Hi! My name’s Amy Cornwell. I have my own business where I make jewelry to celebrate all of life’s events and I also have a small lifestyle blog where I talk about crafts, family, jewelry and traveling. I’m so honored to be talking to you all today about my Project Life experience.
I’ve been scrapbooking since middle school, using paper & embellishments to make my pages. When I fell away from scrapbooking after having two kids, I knew I needed something different. I still loved capturing memories with my camera, but the thought of scrapbooking it all was daunting. Enter Project Life. I saw the simplicity of it and it intrigued me. I knew I had to have it.
The first year doing Project Life I did the picture a day. It was hard for me, because as a working mother I felt like my pictures were all the same – in the evenings of my kids playing or taking baths. The second year (2011) I did things differently. I scrapbooked events, not putting pressure on myself to take a picture to put in the album every day. I loved doing it this way and easily kept up with my book in 2011. (notice below that sometimes I don’t even journal, I let the pictures tell the story)
Enter 2012. We started the year with our 10th anniversary trip to Mexico and then it was back to real life. I had a conference to attend in April and shortly after that summer hit. As of a week ago, my 2012 book was stuck at March. I have had no desire to work on my album this summer because of general busy-ness and the fact that my pictures were piling up. I felt a little bit like a scrapbooking failure and very overwhelmed. I had done well in 2011 and now I was getting way behind for 2012.
Finally I had my chance to catch up. My husband went out of town for a work trip last weekend, so I organized and edited the pictures I wanted to print (about 200 in all). Once the kids went to bed one night, I got to work! I started at 8pm with 200 pictures and over 5 months to complete. I’m all about simplicity. I love seeing people like Ali Edwards create beautiful spreads for their Project Life albums and wish mine would look like that. But I’m realistic and know my own personal limits. So I do very easy spreads with just a little bit of journaling and sometimes stickers.
For my massive catch-up session I used just a few items: my core kit, various plastics, a black pen and some letter stickers. That’s it. I didn’t use any other embellishments on these pages. In 2011 I rounded the corners of each picture, but for 2012 I’ve left them as-is. I like that look because it fills up every bit of available space in the plastics. My favorite plastics to use are the classic Design A (I think because I’ve been using that for the past three years) and Design C. Design C is great for me because I take mostly landscape portraits, so I just slip them in with one journaling card (or not!) and that page is done!
Here’s the exciting part: By midnight I was DONE. Completely. Journaling. Pictures in. Done. I ended up using about 150+ pictures and 13 page protectors. This is the exact reason why I love Project Life so much – you can keep up with it weekly or you can slack off (like me) and get a massive amount done in one night. My kids love going through the books, laughing at memories and flipping back and forth to see pictures of themselves. That in itself is all worth it to me.
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Amazing! Thank you for sharing Amy. I wish my albums were fancier, but when I look back at all the photos, they really do speak for themselves. I am actually currently working on my journaling from my 2009 album.I’m finally up to August and I won’t give up. I wish the journaling was done back then because it would’ve contained so much more, but when I look back at all the photos of my family from just 3 years ago the memories captured in these pages are so important. I often think about people who don’t make memory keeping a priority and think of all they’re missing out on. Life, even a simple one like ours, is filled with fabulous memories each and every day. So thankful for Project Life even if I am behind because without it I would never be able to keep up with my memories, thank you Becky!
I agree with you – I get sad thinking about what if I didn’t do these books? I have a bad memory as it is, so scrapbooks help me remember the everyday. Thanks!
Amy I am playing catch up with the second half of 2011 (strangely, first half of 2012 is done and on the shelf!) I had to laugh when you said you waiting until your hubby was out of town…mine is going away next week wed-friday and guess what I’ll be doing while he’s gone?! Up getting all caught up!!!
Your book is great, and I think it’s just perfect for your family! I love to add things in to and do some embellishments when I can but my mantra while I’m working on PL is “done is better than perfect”!
I love that mantra! I will be adopting it immediately!
I agree Kristin – Sue’s mantra is AWESOME!
Thanks for sharing Amy, your perspective is fantastic.
Thank you! Have fun playing catch up
This post is great. I have put so much pressure on myself to complete Project Life that I never get to fully complete PL because I fall behind. I also felt as you did. My evening routines were all the same. How many times can you journal about bath time? LOL. A few days ago, I finally decided that for 2013, I am going to use Project LIfe to capture events in a month’s period of time. I may no take a photo everyday in January, but can capture what our family did do that month. I am more excited than ever to get started in 2013 and create an album that is most comfortable for me. No pressure. Just memories for my family.
