Some may call it a dilemma. I call it the big picture. Today we’re talking about something that a lot of us think about … or don’t want to think about … or should think about. : )
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{ the dilemma }
The “dilemma” is best outlined in this recent reader comment. A wife/mom wrote: I’m starting to feel overwhelmed with all the choices and what is “best” for my family. I’m an all-or-nothing kind of girl, and right now I’m doing nothing to preserve my family’s memories because I don’t know which direction to go. Should I do Project Life for each of my kiddos’ first year and then an album a year after that for each of them? Should I just do a family album after their first year album? If I do an album for each kid, do I do a regular Project Life AND a school kit? When they reach the age of going to school, should I just do a school kit? I’m pretty overwhelmed! I feel very motivated to get organized and go through the piles of paperwork/ephemera in the upcoming year–especially since my five-year-old is so inquisitive about his family history. I need suggestions on how to best tackle/organize documenting a family’s life! I’m just at stand-still until I know what simplified approach I should take. Thanks for all you do!
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Okay, first of all — everyone take a deep breath with me.
Inhale. Exhale. Good.
Now I want you to go to your happy place and feel a great sense of calm envelop you. No? That’s not working? Are you feeling stressed about this too?
Okay then. Let’s get real. Here’s the thing: Most of us are facing the very same challenge. I totally get that this reader feels stuck until she knows her game plan. Wanna know why? Because there is something to be said about BEGINNING WITH THE END IN MIND – something I read about years ago when I first read Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. This life principle has stuck with me ever since and absolutely plays a role in my scrapbooking approach + organization.
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{ my recommendation }
If you are interested in being a documenter of life – or if you have already been taking pictures and/or scrapbooking for quite some time – It’s worth stepping away from your tools and supplies and computer … and just step back for a moment (or a day or a week).
Ponder these questions: What do I want the end result to be? Why am I doing this? Who is this for? What do I want to get out of it?
With this type of thought process, many of you will come to a place of greater clarity about your scrapbook organization. It might take a little time to realize whatever it is that you need to realize. But many of you truly will have an a-ha moment. Super. However … Many of you will not necessarily have the light bulb moment, but rather you will throw those questions and this blog post to the wind and say Who cares about a system!? I just want to play!
And you know what? That’s okay too.
“Figuring out” a scrapbook system isn’t for everyone. Sometimes it’s best to just do something. Start somewhere and have fun and that’s it! But for many (myself included), there is great value in thinking about the big picture … even if it evolves and changes a bit over time (which is a thousand percent perfectly okay!).
In addition to your own personal pondering, I’m sharing some additional thoughts on this topic – from me, and from our Creative Team. As with everything else in scrapbooking, there is no right or wrong, no best or worst. Do what feels right for your life, your situation, your family, your sanity. The purpose in sharing these ideas is the hope that something will stand out to you as something you want to consider for your own system … or perhaps a completely different idea not even mentioned here will pop into your mind.
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{ becky }
Here’s my personal approach to memory-keeping for our family: As I think about the big picture (the future), I would like our children to have a series of family yearbooks and a series of personal scrapbooks. It’s a simple plan, and something that I feel I can maintain. Further explanation follows.
Family yearbooks: One book per year, through their entire childhoods. These are thin photo books (I’ve done the past few years this way and will continue now with Project Life templates on Shutterfly). Some years will be more dense with loads of pictures and memories and some years will be just a handful of favorite highlights and moments from the year. And that’s okay. I’m not trying to have them all exactly the same thickness. The idea is that 1) we will have a collection of books that will span across many years, 2) the focus is on family photos + togetherness + memories, and 3) each child will have his/her very own complete set to keep forever. I talked a little more about my approach in yesterday’s post.
Personal scrapbooks: In addition to the family yearbooks, I envision that each child will have a handful of full-sized 12×12 scrapbooks to take with them. I’m not exactly sure what a “handful” means but maybe like 7-8? I would love these albums to be comprehensive in content and yet concise enough that it doesn’t become an overwhelming collection of large albums that require their own mini moving truck when the kids are no longer living with us. (Okay, quick – someone freeze time so that day doesn’t come any quicker!) The idea is that these scrapbooks will 1) focus more on the individual child – personality, milestones, accomplishments, school, sports, hobbies, etc. and 2) be a place to organize and store all the papers, artwork, and other memorabilia specific to the child’s life and experiences.
That’s it. That’s my plan. That’s my big picture. I used to create ongoing family albums (12×12 scrapbooks), which I really do love but the bummer is that those recorded memories won’t really “go” with the kids when they leave home. Ultimately I plan to scan all those pages (holy mother of projects!) and get those into photo books that I can print in multiples as well. A girl can dream, right?
In the meantime, I’ve been getting organized and back on track with the kids’ 12×12 albums and I’ve been video-documenting the process along the way so that I can share that with you. I hoped to do that before the end of 2011 but due to a series of life circumstances, including a really full Christmas season, the video is not quite ready. But I will wrap that up as soon as I can. If you have organization and scrapbooks and your kids’ school stuff on the brain, I think the video will offer some ideas you may be looking for.
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{ marcy }
When I first started scrapbooking I was determined to make it “fair”. Every kid was going to have the same number of layouts to take with them. I was going to be Supermom. After a while reality sank in. I was lucky enough to find time to make one layout. And then to duplicate that 3 times?
I realized that it was more important to get stories recorded once than to worry about my kids taking albums with them. And now that I’ve started Project Life I don’t feel any differently. It’s ours. I don’t worry about dividing up albums when the kids move out, or about who gets what. At the end of the day that’s not a big deal to me. I don’t anticipate a big family fight over layouts and pages. And even if there were I figure I’ll scan everything and burn them to discs and divvy it up that way. I guess it’s one of those “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it” kinda things.
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{deb}
I don’t have profound thoughts on this, but it’s not something that worries me. I have two boys and I just assume that the albums will stay with me until I’m gone and then they can figure it out after that! They’ll just have to share. I started scrapbooking when Alec was born in 1995 and then Mason was born in 1997. Their dad drowned when we were at the beach in 1998 two weeks after Mason’s first birthday. At that point, I had been making a book for each of them. I couldn’t go on with scrapbooking so I just put the books on a shelf and didn’t think about scrapbooking again until I started getting interested in photography ten years later and of course that led me to Becky Higgins and Project Life which I’ve been doing for almost two years. I don’t know if I’ll ever go back and scrap from all the years I missed. Maybe one day.
(By the way, I’m happily remarried to a man who didn’t have any children. He loves Alec and Mason as his own and they both say he’s the best thing that ever happened to them.) In other words … I have two boys who are teens right now. I don’t really stress about what will happen to the albums. At this point I am only doing Project Life – no other scrapbooks. These albums will stay with me until I’m gone. After that, my boys will just have to share them and split them up however they decide. I plan on doing this for every year from here on out so there will be lots of albums to go around!
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{ cathy }
I know for me, that most of the albums will stay with me. I mean, my kids will get their school albums and their baby albums, but I’m keeping everything else here. When I die, they can have at it. ; )
That goes for Project Life as well. It’s our family document and I think it belongs in their family home, even after they’ve flown the coop, which in my case with Aidan, gets closer all the time. Sigh. I’m holding them hostage!
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{ jennifer }
I don’t have it all figured out. Ultimately, I think just getting memories documented is what’s most important. I can’t let myself get too worried about exactly who will get what down the road. I imagine that my Project Life albums will stay with me even after my children leave the house. I just don’t know if they will really want to take such an extensive collection with them. I do want them to have something that is theirs to keep. I’m imagining a more condensed collection of memories; something along the lines of a school album in which multiple years of their lives can fit into one album. But like I said, I’m still figuring things out and just trying not to let the details get in the way of the actual documenting of life.
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{ ali }
I’ve had different thoughts about this over the years. Here’s where I’m at today: I’m making these books as much for my kids to look at today & down the road as for me. Right now the plan is that they will all stay with me. I do Project Life, annual family albums, minibooks, photobooks, and then I also have a baby album for my daughter, quite a few years of albums that are just my son’s stories, plus albums that hold my own stories from yesterday and today. That is a WHOLE LOT of albums. That said, anytime any of my kids have an interest in these albums I will happily hand them over.
For more information on Ali’s thoughts on album organization go here.
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{ monica }
My personal big picture is focused on my family enjoying our scrapbooks right now while the boys are still in my home. In addition to Project Life, I have implemented Stacy Julian’s Library of Memories which means my layouts are categorized by All About Us, People We Love, Things We Do (my Project Life Binders fall into this album category) and Places We Go. While our All About Us has the layouts organized by person I do not focus on maintaining an album for each child. My oldest son has a disproportionate share of layouts right now and I’m OK with that. Why? Because my youngest son’s story is primarily being told in Project Life right now.
I work hard to not get crazy about “even” or “fair” because if I did I wouldn’t be focused on telling the stories that speak to my heart the most right now. I trust that in the end what my children will see is my love for our family throughout all the stages of our life together. I trust in this because both my 7 year old and my 18 month old frequently pull down albums and look through them with wonder. They are not focused on seeing a particular person but instead focused on seeing our life. I see my albums only leaving my home when my husband & I are no longer here. I see these albums as part of my legacy for future generations, not necessarily a possession of a particular child. Right now I am writing my life story for me. I would like to think that there will be someone years from now who sees this as a treasure but as there is no guarantee I focus instead of my boys seeing our scrapbooks as treasures to be enjoyed now.
