Project Life

Thanks to Becky Higgins for linking this post up on her blog post today (1/3/2012), if you’re visiting from Becky’s blog please make sure you take a minute to subscribe (my buttons are over there —–>) so you don’t miss my updates. Thanks!!!

Have y’all heard of Project Life by Becky Higgins, LLC?

I hadn’t until about 3-4 days ago and I’ve been looking into it for that long and I’m already hooked and ordered my kit the other day, I’m SUPER excited for it to get here so I can start it off with the New Year!

If you don’t know what it is, it’s basically a simpler, easier form of scrapbooking and is available in digital and paper formats! The way I see it, you basically print out your photos (in 4×6′s or different sizes, there’s TONS of different page protectors with other sizes) and use the kit to notate things or make titles and write down important events. Let me just say, it looks awesome! Like, I needed another thing to add to my plate but since I’m not blogging about Boogie anymore, I need SOME way to keep up with everything in our lives, I mean this is neat!

I’m a big fan of digi-scrapping (ya know, creating layouts on the computer in programs like Photoshop (the love of my life…well one of them anyway)) but I just don’t have the time. I mean seriously, I work A LOT, I stay-at-home with a 17 month old who thinks NOW is the time to enter the “Terrible 2′s” and I try and live a fairly normal life with friends and a clean house (don’t get me started on hoarders, I saw a preview today that had me nearly in tears, ick). I might also say that I have been a bit of a “pre-made template snob”, seriously, I confess…my name is Jessica and I like to make things from scratch in Photoshop, templates are were my enemy. I was convinced that I’d create Little Man’s baby book by digi-scrapping and I haven’t done the first thing, I’m now trying to scramble and go back and at least jot things down so I can go back later and buy a BABY BOOK (pre-made, holy crap) and just fill it out.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that, right now, templates are my BEST friend! So, back to the point of the post -uh, Project Life is a template with TONS of different supplies and endless opportunities for adding your own touch (did I mention that I got a Silhouette Cameo for Christmas? I did, I did!).

My plan is to make a week into 1-2 pages each week, of course if something major happens (birthdays, etc) then I might take up more room than that but I have all intentions of having all 52 weeks of this year wrapped into one little book and HOPEFULLY I’ll continue to do it forever, I’m so excited!

Just in case you’re wondering, I ordered the paper kit, not the digital because as slack as I’ve been about doing digi-scrapping, I think it would have been a waste to get the digital.

I live in a SUPER small town and we have a Walmart photo lab (I used to work there for like 3 years when I was 18-21) that doesn’t do very good printing anymore (the people there now do NOT clean the machines, pictures look horrible) and a CVS that I haven’t been to in a while to know their print quality. I LOVE to print through SnapFish but with wanting to do this per week, that may not be an option, I may have to set aside like Saturday’s to work on my Project Life from the week before that I print while I’m in town that week (at one of the crappy places, ick). I’m a HUGE believer in using chemically processed photos though instead of ink-printed photos (I may address this subject in another post, something I learned way back in my Walmart photo lab days) so I don’t believe I’ll be printing any at home (plug my printer is crap, there).

I am thinking I might even make a Project Life Link-up (I’ve e-mailed Becky to be sure that using that name would be ok with her). I’m not a big blog (yet, teehee) and since switching over from my other blog, some still haven’t found me so there may not be many link-ups at first but I think it’d grow with time. Maybe even just a monthly link-up, at first at least, that way I know I can keep up with that and then maybe turn it weekly?

This works perfectly for me because I was wanting to do a 366 project (ya know, a photo a day for a year (leap year this year)) but since I don’t want Boogie’s face ALL OVER this blog and that’s mainly what I take pictures of, I can still do my 366 and just put the photos into my Project Life, win win!

Hey wait, before I shut up (you’re probably thinking, shut.up.already) do y’all worry about your pictures getting gone? My husband’s childhood home burnt down when he was in the 5th grade (from a cell phone charger with no cell on the other end…unplug them people!) and they lost MOST of their photos so I’m constantly paranoid about my pictures. My photos are my favorite thing ever, if I grabbed something while running out of a burning home (besides my family, duh) I’d grab my photo albums and CD’s with the images on them. I seriously have went as far as burning 3 different copies of image cds and storing one here in my normal place, one in my fireproof safe (even though the hubs says the CD would melt anyway) and one at my Mom & Dad’s that way I’m safe. I think it’s a fear I have to get over, I can’t make 3 different Project Life albums just for an irrational fear, no can I?

Am I the only one like this?

Anywho, that’s the dealio on my ideas about Project Life, I’m excited…are you!?!?