What kind of shelving unit or display do you keep your scrapbooks on?

I have had these Cropper Hopper cubes forever, but I’m not sure they even make them any more. I know a lot of scrapbookers love the Expedit series of shelving at IKEA.

Worth mentioning: I just recently – like this past week – moved the scrapbooks down to the kids’ eye level and suddently there is a surge of interests in looking at scrapbooks. Seriously, it’s like a magic trick and I’m so thrilled. Why didn’t I think of this earlier?

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Would you be kind enough to share where your kitchen wallpaper is from?

The company is Seabrook. The name of the book/collection is Shadowplay. Go here for more information. And since I smell the next question a mile away … the chair, pillow, and little chest are all from Potato Barn in AZ.

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I want to incorporate a date stamp into my pages. What date stamp do you recommend using?

You can pick up any ol’ date stamp at an office supply store, but I do think that Dear Lizzy’s new Neapolitan Roller Date Stamp is rather fun.

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Just watched the Project Life video. May sound crazy but I love the pink on the bedroom walls. Any chance you know the color/brand?

Behr’s Raspberry Lemonade 130C-3 (purchased at Home Depot). Claire’s bedding is from Pottery Barn Kids, several years ago. Stuffed animals and very sleepy girl not included.

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I’m out of the loop. Are there any Photo Pocket Pages to accommodate Instagram prints?

We are working on it.

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What do you do with all the Christmas, Birthday, etc. cards that you and your family receives?

Naturally, Christmas cards are displayed on the wall and our tradition is to leave them up after the holidays 2-3 months. I’m about ready to take them down this weekend, in fact. I used to save all of our Christmas cards until last year when I had an epiphany: I am not the keeper of other peoples’ memories. I have enough to keep track of with my own family. So I made a very liberating decision to throw them all away. If you missed that organization post, check it out. My camera was along for the journey as I went through and organized a bunch of stuff in our home office. That was fun.

As for Birthday cards, most of them get thrown away but we save the special ones that were homemade or have a sweet note, or grandma’s handwriting, etc. These go in the Big Envelope Pages in the kids’ scrapbooks.

For 17 years I’ve been keeping a basket full of the most special letters and cards we receive. Remember: We keep the kids’ special cards in their scrapbooks. But the cards that are for David and me? I just add them to the basket. It’s not really organized but they’re all in one place and that’s good enough for me. To be honest, I don’t ever go back and read them. But they meant something to me/us and so I’ve been hoarding them I guess. Mind you, these are not the thank-you-for-our-wedding-gift kind of cards. They are personal and specific and special for one reason or another and it doesn’t feel right to toss them. I figure there may be a day later in my life that I’ll have time to dig through that basket and remember the kind words of loved ones. Who knows.

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What kind of spiral grid paper are you using in this photo?? (Referring to a picture I posted on facebook + twitter that showed what David and I were working on recently.)

Oh, how I love my Marimekko sketch notebook. First of all, this is my go-to place for all work-related sketches. Everything from product design to ideas for the website. It is well loved and well utilized and some day I’ll have to take you on a tour through these pages. I picked it up in Finland when we were there visiting my parents a couple years ago. The sad thing is, I’m about ready to get another one and I can’t find it anywhere online!  : (  If anyone else has a cool resource for a sprial-bound notebook with grid paper, I’m all ears.

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What kind of scanner do you use?

The Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500M has a permanent spot between my computer and David’s. It’s a sheet-fed scanner, and compatible for our Macs. I’m sure there is a similar scanner for PCs. And here’s the portable version. We also use a flat-bed scanner (Epson Perfection 4490) for scanning thicker items (like pages in my grid notebook from the last question, and some of the kids’ art, and other odd-shaped items that won’t work in the ScanSnap.

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How do you reduce the page after you scan? Is there a certain program used?

I re-size everything in Photoshop Elements. That’s my only photo editing software, besides what’s built-into iPhoto on my Mac.

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What camera do you use? Trying to decide between a Nikon d3100 or CANNON eos rebel t3?

I am so not up on the latest & greatest in cameras. I find myself taking most pictures on my iPhone these days (you can see my favorite iPhoneography apps here). But I do really like my dSLR (Nikon D90), which we’ve had 3.5 year now, and I still use it at least weekly for one reason or another. Isn’t it amazing how technology is changing the way we photograph life?

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Ok Becky… I have to know, HOW do you style your hair? I love it!

This is funny. You should see me right now. Okay, actually… I’ll snap a quick self-portrait. This is exactly what I look like right now as I’m writing this. For real, I’m sporting a pony tail almost every day. When I’m not, I change it up. Sometimes, I’m round-brushing for straightness and body. Sometimes I’m throwing my curling iron into the mix. Maybe it’s down. Maybe it’s up with a dozen bobby pins. But today is typical. Pony tail. Truth is – I really don’t spend my time on my hair, like … ever. But I guess that’s relative.