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{ maryann }
This might sound a little selfish at first but just stick with me for a moment and hopefully it will make more sense as I explain my thought process. My Project Life albums are about our daily lives from my perspective. It includes stuff from our family life, things that my girls experience, the little everyday stuff we do, and how I interpret them. It’s a collection of our lives as a family from my point of view.
That being said it’s not something that needs to be done in duplicate form so each child can have one to take with them when they leave our house. The plan for now is they stay here with me. So I get that this might sound completely selfish because part of the reason I do Project Life is so that in the future my girls will be able to read my albums and relate to the same situations that I struggle with … laugh at and cry over … but the way that I write in my albums have made this the most logical approach for me at this time.
Plus the thought of doing two albums is overwhelming and I know my limits and honestly I would fail before I could even start. However – keep in mind part of that is because I have an almost 3 and 4 year old. As they get older I plan to include them more in the process so the albums will evolve more into a family project as opposed to just my perspective on life. So I will reevaluate it again at that time. I think it will be something that is constantly changing for me. The most important thing for me is to keep it simple so it is attainable – or it won’t be doable!
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{ liz }
Since most of my scrapbook albums are photo books it will be easy for me to print additional copies when and if my daughters decide they want the albums. The Project Life album is different though, since I’m not doing a digital version, don’t plan on switching to digital, nor do I have a desire to maintain multiple copies of Project Life. The Project Life albums will stay with me. What I can see myself doing is using the information I’ve collected in the Project Life album to create new photo books (funny things you said, vacations, a year of Saturdays, etc.) to give to my daughters.
Actually, now that I think about it, I’ve already made a photo book this year called Snapshots of Sisterhood. I would also like to add that because I was doing Project Life (and hence keeping up with photo editing, etc.) that particular photo book only took me a few days to put together, as opposed to what probably would have taken me a few weeks to do. And I’m certain that I was feeling inspired to create because I wasn’t stressing out about getting “caught up”. I love Project Life. It has totally changed the way I approach and feel about documenting!
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{ michelle }
Since the creation of Project Life, I will now be using that method of scrapbooking from here on out. It’s truly the only way I can keep up with my photos. It looks like I’ll probably have 2 albums filled per year which will include some traditional scrapbooked layouts tucked in here and there. Some of those layouts may feature only one of the girls or a special occasion but for the most part, this is a family album that features our life as a whole. I do have individual albums I started for my two girls that hold mostly sports related photos, programs, school related photos and the like since sports is such a big part of our lives. I’m behind on those albums so I may start implementing the Project Life method for those albums too by using an assortment of the page protectors to speed up the process.
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{ okay – your turn }
If you have thoughts on your “big picture” system – please share in the comments.
Tags: big picture, dilemma, scrapbooking system
I have always made chronological family albums. I also make each of my three boys their own albums that are specific to them. But, I am VERY fussy about fairness and equality between my boys…probably because I am a middle child. LOL So, I often find myself making four copies of a layout. (For instance, Christmas family/Christmas Matty/Christmas Sam/Christmas Jack.) Ugh. But, I am kind of regimented by nature and wanted to finish out 2011 before starting up digital Project Life in January 2012. I am looking forward to going digital and saving myself oodles of time.
I began by making scrapbook albums for each of my grown children after 9/11. But as my family grew with grandchildren and my life got busier I couldn’t keep up with individual albums, designing each page. I gave up scrapping for digital photo books at the end of each year. I packed away my materials in totes. Project Life has renewed my love for my photos and scrap booking. I am going to make these albums for me! And next Christmas I am going to give Project Life Kits to each of my children & families with a few photos placed inside to get them started! I love this!
Well, I don’t have kids (yet), so I haven’t run across this problem, but now you’ve got me thinking about it! Obviously, my opinion may change once I have little ones running around, but ideally, it would be great to have one family album that covers a year, and keep a running album (or several albums) for each of my future children to take with them. These would all be Project Life albums since I know I can’t keep up with my scrapbooking any other way.
In my head, some pictures would be duplicated in each of the albums. As the children age, they could contribute more to the journaling cards and the content of the albums. The yearly albums would be mine until I’m gone, and then they can argue over them
I’ve been doing a similar system for my nephew since he was born – each year, I make him a Shutterfly book with memories from the year. He’s a little destructive with books at the moment, so they stay with me and he’s welcome to look at them anytime he wants. However, I think they will be a fun addition to his graduation party in 12 short years, and then he’s welcome to keep them with him. Some of the pictures I use in his books make it into my Project Life album as well – which is fine by me!
I always had dreams of making an album for each child so that they could take it with them but reality is that I just didn’t have the time to devote to that…nor did I want to recreate each layout so that they each had a copy of “family” layouts in their books as well. I think this is what took me away from scrapbooking as I was feeling overwhelmed and not too sure what direction I wanted to go in. I recently came back to scrapbooking and I don’t worry about what I scrap when…I just do it. All my layouts are filed in a yearly album, not necessarily in chronological order, but the year is all together…there are some of my son, some of my daughter, and some of the family together. It took me a long time to figure this out, but my thought on this is that these albums are family albums so they will stay with my husband and I until we are gone. At that point, the kids can decide which layouts they would want and split up the albums.
I am starting PL this year, and my thought on that is the same. This is a family album. It will be a bit more extensive and include every day life, things I probably wouldn’t do a whole layout on or have more than one picture of…but then again, it might include those pictures as well (I am ok with doing a layout on pictures in my PL album as well…those will be in the layout album). PL is so much more than I could hold in my yearly albums though…it is outtakes, snippets of daily life, memorabilia…the things I found hard to condense on a layout. I am so excited about this venture and so happy for all the inspiration that is out there.
My whole outlook on both approaches is not to stress over it…all that matters is it is getting done for our family at this time.
Thank you Becky for this amazing opportunity at recording the out takes of my family’s life.
I am with MaryAnn and Cathy on this subject. We have a 5 year old son and I have done a baby album for him and one for each year so far. 2011 is when I discovered Project Life!!!! I love it because to me it’s a much more simplified way to scrapbook…even though I am adding extras to it. Last year I did a family PL album and like MaryAnne says it’s the little everyday stuff and it’s from my perspective…it’s not selfish to keep this album. When I’m gone my son then can take these books for himself. His personal albums will of course be his when he’s ready to take them. For his albums I INCORPORATE SCHOOL INTO THEM. I love the idea of a school kit and I’m sure I will want those, too, but I can only do so much. This is where I add my own touch to Project Life. I add some traditional pages to PL where I feel I want to add something extra and do more with some of my pictures. I’m sure I will continue to do the album per year thing for him for a few more years then start to combine years as he gets older. I do only have one child so this is attainable for…I find time and make it work to create these wonderful albums for my family and our son. I think I am always “behind” but with Project Life I’m not as far behind as I use to be! Thanks Becky for Project Life!!!!
I scrapbook a family album each year {Jan-Dec} filled with highlights and activities from each year. Some years I have 2 12×12 D ring albums, some years I only have 1.
I also do an 8.5×11 album for each girl {I have 2 right now} for each year. My oldest was born in Jan, so hers in Jan-Jan. My youngest was an Oct baby, so hers runs Oct-Oct. I don’t worry about keeping pages even, I just include special events/moments specific to each one.
I haven’t thought about the albums leaving my house. In one way, it would free up a LOT of shelf space
I’ll probably scan and make copies if they would like the family albums!
Great discussion and ideas – thanks ladies!!
I do the binder version of Project Life which will stay with me (along with all the other scrapbooks – at least for now. I may let my kids take their school years books once they have kids of their own.) But, I take the photos that I use in Project Life and upload them to Shutterfly. From there, I create 8×8 books of only the photos – no journaling. When the photobooks go on sale, I get each child (I have 2) their own book. They love to flip through and see the pictures. It works out that I can fit 3 months of photos into a 20 page book. I realize that this may lead to a boat load of books eventually … but for now, it’s working.
I started scrap-booking when I was in Middle School, however, I have two sisters, and neither of them ever started albums, and still don’t really have any interest in it. I figure each of my 3 kids (1 boy, 2 girls) are going to to take on their own approach to their own memory keeping when they get older. As for me, I have no desire to have my mom’s albums so long as she’s around. It’s sort of nice when visiting her to be able to flip through the old photo albums. This is the approach that I take with my albums. They are mine! I know that might sound a bit selfish but they are for me to remember these precious years with my children, which will pass all too quickly. When they are older I plan on making them each one (or more if necessary) digital album, to gift to them when the graduate high school, of all my favorite memories of them growing up over the years. The original albums will remain mine until I’m gone!
All that being said, I haven’t really done any albums since about 2003, when I got pregnant with my first child. I just sort of put it down. I’ve tried to pick it up again a few times over the years but I just got overwhelmed. I have pictures and all kinds of mementos that I have saved over the years and I want to have a yearly album for each year. I think that the Project Life system is going to be perfect for me for my yearly albums. (I’ll be posting more about this on my blog soon.) My goal this year is to just stay current on 2012 and in the mean time try to get albums made for 2011 and 2010. I also want to use the Project Life System to make Baby Books (Baby’s First Year) albums for each of my 3 kids. I also plan on using another album idea that I’m working on, to make a School Years Album and a Birthdays Album for each of my Kids and I would like those to be current by the end of this year.
