from my soapbox, I want to leave you with a little tip from our newlyweds.
I asked Jason & Kyra what the trick is for them. How do they personally find success with their Project Life? First of all, they always have their camera on them. Kyra carries her little point & camera in her bag everywhere she goes and they both have built-in cameras in their phones. Sure, the quality isn’t always the best. But who cares? They’re capturing life.
And secondly, they keep up with their little journaling cards. So even if they only print pictures every week or every other week or so, they’re always caught up. Anyone who’s doing Project Life knows it takes only a minute or two to write a quick something on those little cards.
If I knew then what I know now, I would have thought of Project Life 15 years ago.
Tags: digital Project Life, jason, kyra, newlywed, Project Life
Could not of said it better myself. They are adorable….Oh to be young like that again…AHHHHHHHHHH!!!
As I read that last line, I was nodding my head. Amen, sister.
I “scrapbooked” when my hubby and I were dating 16 years ago, and once we had kids a few years later there were actually *products* available (a dream come true!) and went crazy doing the whole patterned paper/embellishments/paper piecing/chalking/blah blah blah for years. And then I had my fifth child (making 5 kiddos under 7) and I got further and further behind. I remember reading one of your CK articles about how many albums you kept for every member of your family and I thought, “WHAT?” Not. Enough. Time. In. The. Day.
And I thought to myself, “Wait until she has more than one kid…”
Is that horrible to say that? I hope not. Because here we are and PROJECT LIFE is available to those of us who want to document our life and still have time left over to actually LIVE our life.
Thank you, thank you and thank you.
I think Project Life makes a great wedding present! I scrapbooked our first years of marriage before kids as well, but I would love now to see the kind of detail that PL enables you to dive into.
Lisa H., Lawrenceville, GA
Wish I knew then what I know now. I keep my journaling boxes on my night stand. It just takes a minute when I am setting my alarm clock each night to journal about my day. Yep, getting it done.
It’s really so very easy and like you said, it only takes a moment or two during the day to fill out a journaling card with a story, a list or just a few words. I upload my pics every Sunday afternoon for the week. It’s just become a habit. I can’t imagine not doing Project Life now.
this is year 2 for me. I am still finishng up last year. but not to bad. thanks for project life.
I did this 2 years ago when it was called Project 365 and LOVED it! But now I am back to traditional scrapbooking, which I also love. My question for you is do you ever miss it, traditional scrapbooking I mean? Doesn’t the urge ever strike you to create a traditional page, especially when you have a photo you just love that is begging for more treatment? I am a longtime fan; I love your site and your message, but I still love my traditional scrapbooking. I hope that’s okay.
I am doing PL and yes, there are photos that need a larger treatment, and stories that just will not fit on one card – not even one journal and one folded card!
Those get the regular scrapbooking treatment.
Of course doing traditional, hybrid, digital, and simple & sweet PL are okay! I would feel so restricted if I was forced to stick with one method. Sometimes you use chalk, sometimes paint calls out your name. Sometimes I want quick, simple, sweet – other times I want slow, complex, variety.
Hi Becky!! I found Project Life on Amazon (the old red kit) while on deployment last year. I had never heard of it, but thought it looked like fun. Like your niece, I am newly married. BUT my husband and I are BOTH ACTIVE DUTY in the Navy. So people who say you have to have kids are wrong!! I find soooo much to scrapbook about my husband and I.
We are coming up on 2 years of marriage in July, and I want to record our “first year of marriage when we’re actually together all year.” I was gone 7 months last year on deployment, so this current year will OUR first year. I’m loving taking picutres of the little stuff. Last week most of my pictures happened at the end of the week. I try to do a pic a day, but if not, that’s ok too.
I’ve also found that in place of journal cards that I don’t use I put in pretty scraps of patterned paper. It “pretties” up the page if I didn’t journal much that week.
Just wanted to share my thoughts. And I {heart} your blog!!
Becky,
I have scrapbooked for years (since once upon a time when there was ONLY CM stuff) and am a “new” empty nester this year. I love Project Life! Most of the pictures are NOT of my kids (2 are in college and one married this year) but I love documenting my everyday, and they LOVE looking at the pictures when they come home for visits. It makes them feel connected being away from home. So even though the pictures you take may seem mundane (cooking, decorating, walking the dog, making repairs, etc) my children love seeing what their dad and I do while they aren’t home. Of course, when they DO come home time to time, they want star billing in that PL album..lol!
