Hints and Tips for Maintaining Project Life

This is my first year participating in Project Life.  I love it!

I don't plan on doing it every year, was thinking maybe every 3 years, that way when I reflect on them in years to come each album will be so different, with the kids in different phases of their lives.

Front page of my 2011 PL Album

I have managed to keep up to date with my Project Life album very well, until July!  Then I some how went off the rails.  But then saying that, I appear to have fallen off the rails in a number of aspects of my life in the last month, whoops!

Whilst it was designed to be 'a photo a day for 365 days a year'  I tend to work with the '52 weeks a year'  sometimes I have two photos for the same day, but I always allocate one double page per week.

So how do I keep up to date with my project life?

• Firstly, I always take photos, like lots, all the time.  I never put my camera away, it sits on the kitchen bench, on the office desk, always easily accessible.

• I store my photos on my computer in date order (monthly) and this makes it easy for me to work out what photos I want to print for the album.

• Each weekend I sit and write a list, with the seven days of the previous week, allocating which photo I want to print, so when I get to the shop I know exactly what I want and don't forget anything.

 The serial list writer, lol!

• I print my photos, (and try to do this every week, but if I don't for some reason, process is still the same)

• Then on the same day as print, I put the photos into their Project Life slots and journal.  

I'm not a big journal person.  I've only twice used the journal cards that fold in half.  Most of the time the photos speak for themselves.

I dont' always use photos!

Early in the year on two occasions I printed out pictures off the Internet.  That's right, not photos!  But the thing is, it's Project Life, it's about what is happening or effecting your life at that time.  

On both these occasions the floods were having a huge impact on Australia and I wanted to document that.  Remember that in 2011 that is what happened and record how it made us feel.

I've also started running this year, and this is a big deal for me.  I ran my first fun run in March and definitely wanted to record that.  So beside the fact that I had a photo of my friend and I before the race, I laminated the article and my official time out of the newspaper.  

I simply hole punched it and inserted it in the appropriate week. 

Picture of every one running out of the newspaper and my official time!

I don't always use the journaling slots for journaling!

Sometimes we have so much going on that I want to include more than one photo, like at Easter time, or when we did Plant a Tree Day.

This is why I work with the '52 weeks in a year' philosophy, however I also often use the journalling spaces to insert additional photos.  

When I print  my photos out at the shop I just choose the option that allows me to print two half size photos, so I get two images on a standard 4x6.  This is the perfect size.  I use a journaling card as a template to get the exact size and rounded corners.

 Kids spent wet days drawing on the floor of garage.  

Wanted to capture some of their pictures, so did this using the journaling slots.

So that's my Project life, that's how I make it work for our family.   I love that we are putting more photos in an album, and when visitors stop by, they love to have a look because it's a reflection of what we have been up to lately.

Do you have any great ideas you use for Project Life?

Cheers

Mandy