Teens documenting their life? Yeah. I’m totally a fan of that idea. Well, let’s be honest. I’m a fan of anyone and everyone making a point to document their life in some way. It’s ALL good.
But I really have a special place in my heart for kids who scrapbook because I started scrapbooking when I was young. I’m sooo glad I have this stuff. I’m so glad I cared about my pictures + stories + clothing tags + handwriting samples + doodle art + candy wrappers + movie tickets. I’m so glad I can share that stuff with my kids so they can see what their mom was like back then.
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Tonight I’ll be speaking with a group of girls from church – ages 12-18. They know the significance of cultivating a good life, so I’m going to focus on documenting life. Naturally, Project Life will come up and in fact, I have a whole lot of goodies with their names on it. While developing this concept and this system, we always kept in mind the spectrum of those who would be interested in documenting life. This isn’t just for 30-something moms like me. This is for singles, empty-nesters, teens … even pre-teens.
Meet Kayla.
She is one of my favorite young people on the planet and this year she decided that she would embark on her own little Project Life journey. (You can imagine my elation the day she told me.) Kayla is 15 years old and a Freshman in High School.
B: Kayla, why did you decide to start a Project Life album?
K: I began high school this year and wanted a way to document my experiences in high school.
B: What are you hoping will be the result of doing Project Life this year?
K: I am hoping my Project Life will result in me wanting to do more! I want to continue keeping memories throughout my life.
B: What are your observations taking on a project like this when you have other responsibilities, like school?
K: Project Life fits right in with my life. I have found it easy because I can be creative but I don’t have it spend a lot of time on it. It’s scrapbooking made easy!
B: Do you have a routine for working on your album?
K: I take a picture every day but I do the layout and journaling every Sunday.
B: If you could see an album like this from anyone that you know, who would it be and why?
K: I would like to see one from my mother’s childhood. I would like to see it because I could see how she was as a teenager and compare our different experiences.
Kayla is doing an awesome job telling her life story. Favorites, family, friends, quirks, entertainment, goals, hobbies, daily rituals, spiritual stuff, funny stuff, weird stuff … all the stuff that makes up who she is. I so love that Kayla is doing her part to tell her story. She has no idea what a goldmine and a time capsule she is creating. Sure, she’ll love looking back at this in a couple years – and ten years – and thirty years. She’ll also find her children and grandchildren eating it up. It’s hard to imagine the impact something like this can have on future generations, let alone those who are doing it today.
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cobalt edition
Kayla’s album is the Clementine Edition, which is currently sold out. In fact, you guys gobbled up all the inventory we had on all almost every edition of the Project Life Core Kit. (Yep, we’re working on the re-print of all of everything.) HOWEVER … We do have some of the Cobalt Edition left and I happen to think it’s such a fun + perfect fit for most teens!
Of course this isn’t teen-specific. This style will float a lot of your boats. So fun, eh? I love how designer Kim Gayton made the Cobalt Edition so bright and lively and happy. Check out a sample album that Creative Team member Kelly Purkey created HERE.
Remember: Project Life isn’t about starting on January 1 or your birthday. It’s about getting your pictures and memories into an album, whenever you want, however you want. You only need the following items to complete an entire scrapbook. Anyone can do this.
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Here are direct links, for your convenience:
Project Life Binder – Cobalt Edition
Project Life Core Kit – Cobalt Edition
Photo Pocket Pages – Big Pack of Design A (Amazon found a magic/missing pallet and we miraculously have these back in stock … but they’ll be wiped out again soon I’m sure)
Photo Pocket Pages – Big Variety Pack 1 (another option for the pages)
Project Life 12×12 Cardstock – Cobalt Collection (optional but fun to have coordinating paper!)
Tags: kayla, kids, teens, young women, youth
Seriously, wish I had had this kit when I was a teenager as I have pretty much forgotten what daily life was like!
WHEW!!! I’m so glad I read ALL through your posts!!! Got my page protectors!!! Whoop whoop!!! happy dance!!! LOL Thank you!!! and yes, so cool to do this as a teenager. I wish I had something like this to look back on… I’m sure my daughter will do this as she gets older, so at least she will have something
Thank you AGAIN!!! I’m SO excited for my THIRD year of project life!!!!
Love her Project Life and so fun for her to be documenting her high school days! She’s an inspiration to me and I’m a grown-up (sort of)!!
Guessing all those people whose page protectors were cancelled would be happy to get first pick at the order. Nice that suddenly they found a missing pallet. This is where preorders would benefit amazon so than it could be fair and on a first come first serve basis with those people.
They do preorders with books that are being published.
Becky -
The cobalt kit has a few 2012 date specific items how will that affect 2013 and forward?
April, trust me. We absolutely wish that Amazon could take preorders on our products. We know they can do books, but other products? That’s another story.
I don’t think there are a few 2012 cards in the Cobalt Edition (unless I’m missing something). I think it’s just the one card for the title page. Using Cobalt for past years or future years? No problem. Just put a photo or a different 4×6 title card there instead. We threw in a handful of extra cards in each Core Kit. : )
Would love to see a post on how you document your own teenager in PL. Suggestions/layouts from moms on how they document their teens life. Possible theme for another day or design team?
My daughter (16) loves the kit and album I got her for Christmas! She has been documenting more and more all the time. I was over joyed when she took a pic of the sonic menu the other day!!
So loving the idea of having my older kids do this!! I know my daughter (12 years old) will love the idea. My son (15 years old)? Not so sure. How do I convince a BOY teenager that they’ll love to look back on this someday & that it will be worth it? That it’s not just for girls?
GREAT idea! In fact, I’m going to have my 10 year-old start on her tween years. She loves writing, photography, life–perfect for her!