This post was confirmation for me that I am on the right track.
Thank You!
Exactly! No pressure! Thanks so much!
Lisa, I have started PL this year and that is exactly how I am doing it, on a monthly basis and have to say it is great for me as I do it each month and then include extra pages for holidays and then scrap creatively my special pics…. works well
I’ve just started Project Life in November this year. I have a baby boy who keeps me busy, so I want to keep track of the funny, cute things he does, and the way he’s growing up so fast, but there is no way that I could keep up with a picture a day, or a spread a week. I don’t even want to! I care more about keeping a record of what’s important to me. I love the journalling (I’m Australian – this is how we spell it!) aspect of PL and I’ll be including a lot of Instagrams!
I have decided that I will do something for each month. So that may be one page or a few spreads, and I’m sure it will vary a lot depending on what’s happening. Got pretty excited over beginning it, so November I did 3 spreads and made notes of things I’m thankful for. Seemed like a great way to start. I love the American tradition of Thanksgiving. We don’t celebrate it here, but I found some gorgeous Thanksgiving papers in a local Scrapbooking shop and was able to make them into filler cards.
December will be Christmas themed. January we’re going on holiday. So I’m sure there will be lots of fun memories to include. I love Becky’s philosophy of a guilt-free, no fuss system. So that is my approach, all the way. No set commitment, no guilt, just fun!!
Awesome:) I’m in the simple Project Life camp as well
I LOVE the other ones but for my 1st year I’m just enjoying documenting so much more detail of our daily lives that whatever I put in there is fine with me!
I may add another paper or a few stickers but not much.
This is so helpful to all of us. I am wayyyy too far behind but hopeful that this winter I can spend some really good days getting caught up in my new scrapbooking room. Lots to organize first. Has anyone ever done a combo photo/guestbook from PL? We have built a new home and will be moving in soon and I have taken lots of pics of the whole building process and I was thinking about using that album and adding journaling cards to it as a guestbook for the new home…anyone have any suggestions???
Sheryl – use an instax camera and journaling cards and you can totally make it into a guest book as well… That is what I did for my daughter’s birthday and I added it to her Project Life baby book (made using the clementine edition) The instax photos and the journaling cards slip right in – they are great.
Awesome post! Encouraging and inspiring.
Great post. I am three years behind in scrapbooking for my girls. I did do a photo a day digital PL book last year and that was GREAT. But, my oldest is now a junior in high school and I am thinking — oh no! She will graduate at the end of next year. I need to get her high school experience in a book!
So, I ordered 728 photos from Shutterfly a few days ago. Yes, 728 photos. Cannot even imagine the size box they will come in. This covers two children for three years.
My plan is to just crank it out using Project Life. I had used a different companies products for scrapbooking the “traditional” way but am converting to three ring binders and PL plastics. I am encouraged that it will not take as long as I think using this system. Will let you know how it goes.
Meanwhile, I question for everyone … my photos often are cropped to “true digital” size which is smaller than 4 x 6. That leaves extra space in the pockets and I don’t love how that looks. Any ideas from you? How do you handle that?
(I couldn’t print all the old pictures in 4×6 because they were cropped to close out of camera and I would have lost portions of people or things I wanted to keep. Will be more careful in future pictures I take to leave room at the top and bottom!)
I have the same problem with the pictures in my son’s book. Since they aren’t a true 4×6 in some of the plastics they fall out when I turn the page. So what I have done is buy the cardstock that goes with the edition of his book and cut strips to put on one end of the picture to make it fit. It has worked out great.
I agree with Amanda. Adding a strip of paper really helps keep them in place. Or if I am feeling lazy I just grab a 4×6 piece of cardstock (I buy a mat stack from JoAnn’s or Michaels) and slide it in with the photo. Easy Peasy.
yip i just use some of becky higgins cardstock and cut a wee strip and put it in next to the shorter photos, usually works great and adds more colour to my usually very photo heavy pages :>
AWESOME! And just the kind of post i need to read (and see) to encourage me to fill in my PL since hitting the ground running for January and February and then…..well, you know… I WANT to do this project and felt like such a loser/slacker when seeing all the great layouts and how wonderful the albums look and WISHING I had kept up with mine. This gives me HOPE that I can get back on track and HOPE that I can have a completed album. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!
You can do it! Even if you have 2,000 pictures it can still be done! Just take some chunks of time and don’t get discouraged!