I’m very very excited to use the Project Life system (I’m expecting my Clementine Core Kit in the mail today!) I think this will be the year I finally make a dent in my very large back log of memory keeping and have a system that I can keep up with in years following that I know will just be getting busier as my kids grow!
I only have one child so our family album and his album are pretty much the same. I have been making 2 copies – one for him and one for us. I put the ephemera in his and ours – like his ticket to polar express in his, ours in ours, etc. It’s not that hard to keep up with 2. But now I am wondering if my son is going to hate me when I hand over 18 12×12 albums of his life growing up when he’s an adult? Hmmmm…….what to do????
I’ve often thought of how to deal with the dilemma of scrapbooks, kids, posterity, etc. Well, after reading this post by Becky and some of the comments I’ve had an “Aha” moment. I plan to continue Project Life. I’ll also keep up with one or two life albums per child. It is my intention as well to keep my PL albums. The kids can take their life albums as their life events will already be in my PL albums. As for the PL album collection, I’ll consider it a family heirloom and allow them to decide how they would like to divide amongst themselves. Thank you for all the inspiration ladies
I agree with you Laura! I have three kids and am starting PL this year for the first time. I love your idea of individual “life albums” for them to have someday. Thanks for giving me my “aha” moment!
I have one child. So, anything I do in the way of memory preservation stays with me until I pass. Then it goes to her. I generally do an annual book and have done it this way for most of her life. It has changed over the years and last year’s project life is the best yet so I will continue to develop it as time goes on. What I liked most about it was taking the creative pressure out gave me freedom to just plop whatever into it without the need to present it all pristine and clever. The ‘whatevers’ in the album are what made it most special.
The end result is the vision of her packing my things up one day and saying something like ‘I don’t care about anything else but the books. I just want these books.’ There’s no other possession that more deeply defines what I’m about than these. And no gift I will give in my lifetime will be more meaningful to my daughter in the future than these.
I realized several years ago that memory keeping or scrapbooking was less about the creativity and the quantity of books or projects and more about the story. In the short term we browse through and look at the photos, but years from now, it will be the written words. What treasures we are giving!
For multiple children I wouldn’t know the right thing to do so it was fair and equitable. I suppose, though, they would work it out in the end.
My advice is to find a system that works with your current lifestyle and gets the job done. If you make it too complicated then the process gets to be too stressful and you may not put your whole self into it. Further, if we’re worried about making it all fair and perfect we might miss an imperfect moment that makes our lives real. Let go of the idea of perfection.
I am a all or nothing girl too, well i was before baby 3 and 4. Now Im stuck trying to finish my 2nd childsfirst album. And i have only done a week of my 13 year olds albums. I have started my sons album with traditional scrapbooking but now do the PL way. This year I have to do lists on catching up but Im also staying up to date, its all in the way i spend my time.
But I do have one way of helping me out – My 13 year old has taken over her own albums this year, it was a idea as a diary for her first year as a teenager and highschool. Its from her view. Its our bonding time and shes pretty good at it!!
I can completely to the mom who wrote in. A few months ago I decided I needed to organize photos and put them into to albums. It was always my plan to make scrapbooks one for each child. I have two kids but as I have done a few layouts here and there I really didn’t have very much scrapbooked. and pictures where really piling up my kids are 4 and 6. so I decided to just get them into ablums and I could go back later and scrapbook photos if I dedcide and if that never happens that is ok too. I started by sorting and throwing away photos I didn’t think where great and duplicates. I put them order by dates as well as I could remember. Now I have album for each child and a family. The binders really can hold a few hundred photos so I was able to get several years into each album. Also I plan to make school albums as well. As for who gets what I plan to keep the ablums with me. When the kids get older if they want there own albums that is fine. I hardest part was just getting started. so I suggest start by organizing a plan will come together as you go.
Another thought came to mind…I recall a conversation with a family member this week…she jokingly said something like ‘you’re supposed to develop digital pictures?’. We giggled and she said she hasn’t printed a picture of her son since he was 5 weeks old. He’s in third grade.
So, no matter what we do or don’t do…most of us here are ahead of the game in many people’s views.
so true!
Thanks for posting this Becky! Rather than writing a giant comment here, I responded on my blog, The Mom Creative: http://www.themomcreative.com/2012/01/my-thoughts-on-scrapbooks-the-big-picture.html
I also shared lots of ideas during my 31 Days of Memory Keeping series (http://www.themomcreative.com/2011/10/31-days-welcome.html). I think as women we tend to look at what others do and think we need to do the same thing. We don’t! Just do what works for you! I love the diversity of comments from your creative team and here in the comments.
My approach thus far:
*Project Life for family albums – I plan to keep them forever or until further notice.
Like Cathy said, “When I die, they can worry about who gets what”.
*Baby Album: using Becky’s Baby kit which I used with the 2nd child and it was very easy
*School Albums: one for each kid – these will NOT be super extensive and include tons and tons of detailed stuff. I’m talking highlights of the school year and some extra thrown in if I feel like it – don’t plan to spend gobs of time on these
The Maybe-Add-If-I-Have-Time-or-Desire:
*Photobooks of each child, especially at younger ages. I may go back for the boys and make a quick, EASY, EASY photobook that highlights favorite pictures of that child (alone & with family) during a time frame – may cover each year or a couple of years at a time. Emphasis on EASY and QUICK:) Just something that I will plan to send with them as they move on, just a place to document quick moments in history and do something with all those photos that didn’t quite make it into PL or school albums.
I’m so in love with Becky for coming up with these easy, quick ways to document and show photos. It’s the perfect marriage of the easieness of using a photo album, but with the detail and recording of traditional scrapbooking. I just had enough of tradtional scrapbooking and the time, money, and desire (for me) to create perfection – it was just too much! Now memories are recorded, pictures displayed, and all very easily. I want to put my energy in just doing something NOW, rather than worrying about what will happen 15 or 20 years. You never what in life will change – just do something now. I think we scrapbookers (myself included!) tend to be major over-thinkers!
Meant to say “You never know WHAT in life will change…” My fingers type faster than my brain thinks sometimes
I love having a chronological set of albums — it’s more orderly. Everything has a place in time. I love the creativity of being able to make scrapbook pages using art and embellishments and journaling. I snap a quick photo or a more artistic shot each day for PL, but my real love is the page after page of subjects in order. I have one child (grown). I’m not worried about the future of these albums because I’ve so enjoyed them as I went. I did, however, ask my family to please read my journaling before discarding anything in the future…..does that say something about what I think is valuable?
Wow, this is a great topic. The past two posts have been SO helpful. I am new to PL. I started in October and went backwards for 2011 but am SO excited to do 2012 and NOT get too behind. I am doing monthly not 365 daily pics. I plan to do one PL album/year for our family which will stay with us. I did a baby’s first year digital book through shutterfly for my 1 year old and now need to go back and do one each for my 4 1/2 year old twins.
I will probably do one book for each of them with minimal pics that will add up to them graduating high school and showing at their open houses. I will probably keep a box for each and put things in there as we go so that those albums won’t take too much time. Now that I am thinking about it I should probably print 2 pics if I really like a picture and put it in the box. UNLESS I go digital with these book. I guess I am not SURE yet about those.
Thanks Becky for helping me get started. I hadn’t developed pics in over 2 years. Twin preemies definitely “knocked the wind out of me” and then when I finally got pictures organized I became pg with our 3rd preemie. Between bedrest and NICU time my pictures were doomed to live on my computer. I am SO thankful for PL and the motivation it gave me to get those pictures printed.
I am an empty nester. I touched scrapbooking when my kids were little. I did not continue it. I did keep my photos in albums throughout their youth. I usually printed doubles. When one winter I redid the photos in acid free albums chronologically. A sort of photo storage. This was before digital. I took a photo box for each of my 3 children and haphazardly tossed my duplicates in their boxes. Each child when they went away to college got their box of photos. They still have no room for the albums. They also may never have enough space for my albums. They always look at my project life books and my albums when they visit. The albums are my voice! When they write down their memories, it is amazing how each child has totally different memories. They each think differently. I am so glad this is truly one way my kids get to know their momma. That is truly why I scrapbook. My mother went home to the Lord before my kids got to know her. My albums may be a great memory for them and their children. Dear young mommas, scrapbook for you. Tell your story in your voice. Your children will treasure it.
Ps: when they graduated I made a scrapbook album for each of them. They got this collection of their life with their photo box when they graduated from high school. I had time then to make a great gift for them.
Becky,
Please, please, please share what you are doing with your kids memorabilia!! I have 5 kids and I really want to capture all the little (and big) bits of paper in a better way.
Oh I love this girls…thank you.
I started scrapbooking when my oldest was born (he’s 11) and he had an entire album for his first year. My youngest is 5 and I only just started her third album. So fairness is out the window.
I am doing PL with real product, and I plan to keep them with me until I’m gone and then the kids can either split them up or (with technology) make copies for each one. I am going to continue to work on their personal albums, but only with items that are important to us. Stories I really want told. I am not going to worry so much about documenting it all becuase that is going in the PL albums.
I really believe that any kind of documenting, even if you are only making one PL album for the entire family is better than not doing anything at all. It will be cherished just as much as if you created one of each person. And like I said, with technology our kids will be able to copy them and store them in some wild fashion that we will never think of.
Hi there.
Here is what I am hoping to do…..