And I know they will love looking at these Project Life albums in years to come…and I agree with you..I SO wish I had something like PL to see a glimpse into my parents and grandparents lives!
So true! We’ve been married 17 years, and in our 2nd year of marriage, we joined the Peace Corps and went to Russia for two years. Way back before digi cameras, and film was so expensive there. We still took over 1000 photos (which might seem like nothing now in digi times), but mostly of friends there—as many of them never had a photograph of themselves, so that was our gift to most people.
My biggest regret though are all the little things we didn’t capture, the daily things—like our outhouse or the crazy cat next door, or the women at the post office who laughed at my compulsive checking for mail, and the meals we made.
I can’t think of a better gift than the digi version of Project Life for a missionary or Peace Corps volunteer—to capture those bits and pieces you think you’ll never forget—but you will.
Hmmm, maybe next year I’ll begin a Project Life!
Why wait?
Just order and start the day it arrives.
Or pick a birthday, or holiday, or ….
I started mine in September when my twins started their senior year of high school.
My mother-in-law has lived with us for 6 years – - I just found a huge box of “old” pictures and am planning on purchasing another Project Life Album – - my mother-in-law is 96 years YOUNG – - she is in remarkable health and I thought it’d be a good time to go through her pictures and her “document” life as it was/is. Imagine what she has seen in her lifetime, and at age 96 is able to share that with me. So, when I look at the couple above, Adorable comes to mind an LUCKY to have been able to document from the beginning of their life together.
Wow! That is awesome & I couldn’t agree more! I wish I would have thought to take detailed photos when we were first starting all those years ago! Now we have 3 kids and life is in full swing & I take so many photos of everything! People who don’t scrapbook think I am strange when they see me taking pictures of sports equipment or close ups of cake!
I love documenting life!
Thanks for this! My PL ’11 box arrived last week and, though I haven’t finished last year’s album yet (oops!) I’m going to start in on this year anyway and with a different approach. I purchased an extra pack of journaling cards and am going to keep a supply with me in my planner (work days) and have another supply out on my kithcen counter at home. I’ll record each day as it happens and add the photos in later (I prefer to print photos in larger batches and save on shipping costs). I’ll also have a page protector clipped to the fridge to store receipts, my child’s artwork, etc for each week until I can get soe time to add it into the album. I’m already taking the photos but the day-to-day journaling should be the key to having this year’s album together in a much more “real” way.
I’m one of those single women with no (living) children who loves PL. I did it for the first time last year. As I reviewed my album and wrote a year end review, one of the things the album made clear for me is how much I love my life-all of the excitement and the ordinary. I can clearly see who and what is important to me because they show up month after month in my PL pages. It even shows very cleary that I am blessed to have this life with all of its ups and downs and evens. I’m so very glad I discovered PL!! Thank you!
(((((((Trena))))))) There is a story behind your use of (living).
I too find themes of blessings running through the days.
It’s like a dagger through the heart when I get criticized for scrapbooking because I’m not a mother. Thank you for reminding the “mom” scrappers that people who don’t have children can scrapbook too.
Love all the samples of how people are using Project Life. Thanks!!!
I always was an avid picture taker because I wanted to make sure I could remember those important things in my life. Then I got disinterested for a while but now since having my first child (7 months old) I can’t stop taking pictures of her! I bought my first PL and started filling it out for 2011. I am even going to get another one to detail out me and my husband life before we received our greatest gift of all our little Addison! I really love PL (and I am blogging about it as well!)
Thought you’d like to know: I bought Project Life BECAUSE I am an empty-nester (going on our third year). And because we are just as busy now as we were then, and our memories are just as important now as they were then. In fact, going through our photos and memorabilia from the last few years helps me sort out my feelings and work through the challenges and joys of closing our 10-year old business, my husband rejoining the corporate world, becoming an empty-nester, and moving 700 miles away from our family (including two beautiful grandkids) within a two-month period. Thanks!
Cori, you’ve had several major upheavals. Lots to document. My lilsis is having her first baby in April and moving halfway across the country a few months later; she’s happy to have PL to remind her to capture the little things.