Really loved reading this. This is my first year doing PL and I LOVE the simplicity of it, but I also found that i was getting really down on myself bc i was seeing all these amazing week spreads and i just don’t have the materials to make mine look like that (also i’m not married, no kids, no dogs, lol .. not much to say!) but then i decided that even looking back on the weeks i did where i just put pictures in or journaled a little, i was so happy i did it so i decided to stop putting so much pressure on myself. and i spent 10 days in ireland/scotland in august and had SO many pictures, so then i did two pages for each day (as in one spread) and i’m so happy with allowing myself the freedom to do it my way (which I realize is what PL is all about anyways!)
I did that for last year’s Disney trip – one whole spread per day and LOVED the way it turned out. Thanks so much! (p.s. I LOVE Ireland! Went when I was a senior in HS)
Thank you Amy and Becky for this wonderful post!! This is ME EXACTLY! I got to about March and just ran out of time. I was trying to do the “fancy” pages and just not getting it done. I’m so inspired right now to get caught up! Keep it simple and do it! Thanks SO much for the wonderful inspiration!
My pleasure! You can do it!
Pamela-I sandwich and adhere the edge of my photo in between two small pieces of patterned paper that are just big enough to get it to 4×6. I often stamp and emboss a sentiment, or add small embellishments onto those pieces.
I am a good 6 years behind. I just started using PL digital products.from jessicasprague.com & completed 15 pages over the last 3 days during Hurricane Isaac. I’m really slow & indecisive, so that’s a lot for me!
15 pages is huge! Great job! Keep on keepin’ on – you’ll get there!
That’s the great thing about project life – you can pick up where you left off! Whereas with “traditional” scrapbooking, it’s almost impossible and very scary to think about continuing where you left off. Thanks for sharing!
Exactly! My 2009 “traditional” album is stuck mid-year and I have no desire to finish it
Considering finishing it off PL style!
This is so inspiring to me! I can’t wait for my order to arrive. I have years of photos to put into books. So ready to get started on my wedding and honeymoon albums, after all it’s only been 5 years since we got married.
You will love it when you get your PL items – it’s like Christmas! Enjoy!
Amy and Becky,
This was such an “on time” post! I am in the exact same situation myself. I’ve had several workshops to conduct this Spring and a super busy summer with our boys. On Monday, I went back to my 2012 Project Life and looked through the pages. I too had stopped documenting in March. But I know from previous experience that it will only take me a day or two to catch up! Now that the boys are back in school and I have a few hours to myself during the week, I’m looking forward to getting back in the swing. Thanks for this post. I {heart} Project Life! Excited about the Seafoam edition for 2013!
March must have been “the month” – it seems like we all fell away then! Have fun catching up!
SO me!!! I got stuck in March, big gap, then spring break etc..and now summer almost done and back to work!! I am excited to see it can be done, my plan is the same, simple: words, photos, memories, fancy up later if I have time. But my kids love looking through their books and I need to get it done for them and me! Our memories are too important to sit on the computer hard drive!
Excited for new editions, baby and childhood kits!!
Exactly! Have fun playing catch up and enjoying the memories!
This is *Exactly* what I needed to hear! I have a huge gap from April until now. Seeing Amy’s plan and progress is super inspiring. Thank you!
Yay! My pleasure!
Love it! I have three kids (just adopted two toddlers) and WOW, I barely enough time to keep us all dressed and fed, let alone scrapbook EVERY picture! I bought all the PL stuff and am LOVING IT! I threw guilt out the door and got on board with PL. While I don’t do it every week, I do keep our memories and pictures in order and journal some on the cards. It makes my OCD self feel better that I can still keep the pictures in chronological order and record our memories, but not feel the pressure to scrap every single photo I print. Thanks Becky for PL and thanks Amy for sharing what you did!!!!!!!
My pleasure! Congrats on the adoptions!
just what the doctor ordered – I just got my first project life kit in the mail – finally had a little bit extra to buy it (so I did) Have slews to catch up on and hoping this will be my success also.
Amy’s story is my story. Many years ago I was a traditional scrapper, but then came nursing school, and then work, and then kids who just don’t relish mom breaking out the camera all the time! I love the concept of PL and have tried it (and quickly let it fall to the side) twice. I work (nightshift at that), my kids are in middle school and college, and I mean how many pictures of food, flowers, and my pug can a girl put into an album? The last pictures in my 2012 album are from the last week of January. BUT . . . I just ordered over 200 prints from Persnickety Prints and next week plan to get this year in an album. because when it all comes down to it — nothing is more important to me than the people who live in these walls with me. I have learned that what ever we are going through, we need to be grateful for OUR journey. It’s cliche, but we only have this one life to life and I want to remember it. To catch those otherwise small details that I might have otherwise missed. SO here’s to those of us who would love to have the “dressed up” PL pages but who are equally as thrilled to have our lives of the memory cards an into an album. Here’s to a life lived and a life documented.