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Say you have a 7 day trip to California that includes SeaWorld, Disneyland, Beach, Zoo, etc. Would you still print just a few pictures, enough to fit your WEEK or would you consider making perhaps a small photo book just for this vacation? I just know that I go picture crazy on trips and I wind up with another album. What do you do for special occasions?

You asked what I would do … and I’m nothing less than honest with my answers. So I’ll just tell you that with any traveling we have done and any big events we have had in the past few years since I have been using the Project Life method of memory-keeping, I have taken so much pressure off my own shoulders by just sticking with my simple plan to have one week represented per layout in our family yearbook. That means I’m choosy. Yes, of course there are loads of pictures not “scrapbooked”. But that’s not the point. We want to remember our life, but we don’t need every picture and every memory written down. I have never loved memory-keeping so much as I do now – ever. It’s very liberating to be choosy and really narrow down. The rest of our photos remain on our computer (and of course backed up) and I’m 100% content with that. I’m not really doing extra pages or mini albums these days. Just not the phase I’m in.

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Why do your pockets come in such odd sizes? I can’t print off 3x4s at WalMart. Or 6x6s. Am I missing something? This seems like a really neat prospect… but when the printing of the pictures is a hassle… what is the point?

Welcome to Project Life; sounds like you’re new to the concept and I’m so happy that you want to learn more! If you check out our Getting Started page, you’ll see how this all works and how easy it really is. The 3×4 pockets that are found in most of our Photo Pocket Pages are designed to hold our 3×4 Journaling Cards. Many Project Lifers enjoy being creative with their pages, even though it’s designed to be incredibly simple. We love ALL approaches to Project Life!

As for the 6×6 pockets in Design E, those are great for cutting down kids’ art, or placing a cd or dvd in a pocket, or a block of patterned paper, or a photo enlargement trimmed to size … you get the idea. Here’s one way I used it in Porter’s album. I showed this (and much more) in my recent video about Getting Organized with Kids’ Stuff.

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I’m using Project Life to catch up on several years of high school scrapbooks for me and my brothers (we all graduated 5-15 years ago). I have a pile of old 3 x 5 and 4 x 6 traditional prints to scrapbook, but harder — a whole lot of newspaper clippings (my brothers were into sports and landed in the news a lot). I would like to use the clippings as they are (would rather not have to scan and trim them down because I only have a bubble jet printer). Some of them are small (those aren’t the problem), but others are full size, big articles. Any ideas on simple ways to preserve and scrapbook these within the PL system? Further, any ideas on how to scrapbook all those certificates kids get in school (i.e., award certificates) within PL?? Thanks!

This is exactly why we have the products we have, and why we’re bringing out more products for needs like this. Our Big Envelope Pages are a huge seller for a reason. They are an excellent place to store newspaper articles and cards and all sorts of memorabilia. Depending on the size and shape of your newspaper clippings, these are excellent plastics for displaying that kind of stuff as well: Design E, 6×12 Page Protector, and the classic 12×12 Page Protectors.

Note about scanning: I’m a fan. You mentioned your bubble jet printer, which makes me think that maybe you don’t know that you can print anything that you scan, just like you print photos. Just be sure your scans are saved as JPGs and upload for printing like you would any other pictures. It’s a very inexpensive way to get excellent prints of your newspaper articles, awards, and other memorabilia. Like I said – I’m a fan.

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I’m wondering – do you print your photos at home? If so, do you have a sweet printer?

I don’t. And I don’t. But … most of our Creative Team uses and recommends a printer for home use. If you missed that question in their Q&A on my blog, you can see their recommendations in this post.

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Do have a favorite pen that you like to use for journaling?

Yep. I’m a long-time fan of American Crafts’ Precision Pens.

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What is the significance of the 10 of hearts in the Clementine Core Kit – just for fun?

That’s a fun question! I asked Lili, who designed that edition and she said, “Yes, for fun – because it’s cute, and as far as I know it means love and good luck!”

Page by Deb Duty.

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{ a couple favorite comments }

“This is my first year doing Project Life and I just had to send a huge THANK YOU your way. I became an avid scrapbooker in 1997 when my daughter was born. After child number three and life becoming so busy, I found myself turning into a collector of scrapbook supplies. I continued to take the pictures and collect the supplies but very few stories actually made it to pages  Now that I am involved with Project Life, I no longer have to stress about all the stories I’m not telling. I love how the project can be as simple or detailed as you want. I have even collected some of my favorite photos from the past years that have been sitting collecting dust and I incorporate them into my current Project Life pages as a “flashback.” It has been fun to tie the past and present together. I love how this Project Life can be anything you want it to be! Thank you, Becky, for Project Life!”

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From Donna: “I just wanted to let you know how much I absolutely love doing Project Life on Shutterfly. It’s a breeze! Now let me tell you – I am so computer-illiterate that sometime turning on my computer can be more than I can handle but it truly is as easy as everyone has been saying it is. I just about have a whole book done just with my January pictures and it is so much fun to click drag and see results. I totally had my feet dug in to not like this way of doing Project Life but wow! With results like this I just may switch. Thanks for making life so easy. You are my EASY BUTTON.”