I have been “scrapbooking” since I was a kid – newspaper articles and certificates and memorabilia stuck in scrapbooks. And, I’ve been Scrapbooking in the formal, embellished, archive sense, for the last eight years. I’m 39, don’t have kids, and while I do have a couple of albums of my nieces and nephews – my surrogate children – most of my scrapbooking is about ME! In fact I have seven 12×12 albums about me, and my life, and my friends and my travels. And I’m doing Project Life this year, and I am doing a photo a day, focusing on the everyday and the extraordinary, and what I appreciate out of my life and the world I live in and the world I create. And many days, I find it hard to pick just one photo. I bought a kit for my sister too, who has never scrapbooked before, and she’s using her album to chronicle her family’s first year in Australia, having moved there on 28 January – so not POTD, but their story of life in a new country. And she’s loving the kit because she has no other scrapbooking supplies. All she had to do was purchase a pen, and a stamp pad, and some additional page protectors for the bigger memorabilia, and she’s away.
I already use and LOVE Project Life, but I am getting one for my SIL who is getting married at the end of the month now! I would have loved to have done Project Life our first year of marriage. I think I’ll get it and set it all up for them so all they need to do is add pictures and journal!
So you are so good about answering everything that I have a burning question that needs to be answered by YOU! I have pretty much followed you since I was fourteen, which means for about fifteen years now! We have such similar styles, organize the same, majors in college, etc. I am wondering what you are doing with your kids albums in relationship to Project Life. Are the three copies other than your family one replacing the kids 12 x 12 binders now? Do you still scrapbook layouts for the kids, or does this revolutionize everything. I bought all the school kits a couple of years ago and I am not sure if I should do those for all four of my kids or now do their school years like Porter’s Art book and do one two page layout for each school year and have one digital book of all their school years…please help! I am such a creature of habit I get that Project LIfe will replace my family albums, just need help with whether or not this is replacing the kids albums too. Once this is answered I feel like a brick will be off my shoulders! Do I sound convincing!?
What do YOU want to do?
If I were you, I’d take about 30 mins to focus on the decision about documenting my kids’ school years. I’d spend the time looking at variables, with NO intent to make a decision.
I’m a list maker, so I’d list the top ten things I love about scrapbooking; may be the process, or the end result, or the storytelling…
I’d list each option: traditional, BH school kits, digital, BH PL kit, BH PL digital, the super secret new school kit still incubating….
Then I’d look at my top ten and option lists – does one option clearly hit more top ten reasons than the others? What parts of each option match what reasons?
I’d consider cost too since I was laid off.
At the end of my 30 mins, I’d tell myself to stash the information on the back burner to simmer. Often when I do this, a decision will pop to mind within a few days. Sometimes I revisit my lists when a decision hasn’t appeared.
That’s what I’d do. In reality, I am thinking about doing four school years for my twins in each of the next three months before they graduate. But maybe I won’t. That decision hasn’t been made yet!
LOL! I should have proof read everything above before posting it! It sounds like a jumble of thoughts….thank you!
I used your “original” 365 Project from CK as my first year of marriage album. It’s fantastic to have an entire year of big and little things in one place. I’m really glad I did it. At the time when I ordered it, I wasn’t even engaged. Then I kind of procrastinated in starting the album project. Then we got engaged and I started the album 3 months later with our wedding day.
I am an empty nester. I LOVE MY PROJECT LIFE! It is a great way to record our lives. I share the same soap box you do. I show mine to all the young girls and young adults I know. Thank you for “knowing what you know”.
My husband and I aren’t parents yet, and we’re just finishing up our second year of marriage. I am LOVING how our 2011 PL album is capturing all of those little things you mentioned in this post. Whether we decide to have kids or not, I will always treasure this collection of memories of the everyday. Thanks for creating such an easy system for documenting this time in our lives!
I am doing “Project Life” now. I am really enjoying the potential is has. I am calling my My life @50!