Amen, exactly! Well said!
That mantra is wonderful (“done is better than perfect”). I too fell WAAAAAAY behind due to our printer going and never being organized enough to get my prints all sized/templated/printed per month (I am using a monthly format as opposed to weekly) and I realized how much disappoint I was carrying because of it. All the excitement I felt when I got all my PL goodies was still there but I could never find the time to get it all done. I could have given in and just started in 2013, but I had a lot of things I wanted documented in 2012. So I started small, and just printed 2 months of photos and put them in the plastics-and what do you know? I’ve found a groove to getting the pictures all ready, and then put my photo print orders in AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. Who cares if I have to go to Walgreens every week? Its the satisfaction of filling every one of those pockets with memories, and now my husband actually gets why this was so important to me! TOTALLY WORTH IT. Thanks again for developing such a simple approach!
Hi Amy,
I just wanted to say thanks for the encouragement and inspiration. This is my second year doing project life. Like you, the first year I did a picture a day (and then some). I found that it was very difficult for me to keep up. This year I decided to just take photographs like I normally would and not try to keep up with the POTD. But even then, I picked up my album the other day and discovered I hadnt worked on it since January! My picures were not even in the computer. I started to feel overwhelmed again. Thanks for reminding how simple and doable it can be to catch up.
Cathy
You can do it too!! Have fun catching up soon
This is exactly what I needed to hear right now! I am about 15 weeks behind, and I really want to get caught up (even just more caught up would be ok!). This project is too much fun to just forget about it and I don’t want to feel like I failed at it when its so stinkin’ easy to do! Thank you for your insight and inspiration, Amy, I feel confident I can tackle this!
My pleasure! Thanks for the sweet note!
I feel like I do the project life the same way as you, simple and get it done. I too am behind. I do not have photoshop or any thing like that except iphoto. where do you get your stuff printed so that it fits the 3×4 space. I feel like i have to concentrate so much on which photos I will print out on my printer at 3×4 and then the ones 4×6. Ugg I think that’s what’s holding me up. Is there a sneaky way you get costco/sams to print??? please help:)
i just trim my larger photos to fit the 3 x 4 slot and i love that look.
many 6×4 photos can be easily trimmed down to half size – make friends with your cutter i say :>
that’s what my weekend is going to look like..thanks for making me not feel sooo alone! {or horrible! ha!}
Have fun!
Thanks for the inspiration! I started last year, but I never finished it. I started with a photo a day and had a really hard time keeping up. Finally about 2 months ago I just went through my year and printed the photos I loved. Now I need to do what you did and just put them in the binder. My goal for this year is to do a shutterfly book, but once the baby and childhood editions come out I really want to make my daughters baby book (she’s just over one) and begin each of my kids a childhood one… Your post has encouraged me to catch up and that the rest is all possible too!
Exactly, just get them in the book! Just getting them in will give you such a feeling of relief! Have fun!
Great inspiration Amy ! Thanks for writing such a terrific post and I love that you caught up so much in a night makes me feel like I can too
You can!!
Looks like you have inspired a lot of people Amy!
I have scrapped traditionally for the past 4 years and love that style of scrapping, but also wanted something that I could ‘keep up with’. Didn’t know if BH would work for me, but got inspired, bought kit, plastics etc and then…….nothing.
I did a few pages to start….about PL itself and my craft space, but when I thought about what my weeks would look like I was the same as you, I thought every week would be the same.
So I have changed tack completely and doing my first PL album using up all the old photos of my life that have been sitting in a drawer. The photos are all different sizes, so I am cutting them so most of them need to be put on a phot mat…..and using some simple embellishments. Hybrid PL.
This takes the pressure off to do this year, and hopefully will help me decide how 2013 will be tacked.
Good luck to everyone who is catching up, starting out or super organised!
Amanda
Thanks so much, have fun scrappin’!
Great post – really reinforcing what Becky keeps on telling us all, that we don’t need to super over achieve with our layouts and that we shouldn’t feel guilty or that the whole thing is a burden.
Great post! I too stalled out around March started thinking about focusing on events but still need that stack of 200 photos edited(daunting) and printed(easy). Thanks for the encouragement!
I love this post!! It’s just what I needed!!
Amy. Amy. Amy, this is exactly what I needed to read at this moment! I am feeling VERY overwhelmed. I haven’t touched my pl book since January! Yes, January. Now that I read you were able to get it done in a fairly reasonable amount of time, you have renewed my hope, my desire to catch up for this year. This is now on my agenda to do next week while my husband is out of town on a business trip. Thank you!!!