It’s so fun to see teenagers have a desire to keep memories. I have 16 and 10 year old girls who LOVE to scrapbook. I love seeing and reading what events meant to each of them. They are both patiently waiting (ha!) for the Turquoise stuff to be available!
My 16 year old is the one that accused me of being a creepy stalker so I deleted my post! (ya know…Annemarie’s sister)
LOVE YOU!!!
Thanks so much for the inspiration re document school years and especially for your epic video the other day. Of course I want more!!!!! Can you please please please give us a sneak preview of what to expect for the school kit? I am trying to setup my albums and I am starting on a bit of stuff but don’t want to get into it too much because I’m worried I’ll want to re-do it all once I see the goodness that you have put together in your school kit (I’m assuming it will be like your earlier one, only better!!). I’ve got 3 years of school waiting for your school kit release and as this current year progresses with two kids I am itching (ITCHING I tell you!) to get it all starting. Can you let us know what we’re in for? Is it close enough to production / pre-order that you can give a few things away!!! Pretty please??????
Loving your work. The hard work you, David and the team put into your company is SO SO appreciated!
x
I have been keeping up just fine and doing my Project Life with the Jessica Sprague digital Cobalt kit and then dropping the entire finished page as a full page – edge to edge – in Shutterfly. For a change this year I am using the D Template (with the vertical photos and horizontal journaling cards.) So far, I have not come across any samples of anyone using this template, particularly for their entire book. I would love to show a couple of my pages for people to see how I do it. But I don’t have a clue how to post it somewhere. I don’t have a blog. I created a jpg of three pages to show it but don’t even know where I would attach that or put a link to it or anything. What I’ve done so far is all in Shutterfly so can I make a link to that in some way? I’ve managed to have no problem with the digital elements – just don’t know where to show my pages. HELP??!!
Hi Sue!
There is actually a gallery just for Project Life pages over at JessicaSprague.com! You can find it here : http://www.jessicasprague.com/cpg/thumbnails.php?album=1900
There are tips for uploading to the gallery here: http://www.jessicasprague.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=592:tips-for-uploading-files-to-the-galleries&catid=7:site-help&Itemid=376
I hope that helps
You could upload them on Flickr, just create a public account
Cool – thank you!
Thanks for sharing how Project Life could fit in to all ages and stages of life! My older daughter will start high school this year (Eek!), and I would really love to see her start being the historian of her life. I would love to still keep family scrapbooks, but I cannot continue to be the keeper of her memories. Thanks for the great idea!
Kayla’s book is awesome!! Good for her for starting young and seeing the value in recording your memories! I think that is so cool.
This is awesome! I started scrapping young too, but OH how I wish I had Project Life back then!!
OH MY GOODNESS! Kayla, where is that Coke machine?? I LOVE it – there was one in a rest stop in Maryland on I-95. Emphasis on WAS. One trip it was there – the next? It was gone. I almost cried!
I almost cried because I thought the concept was fabulous. But a few tears formed because I hadn’t taken a photograph the first time I saw it. sigh. I’m glad Kayla has a photo.
{{I suspect the machine was removed because the majority of people had no clue whatsoever about how to use the thing. Oh but it was soooo cool.}}
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Love this inspirational book! It’s too bad some of the wonderful supplies to create this project is unavailable at this time. I do hope you manufacture and distribute more and make it available on more than one online store.
Thanks for sharing!
I just got another idea from this post. I love that Kayla is doing PL. I really wish this was around a couple of years ago when my daughter was in high school and I knew about this idea. She is now 21 and a junior in college. I have been working on purging and printing my favorite pictures on my computer. There is a huge file of her pictures (she has always had a camera and has taken tons of pictures). I was trying to figure out what I could do with these pictures. I am going to put them on a cd for her and I had decided that I would not scrap all of her pictures. I was thinking that she might want to scrap them one day when she gets out of school as she does not have time to scrap them right now. I am thinking that I can go through and print a lot of the good pictures and place them in a PL album for her and also place the journaling cards so that she can journal on them when she can. Depending on how many pictures she has, I can put them in a book for each grade or condense them into maybe 2 books. Sometimes she will look at her pictures and she remembers funny things about most pictures. I think she would love this and probably want this for college also. I do not have her college pictures but I know she has a lot. She used to scrap with me when she was in middle school and love it and then she got too busy. I know she would really appreciate getting something like this
Was doing a happy dance when I found the Big Pack of A protectors in stock! Can’t wait to add them to my album!
[...] I mentioned last week that I was planning to work with a handful of teenage girls on documenting their lives. It was so awesome to be with them, see their pictures, and watch as they felt the ease and enthusiasm of getting those memories into a Project Life album. Now Kayla’s in really good company with many of her own friends and peers documenting their everyday life as she has been doing this year. If you missed that post, go HERE. [...]
I was so excited when I saw that there were more Big Pack of Design A Pages! I had to wait until Monday to order so I could put some money in my account (sad, I know…) and was on pins and needles about them selling out before I could order. I was able to order from Amazon Warehouse deals – it said the box was damaged, but that the product was in excellent condition so I wasn’t worried. Imagine my dismay when upon opening the box this morning I found that the page protectors inside were the Big Variety Pack 1 pages inside a Big Pack of Design A box!
I had really wanted to start on my PL as soon as I could. I wish I had found this years ago!! I’ve contacted Amazon to see if they’ll work something out with me. I don’t want to leave negative feedback and bring the product rating down since it isn’t an issue with the pages themselves. We’ll see what happens I guess. I’m so itching to start this!! I have been lurking as many PL blogs as possible for the past two weeks. Just know I’m going to love this!!