Each of my two will have some albums 12×12 from the “early” years.
They will both have school albums once the school kits are released (deep breath)
.
I will (God willing) do an official Project Life 12×12 book every year for our family, just one. I wish I could do three. One for my house and one for each of them, but that is not realistic for this stage of my life. I have thought of going digital, but there is just something about the pretty papers that get me going.
So….my solution is an album each that will mirror Project Life. Only I will do one layout per month for each child instead of one layout per week. I will choose my top 7 pics from my own book of four layouts and condense to one. So in our family PL album I stick with a layout per week, but in theres I’ll highlight and do a layout per month. They’ll get there own, but they’ll get five years in one album.
That’s my goal, within reach thanks to this system.
Hey Kristan,
I just posted about my plan to do the same thing (layout per month for the kids), then started reading comments backwards and saw yours! Have fun!
My scrapbooking had changed over the past several years. I used to scrapbook everything but not anymore.
For my kids I complete the following:
- Digital Project Life, yearly
- 8- 12 scrapbook pages of the kids most important events, some kids have more pages than others
- The yearly school kit
For our family I complete the following:
- Project Life, going digital this year:)
- Vacation Album
By streamlining my whole process, it has allowed me to really focus on what is important to our family and gives me more time to play and hang out with my kids.
I have struggled with this until this year. I have 4 children – 12, 10, 8, and 5. The panic set in when the 4th was born and the oldest was 6 and had a book a year started, at least. I too am partial to the number fairness, so I set out to do the first 5 years for each of my 4 children. AUGH!
Then, I gave myself permission to not do a book a year for each child, but to combine years and hopefully have a couple for elementary school, one for middle school, one for highschool, maybe a senior year. Do you think 10 albums would be enough for each child?! What that did for me though was put an ending to the tunnel of “catching up” those baby years albums. There is an end! That was freeing. But then, what was next? I saw an article years ago on putting together a 2 up album in one evening with 300 pictures. They had inserted “journaling cards” along the way to make it look “scrappy,” and it really appealed to me. I decided I would keep that in mind and ponder it.
Enter Project Life. I just completed my first year. Yep, completed. I used 2 albums because of the extra inserts, but I don’t have a pile of memorablia to figure out when and where to scrap. It went straight to my album and much more than I would’ve saved initially. It became my filing system. LOVE!! About 1/2 way through the year it hit me like a lightning bolt that this was the right format to continue for the kids and the events more personal to them. I got 4 different colored 3 ring albums, extra page protectors (Design A) and 6×6 paper pads that “went” with each kid. Too easy. Cut up the paper and started organizing pictures for the year for each child. Ideally I would do this monthly into their files. I do one layout per month for their albums, so I hope 2-4 years will go in one album. They will have special inserts too for birthdays and such. I’m starting or started with 2011 and will work backwards at the same time as printing 7 pics a month for the current time. Still behind on those youngins but there’s a plan and a light at the end of the tunnel.
Thank you Becky!
what a great idea – thats along the line of what i have been thinking as i now have 2 wee people!
what really hit a chord with me with when you said it was a filing system. i’ve been worried about keeping up with physical PL due to the size but 1 or 2 ablums on a shelf MUST be better and SMALLER than a box of photos here, school bits there, clothes tags and cards and notes elsewhere … thanks julie :>
Thanks for another great post Becky!!
I felt the same way as your reader in the beginning of my scrapping journey. My youngest was 3 so I do have a lot more pictures of him and he has two extra albums then my 3 older girls. At first this bothered me then I let it go and figured at least the girls still have albums just for them.
When I started each child had an album then 2 family albums a year and a family calender album each year and some minis for the holidays/bdays and such. I WAS A MANIC that first year. Totally burned out after that and started just making family albums and still some mini albums.
Where I am at now is I still scrap a little for each kid and PL is my family album for the last 4 years now.
I think the most IMPORTANT thing to do is JUST START NOW!! Don’t worry about the past years yet just start on where your family is today. If you can get caught up at the same time as doing TODAYS photos then go for it.
I always thought the kids would take their albums to college/ first homes but really the last couple years have made me think they will stay with me. When they go to college they can take one album of their own and treasure it when they are homesick otherwise they stay here. When I’m gone they can fight over them or do whatever.
Thanks Becky for letting us help and sharing with us. Good luck to your reader, hope we can all help her.
When I was pregnant with my son I was looking for a baby book. Everyone was afraid to buy me one in fear that I wouldn’t like it because I scrapbook. There would be parts of one that I would want to put with parts of another. When I was pregnant Ali Edwards had just had Anna and she didn’t have a “traditional” store bought baby book for her, so I took my lead from her. I decided that I was going to make one, but again I struggled with what to scrapbook. I knew I wanted it all but didn’t want a 12×12 page of each individual tiny thing. Enter Project Life.
At the time I was very much I need to start this on the 1st of the month at the beginning of the year, and I got my wish. My son was born on January 1st, it was like a calling for me to do this project. I decided to do a picture a day and I pretty much did just that. In the beginning it was all about him and as the months rolled on it became more about us and I loved how it turned out. In the beginning I thought that I would give it to my son as “this is your first year book” but I think I’m going to keep it. I did start a “baby book” and eventually I will add all the little stuff to that as well as there are many smaller page inserts that I’m not afraid to use now. Like I said I was a very all the pages need to be 12×12 and doing Project Life has taught me that they can be whatever size I want them to be. They can be all photos, or all words, or photos and words, it is whatever you want it to be.
This is my 3rd year doing Project Life and my 2nd album is better than my first and as much as I would like to redo my 1st album, but it’s finished and I’m not going to add anything to it. As far as how my albums are split, mine are done by person, family, travels, and extended family. So for example, Max (my son) has an album that is done chronlogically, my husband the same, and one for all of our travels/vacations and one for all the pictures we receive from other family members. I try and do all the layouts in order but it doesn’t always work that way and I’m learning not to over think this stuff. Honestly the only one it is really going to bother is me so I’m okay with that.
Not over thinking things is #1 goal this year!!
I have made a baby album for each child, ( monthly layouts). My first child has 3 albums total, but the most current album is very condensed ( Ages 3-6 so far and she is 7 now.) My second child has the baby album and a second album ( monthly layouts from 13-24 mos- and he just turned 4.) I started PL in Jan 2010, and have completed 2 yrs of layouts. ( 2 layouts per month) even through separation and going through divorce. My question is , what do I do with the Pre- child albums, and the wedding album? I have started 2012 with Cobalt PL, for the family album, and I intend to continue separate kid albums, but I’d also like to do the school kit. I’d ideally love to do a school kit with my own school pics, but don’t really have the time as I am going back to school full time! I have condensed and simplified A LOT from my earlier scrapbooking style.. and that’s probably the key to getting it done.
I didn’t start scrapbooking until after my kids were 4 and 5 – so I have never done their baby albums. They are now almost 18 and almost 17 – and both will soon be gone to college. Once I am an empty nester maybe I will do a digital version since there are only so many things I can do right now. I started Project Life in Dec – using the original 365 kit (I started that in 2009 – but only finished 1 month). What really struck me is that my kids will soon be gone (not permanantly for sure) – and we won’t have the day to day stories and adventures that we have now – and I am going to REALLY miss that! So PL is for me to remember – and ease the time when they first go away. But they love to look at books – so it will also help them remember these teenage years that go even faster than the younger ones!!
A great way to keep track of school pages – and the one I am using is Stacy Julian’s School Album with 6 pages per year, one of which is a pocket for the most important papers. I have several years done for each boy – but need to catch up with those as I work on PL.
I am keeping my albums with me – besides with the way technology is going -page scanning will certainly become better and quicker in the future!
I do scrapbooking because I enjoy the craft. I have implimented Stacy J’s LOM system. My daughters can fight over the albums when I’m gone. They can each take some pages. If they are desperate enough to fight over one page they can copy it and each have it. I also feel there will probably be way more than enough pages to shre and if my kids scrapbook their lives do what will they do with hundreds of bulky 12×12 3 ring binders that span their entire lives? I just expect them to pick and choose their most treasured layouts, keep them and enjoy them.
The thought of multiple albums never crossed my mind, hard enough to scrap the things I want to the first time. I print digital books in multiple copies, but I’m a mainly paper scrapper.
Hi Tracy!! Waving with big wild arms over here
You know I’m with you my friend!
My system used to be a certain color for every collection of albums. One color assigned to each kid, yearly black family albums and red vacation albums.
My oldest moved out of the house and didn’t have room to take all of her scrapbooks with her. I re-evaluated my whole system and decided more than likely, my other two kids aren’t going to want their albums either.
Now my system is 1) digital scrapbooks for our annual trip to Disney and 2) hybrid version of Project Life to document the everyday stories. I have found that Project Life gives a more intimate look at our lives together than separate albums since it’s the everyday. The stories are more than the “Bailey had fun at the zoo.” that I was doing just to get “caught up”.
My husband and I don’t have any children of our own (although he does have a son from a previous marriage). I used to struggle with traditional scrapbooking – I loved all the pretty papers and embellishments….but since I didn’t have kids, I always asked myself, “Who am I scrapbooking for? What’s the point?” Through Project Life, I’ve come to accept that it’s just fine to scrapbook for myself! I’m doing a better job capturing our moments of everyday life, which has been very rewarding. Although nobody will be fighting for my albums after I’m gone, I am still finding value in the process and am proud of the Project Life albums I’ve created. In fact, Project Life has motivated me to challenge myself in new ways – this year I have finally started my first blog!