I am an empty nester with a “Fur-Kid”, my husband and I will have been married 30 years by the time I end this album. I started this year on Valentine’s Day (which was 4 days before my b-Day). I want to leave a story for my grandkids (if and when they come in my future< not rushing I just did get to 50 years and I haven't adjusted to that — yet) I want to document our day to day lives but include a few things about turning 50. I am searching for "What makes 50 nifty!" so far I am good. This Birthday was a challenge for me, I had a difficult time knowing that I am now 50 years old. I attempted this when it was Project 365 and failed miserably – this time will not fail. I am DILIGENT in my quest for 50 things that make 50 so nifty. DILIGENT is my "one little word for 2011. So I am working it into my "Project Life" also. The last photo for this album (I hope) will be the reward for complete "Project Life" and my (I hope again) my 30th anniversary gift! (ticket to Disneyworld) I have never been but the kid in me is dying to go!
I want to give a "project life kit" to a friend who thinks she and her husband are going to have a baby (dr visit is this week). I think this would be a great way for her to document her pregency, and there will be room to document the first few weeks of the baby's life . . . I think this would be easier when their lives get busy with the baby and very little time for scrapbooking. So Becky do you think this would be a way for someone to track their journey to parenthood?
I also do not have any children, and my husband does not always like to get his photo taken – but he humors me!
Also I just bought one (the Amber Edition) for my mother’s birthday gift – my parents go on a lot of cruises – like 26 and counting – she complains that with the digital photos she never gets to “see” them again after my father puts the photos on the computer – so I am going to section off the album with a tab for each cruise and then let her add her favourite photos and write journal cards for each of the cruises….so she’ll have some memory photos to look at at least! She’ll be able to keep adding each trip…..
I, too, scrapbooked for years (8 to be exact) before I had children. The only thing I didn’t do that I wish I’d done…I didn’t scrap the PAIN of those years. There wasn’t really anything called “hidden journaling” back then and I didn’t feel like baring my soul to anyone who looked at my scrapbooks. But now, I wish I had. And all the Clomid prescriptions, and doctor bills, and a picture of my fertility monitor… LOL Project Life would’ve been good for that and I could’ve tucked it away for only my eyes. I’m doing a picture a week and think I’ll be doing a PL kit, for sure!
Thank you so much for this post!! My husband and I just got married in November, and this is my 2nd year of participating in the project. I loved listening to my parents talk about their life “pre-kids”, and wish they had more pictures! I love that we will have documentation of each day of our engagement and of our first year of marriage! Hopefully our future kids will love to look at the albums and they will be come family heirlooms….. and if not, i’ll just look through them over and over when I’m in my rest home someday in 70 years!
your niece is gorgeous!
how awesome they are doing this project!
what a treasure to pass on and to remember their beginning!
good for them!
so far so good for me! I have completed day 55 of mine!
I need to get caught up on it though!
tara
I used to totally agree one doesn’t have to have kids to scrapbook… but, then the scrapbook industry talked me out of that! Everything in the industry is about kids, present or future. I on the other hand not only don’t have kids yet, but I never will have kids.. sorry, but even your post encourages “kidless” people to scrap so that when then eventually have kids, the kids can see what life was like before them. So, sorry but, yet again, you’ve talked me out of it… I’m left thinking, why create scrapbooks that will just go to the landfill…. rediscovered quilting as a result though, no emphasis on kids in that industry, its about being creative for the sake of being creative and women taking time just for themselves… love that.
I love the part of your blog where you asked Jason & Kyra how they keep up. I think it’s important to express that to others so they don’t feel overwhelmed with the PL concept. I was one of those people! Now, I have my own system. Since I forget everything, I’ve gotten in the habit of writing down the date on a piece of paper (I keep with my kit) and jotting down a note for the day. A week or two weeks later when I get my photos developed I refer to my notes, match up the photos and write my journaling card. It is helping to have that memory jog on the notes to get me going on journaling and keep me going on PL. Thanks for reminding me to include minute details too in my journalling. I tend to do an overview of the moment. I think some tweeking would be good. Thanks Becky!
Julie,
Here’s a thought on remembering:
Each day I write something to remind me what photo I want to use for that day. I use 4 x 6 lined post-it sheets, one per week.
I try to write the journal cards each night, or at least avoid having more than three to do, including the day on which I’m writing cards.
I get more details on the cards – not that many fit! – and, with the journalling or the short photo description, it’s easy to slip the photos in the correct pockets when I get them developed.