You can do it! Have fun scrapping while your hubby’s away on business. Enjoy!
This is exactly why I love Project Life as well! I do pretty good keeping up with my current PL albums but I also love using it for all of the pictures from years before as well as all the extra pictures I take in a year that don’t fit in the one album. This makes me want to sit down with some of my other PL albums and get caught up this weekend!
How inspiring
bless you!! i am stuck at the first week in june…but i do want to catch up….there is hope for me!! thanks for sharing…i love looking at ali’s PL, but i don’t have all the gadgets and gizmos to write on pics etc although my favorite new trick is to type up a space equal to a journaling card and print it up on patterned paper…wow..i feel cool!
i work full time and have 11 grandkids…somedays NOTHING happens in my life that i want to document…other days over flow with pictures and memories…
am planning to hole up on my next day off (monday!!) and get caught up…
have fun scrapbooking tomorrow
11 grandkids – wow! They probably keep you plenty busy!
THANK YOU! I mean, a huge THANK YOU for this post! I started 2012 great, with great aspirations of keeping current…then, as you know, life happens, and here it it September and I only have 6 weeks started! So, I have 8 months to catch up and I am feeling very overwhelmed. But, I know I can do it…simplify and keep moving…not worrying about not have the best, prettiest embellies, just get the story told. So, that’s my goal. Can’t wait for the kids to get back to school next week, so I can give it the old college try! Thanks again for the inspiration and motivation to keep moving!
My pleasure! IF I can do it, you can too. Have fun playing catch up and enjoying the memories!
Thank-you! Like others said, I also stopped in March!! Spring and Summer have been too busy. Now with two kids back in school and fall here, I feel like maybe I can take some time to catch up before the year is over. The part that I dread the most is picking out what pictures to print and uploading and ordering them. Putting them in the plastics is always lots of fun and I love that part. Do you edit your pictures much? They look beautiful. I always feel like I need to edit first, and of course that takes lots of time. Also, coordinating what size and horizontal/landscape I need for each week to fit the design of plastic I want to use takes lots of time. Do you map it out any? Thanks for any tips on that part of the process.
I don’t edit mine much. Some I’ll edit for darkness but that’s about it. Some I don’t edit at all. I normally print out too many, then I separate them by event. Once I have an event I start laying them out, seeing what plastic will work best. If I have a couple too many (i.e. not enough to fill up another plastic) I decide which I need to cut. That system works well for me! Thank you for the sweet words!
Wonderful story…I can completely relate to this. I have the cover page and week 1 done for 2012 and nothing else. i have however used a free website called “Oh Life” which sends you an email (at your specified time) I use 8pm at night and I just email back bullet points of what we did and interesting things said by the kids. Then at least I won’t forget all the little details and I need to get photos printed and print a few of these pages and I can get into it.
Kathy — I use Ohlife.com every day and it’s helped me capture my journaling. Then what I do is print it out by month and write down that I’ve got to match the journaling. When I do my PL, it makes it so easy. For longer trips, I just print out the Ohlife journaling as a recap of our trip and put it in an 8.5X11 protector in my PL book. I really like Ohlife because it’s replaced all my scraps of journaling and it stores it safely online.
Glad to hear I am not the only one who is stuck on March 2012. I have schedule a day to seat down and work on it in a couple of weeks. I think that is what I am going to have to do…make an appointment!!
Wow, this is beautiful!! I stopped scrapbooking about 5 years ago but have TONS of pictures that I keep getting printed with the hopes of “doing something” when them!! I think I have found that “thing,” so thank you!!!!
After seeing this, I started and finished a 7″ stack of photos from our trip to Tokyo Disney a year ago. I used the plastics, but not a kit. I decorated some plain cards and called it good. Since I was in crank it out mode, I finally tried putting a few photos at a time in the corner rounder, and four will go at once easily. Wish I had known that years ago!
I’m also eyeballing the 2009 photos from when we remodeled the basement and all the art stuff went into the garage for 9 months. Might just crank those next.
Wow, great job!!
I just started Project Life in the last couple of weeks since receiving my first core kit and plastics. Already I notice I’m taking more pictures and actually doing something with them rather than having them sit in cyberspace. I do a little each night after the house is quiet with everyone sleeping and before I know it, I’ve got memories in the book. Thanks Becky and thanks to Amy for sharing.
I am in my second week of January for Project Life. yikes. I am not sure I will ever catch up!
Small question. What do you do with the pictures you didn’t use?