This is a very profound post. It is TOTALLY great to scrapbook for oneself. Truly, even though I’m creating something for my daughter in the future, I really feel like it’s more for me at this moment.
Whether a person has children or not, we have something to say and life moments are life moments regardless of the presence of children.
Like I said above, no gift I will ever give will have as much meaning as the memory preservation I do.
Good for you for branching out!
Hi Becky! I just wanted to say thank-you for creating such a great product. Yesterday I finished up my project life album for the year and I couldn’t be happier, it will be the perfect reminder in the future of my first year of married life! I would love if you would take a peek, you can see my recap at http://www.joypursuits.blogspot.com
<3 Lauren
I totally subscribe to Stacy Julian’s method of organization, Library of Memories, for both my pages and photos. When I read her book, Photo Freedom, it totally clicked for me. These albums (Places We Go, Things We Do, People We Love, and All About Us) will stay with me. I have 3 or 4 of each already and love adding more pages each year! I imagine myself being an old granny surrounded by my albums, touching favorite photos and laughing as I read my sarcastic journaling. Sorry to be selfish, but I’m not giving up all my memories when my boys move out – besides, they probably won’t want to carry all those 12×12 albums anyway! They won’t leave empty handed however; I have a school album for each of them.
I have a hard time ONLY doing Project Life. I love the concept, and dutifully take my photo a day. But I so love my current system; I’m just not sure how they fit together. I hate to admit it, but my Project Life album from 2009 is the one we enjoy the least. I can’t wait to read the other comments to learn how I can love both systems (library of memories and project life) together.
I was an LOM coach for several years and am now on Becky’s creative team. I believe in both 100%.
For me I still use the LOM philosophy in pulling together my weeks for Project Life. I struggled at the beginning with having everything chronological so I focused instead on telling the important stories of the week instead of a picture a day concept. I don’t date my pictures or my journaling. The only frame of reference is the week.
For 2011 (my first year) I seemed to really focus on the things we do so I have used American Crafts albums that work into my Things We Do album color, brown. As we approach the first week of 2012 I have thought alot about the perspective with which I want to approach the year. I really think I want to view it more from an All About Us perspective. I will still capture our daily life but my journaling will carry more of this voice and be incorporated into this system, I’m thinking of using the Black Signature Albums to tie into my black AC albums.
I embraced PL last year because I did not scrapbook any traditional layouts after my son was born. That was six months of our stories not being told because I did not have the energy for the creative process. I was really saddened by this. I love PL because it really simplifies the process for me while still being creative in little pockets.
I hope this helps a little bit. Also, I would ask you why did you pick up Project Life? What need did you see it fulfilling? Do the two have to be mutually exclusive? Oh and I’m with you , these albums are for me as long as I’m here
Thank you Becky for this post and your incredible inspiration! I’ve been searching for years for my “big picture” system and I think I may have found it. I’ve always loved having my photos in photo albums to be able to look through. I also love the chronological scrapbooks as well as the thought behind Stacy Julian’s Library of Memories system. So, I’ve been really very confused about what works for me especially since I have SO many photo albums, incomplete scrapbooks, and memorabilia and scrapbook stuff everywhere.
So, for 2012, I’m doing Project Life to see how it goes. It’s a photo album and chronological scrapbook all in one! It’s also great that I can include other bits and pieces that help to tell our story. It will also help me to get out of the “event” routine that my photos tend to be and to look more at telling our whole story. Project Life will be our yearly, family album – the same as so many of my incomplete scrapbooks – but will tell a much bigger picture of our everyday lives. My Library of Memories albums will be the home to those special events and connections that I want to remember in that format.
I believe that even with my busy schedule, Project Life is doable for me because I can make it what works for me. Who knows, I may just even back up and use the Project Life concept to redo and complete some of those incomplete albums such as my son’s baby album that I’ve been working on for at least 15 years!
Since we only have 1 son, I really don’t have to worry about anyone fighting over my albums (or anything else for that matter) All my stuff will be his one day!
Lisa
Oh my. I was so there. I was literally blocked from scrapbooking for two years (TWO WHOLE YEARS) because I couldn’t figure out what I was going to do with the layouts, where they would go, the whole organization thing, even the sheer bulk of it all. I was paralyzed by it. I am FINALLY at a point where I feel comfortable with what I am doing and two ladies are responsible for it: Stacy Julian and Becky! I wish I could hug them right now!
I only have one son but I feel in my heart that this is the way I would proceed regardless. I have a “School of Life” album for my son (check out Stacy Julian’s books for more info on this or I’d be happy to tell you about it). Five pages per school year that includes school picture, school highlights, other yearly highlights, and a small handful of papers, memorabilia from the year. Done. He gets to take those with him and right now it looks like it will be 3-4 albums. I also do Stacy’s Library of Memories for my other layouts and am doing Project Life for “everyday” living. Those stay with me. Although I am considering switching to digital PL next year and would probably order an extra for him.
I plan on completing a baby book (Project Life style) for me to keep and a smaller one for him to take (talk about being behind!) The only other album I’m considering for him is a travel album either a paper one with one 2-page layout for each trip we’ve taken (possible PL) or doing digi books of our big trips and just getting an extra copy for him. Those thin digi books are awesome and they are taking some stress off my “must scrap everything” mentality so I can start to tell more stories in the layouts I actually have the time to do.
This is the first time I have felt comfortable with my “scrap plan” since I started this amazing hobby. It takes time to figure out the approach that works best for your family but it’s worth taking the time to figure it out. I think it will ultimately make you more productive!
Vanessa
Forgot to mention that I am using Becky’s School Kit for my son’s School of Life albums. It is a life saver!! Thank you, thank you, thank you Becky!
AND I forgot to mention that I am using Becky’s Baby Album Kit for the baby book my son will take with him. You rock my world, Becky!
Interesting to read so many different views. I am just about to start PL (if it ever gets to the UK
) for my daughter’s baby book – she is now 23 – as a way of doing something with all that ‘stuff’!
I really think you have to scrapbook for YOU. Anything else is a bonus. An earlier post mentioned that few of her offspring scrapbooked or saw any value in them – now. I took two albums (of a recent extended family holiday and another from ten years ago) to a family gathering of 20 people and not one person said anything, ANYTHING at all about either album!
Truly, I believe you should enjoy your scrapbooking, your photography, your creative outlet and just not worry about the future. The next generation ( or indeed the one after that – I have my grandmother’s Victorian decoupage album) can do what they want and we should just not worry about it. At least that is what I try to do…
Yep, I have three kiddos as well
I’m glad you’re gleaning an “aha” moment as well. My plan is basically to give each child (maybe at high school/college graduation/wedding) either one or two Project Life albums about their life while at home. I might just do a traditional scrapbook instead of a PL album since I have so much product LOL! But that’s my general thought. So, I’ll be keeping up with an annual PL and I’ll add to the kids Life albums throughout the course of their stay at home. Love this topic and that I can think more clearly on this now 
I am still debating doing a PL this year (for the first time) due to the fact that there is not the easy as pie set up we had in the digital book last year. I did, however, quit my whining and tried to figure out my next best option (while waiting for Becky’s update on the issue.) And I have been taking my POTD and keeping a little journaling in Word, “just in case.” You know I’m gonna do this by hook or by crook.
Anyway, I went to a site that I think I found somewhere here called http://www.wendyzinescraps.com where she has produced some PS and PSE Actions to make creating the pages a little easier using Becky’s designs from Jessica Sprague. And I can make it in Cobalt, which I can’t do with Shutterfly. So I can just reate the full 12X12 page in PS, save it as a jpg and drag it into the Shutterfly book using the full page template.
Does anyone who has ever made a Shutterfly book know how high of a resolution you need to make the “picture” of my page turn out the best when the book is printed? I tried once before dragging a whole scrapbook of scanned pages into Shutterfly and it took the pages fine for online viewing but I could not have the book printed as every single page came up with an error message. I never could figure out what was wrong and finally gave up.
Becky, I just want to say thank you so much for posting “the dilemma” post. I felt like I was reading my own thoughts. This was very helpful and I’m excited to make a decision on how to do this and run with it
Dear Dilemma,
I understand you completely & was exactly where you are – except my girls are grown & I have 18+ years to catch up on for each of them and what’s going on now. I discovered PL last year, and for the first time, actually have an album to look at! It’s not totally finished, but I expect it will be by the time I get my 2012 kit in Feb. I plan on working on 2 years at a time from now on, and maybe throw a little extra in along the way. I will work on 2012 & 2010 next year. maybe you could try something similar. This year, concentrate on 2012. Get the system worked out for you. As your son enters first grade, you’ll have a little extra time that maybe you could start spending on another year. Then when your other son enters school (assuming you don’t have any more!) :0) you’ll have a little MORE time. You only have 5 years to “catch up” on. That’s doable! And as for who gets what – my daughters were born in odd & even years. Some day, when I’m ready to give them up, odd girl will get all the odd years, and even the even years. That way, they will have something special for themselves, but something to share, as well, when they visit each other.
Are the dividers available? I can’t seem to find them but I can’t find an indication that they are on order either. Thanks for any info.
I have struggled with this too! In the past I have done albums for each of my daughters (now 15 and 12.) They have 7 and 6 albums respectively. I also do a Christmas album (3 so far) and a family vacation album (starting the second one.) I have been SO overwhelmed. Each Christmas meant 3 layouts. Each vacation was produced 3 times. Result …. I stopped doing anything and am now “BEHIND.”
I did complete Project Life digital for 2011 and am so excited about it! I am a bit concerned about what I am seeing with the digi version for this year, since it appears to be much less a drag and drop venture. But, still plan to do PL again.
I am going to focus on a good high school album for each girl to have at their graduation. Other than that, I don’t know what else I will get done! I feel so guilty for having these lovely albums started and then dropping off like I have. Need some kind words here!
Pamela, absolutely do NOT regret a single thing when it comes to scrapbooking! It sounds like you have done way more than most ever manage. Your girls will love having anything you’ve created when they’re grown and have families of their own. My mom did a baby album for me and that was pretty much it and I love it. I would give anything to have even one single album of my mother or grandmother when they were young but I only have a few pictures here and there. So you’re way ahead of the game. Project Life is such a good way to get the everyday pictures in if nothing else. So, the most important thing is creating the memories in the first place. Have fun!
As much as I’d love my Project Life album to look beautiful and elaborate like some I’ve seen on Pinterest, I’m realistic. I’m the mother of a 5 year old son and identical twin daughters that are “difficult” to say the least. And they’re 2 1/2. And very needy. And they scream and fight a lot. And my husband works 2,000 hours a week. *SIGH*. So I’m doing the best I can with recording our lives, and when the kids are older and life isn’t so crazy, maybe my Project Life album will look “pretty” and more “scrapbooky”. But for now, I’m happy with just capturing stories and memories and pictures of the good and the bad (painting with poop and the like).
I’ve also tried to keep separate layouts going in scrapbooks that are specific to each of the kids so they’ll have something of their own to keep, but that’s been a little tough to do. I agree with Becky about just taking a deep breath, not freaking out, and doing what’s best for me in this moment in time.
P.S. I can’t say enough how much of a fantastic thing Project Life is.
Anything you do will be appreciated. Don’t look at what everyone else is doing, celebrate what you are doing every day with your kids. My kids are high school and older now, and we put way too much pressure on ourselves to do it all “right”.
Ann-I have spent so much time over the years feeling my scrapbooks weren’t pretty enough. When I tried to be ‘scrapbooky’ it sucked the life out of me because I was never caught up. I gave PL a chance last year and just threw it together and stayed caught up pretty well. I also didn’t force a picture a day or even a layout a week. If it happened, it happened. There’s nothing between mid november and the week of Christmas because I just didn’t even take pictures.Oh well.
The result…my favorite annual book EVER. It isn’t pretty, it isn’t neat a lot of the time, the pictures aren’t fantastic. But I cry every time I look at it. I think this is because it is REAL and it is done.
As I said above, we are all far ahead of our friends and family who still have their pictures on their computers or worse, all those camera disks…
I’m totally happy with my very basic and first ever Project Life album. I love it! Someday, when the kids are all in school and I have the time, I’ll definitely have a more scrapbook-ish looking PL.
But you’re right, Chris, about the fact that we at least are preserving our memories. My mother has boxes of slides and photos that she never did anything with. I’m tempted to buy her a PL album and tell her to journal as much as she can, but at almost 80 years old, she’s just not that motivated to take on new projects. I may have to help her, because once she and my dad are gone, those memories will be gone with them….
I just wrote a detailed post on my solution to the “Big Picture.” Project Life + School Kit = My Solution. I love it and I hope it will inspire someone! Becky, thank you so much for creating these products and bringing the joy of memory keeping back to my life!
http://christie.typepad.com/reconstruction/2012/01/project-life-school-kit-solution.html
thanks for the inspiration!! that is what I needed to regroup my thinking..I have the school kit too and was just trying to streamline my process now that my son is in grade 1 and bringing home more and my 2 year old is starting to bring home art and memories..i was feeling overwhelmed!! I love the photo a month and recap idea;.love it!! thanks
Wow. I’m feeling the love. I am choked up right now over the info that has been shared in this post. (I sheepishly admit to being the wife/mother in the above dilemna!)
I am so thankful to Becky and each comment that has been made to help people like me get on the road to documenting their life. Documenting my family history falls under my one word resolution this year. That word is prioritize–as in choosing between good, better, and best. Being my family’s historian is one of the things I can do that, for me, falls under the “best” category. It’s important to me, and I didn’t know how to go about organizing it all until today. And, Becky, you were so right: I did need to see the end from the beginning to implement an effective system for me as I document a family of six and, now, a new puppy! I’m thankful for the “a-ha” moments I’ve had today and feel like I’ve been truly watched out for as questions about this renewed journey of documenting life have been answered. THANK YOU. Tender mercy for sure.
Where I’m at right now:
*PL book for the whole family, week at-a-glance
*PL book for each kiddo, month at-a-glance (highlighting the things they say, goals set/made, etc.–the real meat of life)
*PL school edition for each kiddo when it becomes available
Anything else will be a bonus.
YAY for a plan! A big cyber hug to Becky and to all those who commented in helping me get out of a rut and into a system I can do. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
I was at a stand still years ago, I still have about 10 years of pictures that are sitting in a box, minus some big events. So I don’t know if I’ll ever get to those – but I’m not going to worry about that. I read somewhere to scrapbook in back order. Start with the current (it’s freshest in your mind) and work backwards if you have time. That’s why I’m so excited about starting PL for the first time, I’ve never documented just everyday stuff – I have only done events/special occasions.
I do scrapbooking for ME!! I’ll admit it! I have 3 boys (18, 16, 8). I love to put their albums together, but I do it more for me than them I think! Hopefully they will appreciate it some day! I have done a baby album thru 4rs. old for each. A school of Life album for each, Preschool – 4th grade. A Middle school album for 2 of them 5th-8th, and have started the high school albums for the 2 high schoolers.
I have incorporated Stacy J’s Library of Memories into the rest of the pages I’ve done over the years which only highlighted the “events/holidays/travel”, which have come out to 20+ albums! So I’m excited to start PL for the first time ever for 2012!! VERY EXCITED!! I love “traditional” scrapbooking because I love to play and create, so I’ll incorporate pages now and then into the album. But keep the “big events” in the Library of Memories system.
My goal for 2012 is to keep up on my PL album, scrapbook the events still – I love paper!!, and I bought another PL kit and have started to do MY baby album. My mother had made me a baby album and I cherish that, and she recently passed and I was able to get the picture albums of hers that were of my childhood. So I’m going to take apart the baby album she made and keep her journaling and memorabilia that she had in there and use PL kit to add the rest of the pictures from the albums. And of course stay on top of my sons school albums!
My thought is my sons will get there albums in stages: When they graduate they get their high school album, when they get married they get their grade school & middle school albums, and when they have their first child, I’ll give them their baby album. The rest of the albums I will keep for me!! They will have to fight over those!
Eventually, since I’m the family historian, I want to do a whole album of “Family Tree/Heritage”. Stories and pictures of my ancestors and my husbands ancestors. Don’t know how to begin on that one yet, if I want to do like a PL idea, or what yet. If anyone has done one I would love to see it or hear your thoughts/ideas!! I don’t know if digital would be best, so my siblings and cousins could order one if they want? Or just do it for my immediate family.
I started scrapping late in my kids life. For their 21st birthday they each got a book about their first year. I have continued their layouts but only certain pics or events. I don’t have every birthday documented. They are now 30 and 28 and each have numerous books. If I see a layout that inspires me, I still scrap it in their books. I have books for my 3 grand-children and I am starting PL this year.
All books are in my possession at this point.
(Grrr I spent the last 45 minutes typing out a well worded comment and when I hit submit I got an internal error! Poof comment gone.) The high points of my comment. 2011 project life didn’t work for me. I have no safe place in my house to keep it open and functional which stops me from working on it daily/weekly. Thinking about digital version for 2012. One point that hit home from this blog post – needing a moving van to move their albums when they move out…less space consumption seems like a good thing.
No matter which way I choose I will do two seperate books…one for each child. They are different children and experience events/things differently so I want to record THEIR experiences. Plus having divided things among my siblings from our parents I do not wish to put that on my children. My passing will be difficult enough for them without having to make decisions about who gets what.
Each child (I have 2) will have their baby album (the old Becky Higgins baby albums) and a school album (also the old one from Becky Higgins). Then they both play soccer and I want to make a soccer album for each of them (I hope :0)….)
I started PL last year and i love it. did a picture a day last year, but not this year. Did not want the stress of having to take a picture each day. Also, i wanted all my pictures to be in those page protectors. I used Turqoise edition for 2011. and i’ll be using Clementine for 2012. I add movie tickets, maps etc, important things. I love it!! And the kids can fight it out when the time comes to divide the albums up. :0)
I do want to go back and slowly start adding all my photos in PL albums. It’s a great way to display them. I have boxes and boxes of photos that i swore i would scrap the old way but never got around to it. And yes I’m behind. I’m still doing 2011 and am on March. But I’m going to keep going and get it all done! I hope to be done with 2011 by the end of January of February.
I forgot to say that I added PL page protectors into my son’s school album (Becky Higgins school kit), I love it! I had so many pictures for 2nd grade, it worked out great!
I am married with no plans for children so my big picture is a little different then when I first started scrapping 15 years ago and saw children in future. I now scrap for my 80+ year old self. I already have a terrible memory so I want to have snippets of my life, our life as a couple, and life as an amazing auntie. I also record event of my niece and nephews lives from my perspective perhaps one day they will want them perhaps they will just support my own memories both options are fine with me. As far as application this is the start of my second year in review PL I did the first one was 3 years ago the plan is to do a year in review every 3-5 years. I also participate in challenges and other inspirations on digital sites. Besides that I paper scrap when I am with friends at crop weeks 1-2 a year. I do not stress that every holiday is remembered but that the little moments that will trigger memories of time gone by.
So, like, this is basically day one of my project life experience, unless you count yesterday opening the box and getting organized…obviously i’m not an expert.
First – why worry about what each child gets and gets to take with them??? You think a lot of really cool college freshman lug 18 photo albums from their mom to their dorm room? Not really. And, probably not a good idea anyway. Kids may page through them every once in while, and then again with significant others over christmas, etc. To expect more is a little far fetched, in my opinion.
If YOU are going to scrapbook then do it for YOU!
That being said. I just can’t help loving so many things about project life. Especially the colors in clementine. My first page was additional pictures not already scrapped of my son’s birthday in October.
I love it so much, I can’t even tell you. I love taking a million pictures at events and I hate not including all of them. I had already made like 5 layouts of that day, but this was the perfect way to include all the ones I felt were missing. And so much fun to do.
It is kind of like scrapbooking within a haiku. All the little precut boxes give you more freedom to be creative.
I am going to incorporate project life pages along with the rest of my layouts. Sometimes with everyday pictures that don’t need their layout, and sometimes all those great extra photos from big events. All I bought was two packs of page protectors and the clementine core kit. I think it is working out great already!!
“You think a lot of really cool college freshman lug 18 photo albums from their mom to their dorm room? Not really. And, probably not a good idea anyway. ”
I love this.
Probably not a good idea ? Um, not if you want to remain really cool .
Hilarious.
Love your comment. I think the same way, I have a girl and a boy and I don’t think they going to want the albums until they have their own families. My albums going to stay with me until I go.
I used to scrap all the time, be on lots of design teams, have a scrapbook website, run retreats. Do lots! Scrap lots! Then I got lupus and the chronic fatigue that comes with it, and my scrapbooking started to dwindle. I now use my energy up living life and working, and don’t have much left over anymore to scrap, especially since I used to be a night scrapper. I did do Project life in 2009, but at the same time, also tried to keep up with my traditional scrapping.
This year I think I’m just going to focus on project life and be a bit more creative with i, thanks to all of the amazing inspiration out there.
I envisage all of my albums will stay with me, for as long as I am here. Then my boys can decide what they want. Hopefully they will appreciate all of the stories that have been recorded. I think they will.
All I can say is heaven help us Becky if you ever stop selling this product. You have got a heck of a lot of people hooked. What would we do if you suddenly took it away from us?
{{{Megan}}} A friend was recently diagnosed with lupus; it’s an energy-zapping illness for sure.
If Becky stopped, she’d HAVE to allow someone else to manufacture the page protectors at minimum! Others could create the paper products – but those page protectors are [should be?] designs of her LLC.
But Becky is not going to stop. And some day someone just as dedicated and almost as warm and wonderful ['almost' because we know Becky is the best! ; ) ] will take over the helm – so our offspring can continue the tradition!
Ok, I completely missed the bit where comments were only about the big picture system. So feel free to just delete my comment as its not relevant.
your comment is relative. IMO at least.
Hey Becky–
Thank you so much for outlining your BIG PLAN. It really made me look at what I hope to give my children and what I hope to have for myself.
I wanted to give you a little tip, since you’ve given me and so many others tips…
You said “Ultimately I plan to scan all those pages (holy mother of projects!) and get those into photo books that I can print in multiples as well. A girl can dream, right?”
Well I wanted to tell you about Scan Cafe [scancafe.com] It is a service where you send in your items to be scanned and they send them back with a CD of all the scans. This would be a no hassle way for you to get all your albums scanned in. AND you won’t have to use any of your precious time doing it!
There probably are other services like this out there, but this is the one I’ve used.
Anyway, just a thought.
Thanks again Becky, you’re amazing.
–Maggie
PS No, I don’t work for Scan Cafe, it’s just really come in handy for my family when my grandfather died and left us with a bazillion pictures to be share among five grandkids (and two kids).
Maggie love this idea
I didn’t realize they did layouts as well!!
THIS POST IS PERFECT! I just barely finished a post on my blog asking some of these same questions!! I’ve been doing PL for years (albums for each of my girls) but now I have three kids to create albums for and I’m feeling a little overwhelmed and unsure about how to continue from this point on… and still stay sane and “on top of things.” Thanks for this post Becky! Your timing was impeccable!
If anyone is interested in seeing how I’ve been using Project Life for each of my kids’ albums (including their school work) you can check them out here:
http://www.thesunnysideupblog.com/2012/01/project-life-2012.html
Thank you for addressing this, Becky!
And all the references and links to your old school kit is making me want some!
And … Sorry to hear about all your current challenges with family and friends too.
I switched about 5 years ago to doing 1 family album a year for the most part. It’s too hard to try and duplicate and maintain separate albums. That said I make small individual albums of special birthday parties or holidays. I tend to use kits or single themes when i do this to make the process faster. The girls can divy them up when I am ready to let them go or am gone myself. I love the albums! I love being able to look back on what was going on. This year will be my first year of Project Life and I can’t wait for my kit to get here. I ordered it on Monday and have checked every day since to see if the status has changed to ‘shipped.’ I have been trying to take more pictures and bought a little cheap diary for keeping with me and jotting things in. My recommendation to your reader would be to start with PL and do the little 8×8′s for birthdays or special occasions and to buy little kits for those. I also print 8×8 pics and use those as pages – no scrapping just straight in.
I have traditional 12×12 scrapbooks for both my daughters. My thinking is that when they go off on their own I don’t want them to have to split family albums or negotiate who gets what. Each daughter also has a school album,(thanks to Becky) for each of their school years. A few years back I did a Project 365 for each of them and I loved doing it. Since that time I am now sticking with the Project Life theme approach. They still have their own albums and I am less stressed. The problem is I still have so many traditional scrapbooking supplies I have guilt. I may have to throw in a traditional vacation album or two just to use up my stash.
Guilt about the stash! Oh how I know what you mean.
And I buy more…. must.stop.doing.that.
Heck what am I saying?
Going to the three [big box; no LSS] craft stores is my retail therapy – hate shoe shopping, not interested in fat clothes but that’s what I wear, and one can only buy so many motor vehicles! So there’s my rationalization – most other therapies would cost more.
But really. What happens to our stashes when we’re gone? Giggling at the mere thought of my stash being sold at a yard sale, or at an estate sale!
Since I have only one daughter home (and she will be leaving home next autumn) and other children have their own families, I did Project Life last year for me and I’m doing it this year too. It’s my way of seeing things happening in our lives (me, my husband, our children and grandchildren). From previous years I have albums full of scrapbook pages of all kinds of things, but thanks to PJ I did only 30 scrapbook pages last year. Most of them where of my 18-year old, since she is the only one who does not have an interest in blogging or scrapbooking (I have pursuaded her to write some entries into last year’s PJ though). I mean to do more scrapbook pages this year, cause then I write more and I also enjoy the creative process. But I love PJ, and it is not much to spend 2 hours every Sunday evening printing the photos when I’m skypeing with my sister and daughters. The little snippets of our day I write during the week. Simple. Fun. Memorable.
Thanks, Becky, again for helping me to start the PJ!
Since I’m “behind” on traditional scrapbooking and my 2011 PL, I have lots of evaluating to do on my big picture. I’m even considering disassembling the mish mosh of 12×12 scrapbooks that I have into a more uniform, simple storage container. One thing I do have have is a very complete digital and paper “library” of photos. I have printed a large portion of what I take and kept them in 2-up albums consistently for 15 years. I have digital photos on my pc, an external hard drive and on Shutterfly since 2004. I make annual photo books for my Mom (which will someday be mine). So while the pretty pages are a bit up in the air now, our life, and that of our 4 kids, is well recorded. I struggle the most now with how to record the details in writing, as I’m shocked with how quickly I’m forgetting little things. I know that once I settle on my Big Picture, and the chips fall, Project Life will help me in documenting it all. That’s why I haven’t given up even though I’m behind!
Becky….what great post. Made my morning laying here in bed relaxing and thinking about staying in my scrapbook room today working on stuff and watching old movies. Really makes me think about what’s important really….your very smart! God has given you a great gift and you use it very well sharing it with all of us. That’s why he gives all of us different gifts in life to share with those around us. Your doing a great job with that. Next time your in Colorado Springs would love to take you to lunch and to our scrapbook store. Have a wonderful day and enjoy your life!!!!
Hi Becky… my reply ended up being a novel so I posted it here….
http://prachispapertrail.blogspot.com/2012/01/how-do-i-organize-my-photo-albums.html
I have been inspired by all the posts of many scrapbookers over the years. I started scrapbooking in 1988 when my daughter was born, just photos in pages that are like Project LIfe ones, and I used an index card to journal in one of the photo slots. The in 1992 I moved into full blown creative scrapbooking, went back and redid my daughter’s pages and started a book for my daughter, a book for my son, and a book for the family. I kept that up through two more children until 2005 when I became a consultant for a scrapbooking company and all of a sudden I got behind in my children’s albums, and was only able to keep up with my family album. Now is 2012 I have taken a new approach. I made 12 beautiful creative pages for my family album for 2012, one per month. They are already done, and behind them I have gone back to the pages I used in 1988 to store more photos that I want to keep, but don’t want to scrapbook. That will take no time at all to keep up with. I am now going to go back and scrapbook my youngest three children’s albums that are completely behind. I don’t keep up their albums after they are 18, and so one of my son’s is already to 16 and 1/2, so his isn’t too far behind. However, my 13 year old was six when I last worked on his book, so his will be a focus, as well as his currently 17 year old sister. I don’t plan on finishing this year, but I think this approach for family albums will work well for me in the future, kind of a hybrid of Project Life and regular scrapbooking. I, too, don’t want to create too many huge books, but figure about 24 pages a year should cover me for now and the future.
Very great post and lots of great comments! I totally agree with Becky that each person needs to find what works for them and go with it…no guilt. Whatever YOU decide will be good for you and your families/posterity. Just thought I’d add a few of my thoughts in case it helps others to settle on a plan for them.
I do the same essential plan as Becky. Over time and with the addition of kids my scrapbooking has too, evolved. I’ve had to let go of the time consuming parts of scrapbooking and LOVE the products Becky offers to make it SIMPLE and CUTE! It’s so do-able!! I do Family Yearbooks with our trips, highlights, everyday life all in one. These represent our family. Family is so very important to me and I want our kids to know that they have and always will have this family that they are an important part of. I do the physical kit format for me (loving the process!) and drop the same pics into the digital format so when they graduate they will be able to take their yearbooks. This of course is an extra step and one day I will probably make my copy digitally through Shutterfly as well, but for now, it’s working and the digital books are coming together fast (when I upload pics to print, I upload to photobook at same time.) As with Becky’s some years have been a picture a day format resulting in a bigger book and some will be smaller, simply highlighting months at a time. I LOVE this flexibility and it frees me from guilt of having to document absolutely everything.
I also have books for each of my 3 (about to be 4) kids in 12X12 format focusing on them as individuals… an all about me approach. This process has been WAY simplified over the years, but the result will be a book of baby year (loved Becky’s baby kit for these!!) and then any number of books (not a million – 6-7ish) with their childhood years and school years. I now use the PL plastics in my kids albums, in fact a typical 12X12 layout is rare. Using the divided page protectors makes it go so much faster and I’m less likely to get bogged down.
I believe these books are important for them to have and be able to take with them. It may not be when they graduate but perhaps when they are settled with a family of their own. My own mom kept personal scrapbooks for me and my 7 siblings and we all cherish them and love them. What’s even more…MY kids LOVE them! They are always asking to see pictures of me when I was a little girl and we have loved “finding” my kids in me (and my husband) in our pictures.
So while it may seem a large task at times, I love completing these albums and know it will be worth it to see the faces of my grandkids as they look back to see the lives of my kids that I’ve documented… plus I love the process!
I just try to remember that simple works, simple is good and simple gets it done!
Thank you Becky for simplifying this process for us in such a perfect way!
I love reading about other people’s scrapbook system.
Currently I do/have:
- album for my daughter, almost 2. I did a ton of layouts of her first year and I find myself doing less in her second. I plan on keeping up with this one and starting one for our baby due this summer. I want each child to have albums to take with them that are all about them. In the future as life gets busier, I’m sure I’ll have to cut down on the amount of pages that I make, but each child will have their own “collection” to take with them whenever that time comes. For my daughter, I also did a Project Life for her first year – I wanted to take a photo a day of her and PL was the perfect format for it. Instead of journaling for each day, I included bits and pieces of her first year of life – tags from clothes, diaper/toy packaging, receipts, mail that came for her, etc. It is honestly one of my favorite albums. I did journal each week about what happened/what she did that week and I am planning on doing the same with baby #2. It was a great place to record her milestones.
- family albums/Project Life: In the past I was doing an album for each year. Mostly event-focused pages – holidays, family events, places we went (concerts, sporting events, parties, etc). I am doing PL this year and I haven’t decided if I will incorporate layouts in it or just skip doing them altogether. I do love the approach that Lindsay Teague is taking and might do that for our family events next year, which would be great for our kids to take with them in the future. But Project Life and our family albums are for me to keep.
- Miscellaneous albums: I keep a bunch of random themed albums where I only add a few pages a year. I love seeing the passage of time within the album, which is why I don’t keep them with our annual albums. They include:
- Travel – one page per trip
- Anniversary – one page per anniversary
- Traditions – our annual trip to the cider mill, carving pumpkins, making pies with my mom and Grandma
- Christmas – one page summarizing each holiday
- Golf outing – one page per year highlighting the annual golf outing we put on in my dad’s memory
- Mini albums – Anytime we go on a trip, I make a mini album. They are some of my favorite albums to have. I like doing it in a smashbook-like format, though I make up my own. I include tons of ephemera and photos. Love doing these.
I didn’t read everyone’s responses but just wanted to add my experience. I was obsessed with scrapbooking when my oldest (twin boys) were in high school. I wanted them to have an album of their life to take with them when they left home. They now have been married 5 and 6 years and have started families of their own. One of them has left their book here and I’m not sure they will ever want to take it. You have no idea what your children, or more importantly what their spouses, desires for childhood memorabilia in their home will be. They do enjoy looking at all the albums when they are home. My advice to all – scrapbook for yourself. If they want a copy later that’s great!
An “as it happens” approach to the family album, kinda month/week at a glance over how ever many pages it takes. Trying to do digital with this.
Separate albums for each child to include their first year, personality/preferences/character/things they say/school type pages over the years. Will try to make it a 15 album type thing but maybe 3ish pages per year.
Becky,
I don’t know if this is the place to write to you, but I was wondering if you could PLEASE help me with Ziblio. I went to order the Project Life digital book on New Years day that I have worked for a YEAR on, and I’m only getting an error message, I can’t access it. I have e-mailed Ziblio 4 times and called them and left a message three times and no one has contacted me. I have also e-mailed the Becky Higgins customer support. I will upset if they have lost the book given Its a whole year of my families memories, but more upset that they seem to have ZERO customer service. Plus I already paid $75 for the book back in March. I know you are busy, but if you are able to help me out in any way, please send me an e-mail. I just don’t know what else to do. Thank you so much!
Cindy
My kids are young adults (20 & 28) and teenagers (14 & 16), so this is not as theoretical for me as it is for those with young children. I scrapbook primarily for me–a creative outlet–and to document our family and remind my kids how much they are loved (not that they were going to forget, of course!). I do not make duplicate (0r in my case, quadruplicate) layouts–that is what scanners are for! I use Stacy Julian’s Library Of Memories system, plus Project Life. The PL is to document our life and the LOM albums are for the layouts I love to do. My philosophy is that I tell stories, and I use photos to illustrate them. If I don’t have a story or if I am not feeling inspired, I don’t make a page–no events-only pages. That is what PL is for (and I happily will add pages in like Ali Edwards does). I love PL and LOM and my kids like to look at all of the albums–and they can fight over them when I’m gone!
The most frustrating is when the pictures pile up and you become overwhelmed. I try to not let this happen or the pictures will wind up in a shoebox.
What I have done is just keep a yearly family album..everyone in it.
Happy New Year Becky!
I am really excited, but also confused…maybe more than just a bit slow!!
Anyway, I have wanted to do Project life for years and haven’t been able to afford it. I have been plugging away taking pictures but have done nothing to scrapbook them because I am still catching up from years ago so I kinda feel like I am drowning with each new year that roles around which is affecting my motivation to take pictures. So I was super excited when I was given a financial gift recently and thought this is my year to try Project Life and try and catch up a little.
But now I am here again checking out my options befoe taking the plunge and I am confused because I had in my head you just by the “Project Life Kit” and get all the neccesssary components in that box. But it seems now you pick and choose what parts you need, is that right? If so I am not 100% clear on what I actually need. (Sorry I am sure it is just that I am missing something really obvious!)
I have browsed the website and gleaned loads of inspiration. I love your cool, clear inspiring videos and how fun and simple they make it all sound. I am keen to do a Project 365, so what do I need. If I get the binder, a core kit and the photo pocket pages (as indicated to be all you need on your product page) will that be enough for a photo-a-day album? How many pocket pages will I need and do I need more than one packet for a year album? On your demo vid it seems to be explaining the “how to” from the kit that came in the big white box so I just want to make sure I get all I need and don’t miss something, because I can’t see where to buy that anymore?
I also see on the “Products” page that scrapbook dividers and journalling cards now seem to be additional optional items…does this mean no journalling cards are included in the core kit? And are those dividers the ones that are in your video that separate months oin an album?
I just want to get the essential items to do a full photo-a-day album for 1 year so any advice greatly appreciated.
Thanks Becky- I am so pumped to do this now that I can, and can’t wait to get started
Alison, Australia
I just finished a blog post recapping my experience with Project Life 2011 and sharing my new system/approach for 2012. Thank you, Becky for providing the goods to completely overhaul and change the way I look at memory keeping for our family. I am immensely grateful!!
http://momruncraft.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/project-life-2012/
Happy memory making everyone!