27 July 2022

Project Life Scrapbooking - Record Your Family Memories

 Project life, or pocket scrapbooking, is the perfect alternative to traditional scrapbooking if you are looking for an option to save space and keep your memory keeping systems simple. Find out the basics on project life scrapbooking and how you can get started on your first album.

PROJECT LIFE SCRAPBOOKING

No more bulky scrapbook pages and endless tubs of embellishments, stickers, papers and tools. This is the easiest way to get in control of your memory keeping without spending endless hours doing so! Scrapbooking without the overwhelm!

How I Got Started

I have been a scrapbooker for many years now. While many people start once they have kids, I kicked off my scrapbooking hobby after an overseas trip, as a great way to incorporate my photos and memorabilia in the one place.

From there the hobby really took off and I have since been on many design teams for scrapbooking manufacturers, stores and challenge blogs.

Apart from those very early pages that were extremely basic, flat and symmetrical, my scrapbooking style became somewhat 3D, incorporating a lot of mixed media, textures and materials. Lots of large embellishments and layers of papers and flowers.

This means I had to switch to D-ring scrapbooking binders just to fit my pages and in fact, many are still in piles in my craft room waiting to be added to albums.

When my daughter was born, I started to have a little panic. If I kept scrapbooking the way I was, the pages were going to take over my house. We would be buried alive by scrapbooks. Uh oh! So I needed a solution to my creative overflow.

Project Life Scrapbooking - Record Your Family Memories

What is Project Life Scrapbooking?

That's when I found Project Life scrapbooking, which is a simplified way of scrapbooking as created by a well known figure in the scrapbooking industry, Becky Higgins.

Project Life scrapbooking can be described as a combination of old style pocket photo albums and modern day scrapbooking, essentially turning each of those little 'pockets' into a mini scrapbook layout.

This can  be done as simply as sticking photos in pockets and journal cards in others, with nothing more than a pen to write your memories. Or it can be a little more elaborate, with embellishments, digital scrapbooking elements and mixed media.

Project Life is not only simple, and compact, but it also got me started on recording the everyday moments that got lost with traditional scrapbooking. In the past it was usually about the best photos and they did not always have the best story behind them.

And a whole year of project life typically fits in one or two albums.

Project Life Scrapbooking - Record Your Family Memories

How You Can Get Started

Getting started with Project Life is simple. You don't need a huge collection of papers, tools and embellishments. If you want to keep it simple, all you need to get started are:

  1. 12x12 Binder
  2. Project Life Core Kit
  3. Big Pack of Photo Pocket Pages

Most other scrapbooking manufacturers have since jumped on the pocket scrapbooking bandwagon and have their own versions of card packs and albums, such as Kaisercraft, Bo Bunny, MAMBI, WRMK, MME etc.

Getting started with project life scrapbooking

This gives you plenty of choice to mix and match your albums and cards, to create the perfect way of recording your memories.

Here in Australia, Spotlight stores are a great place to shop in store for all you need to start your Project Life journey.

Project Life Scrapbooking - Record Your Family Memories

The Process

Once you have your supplies, you just need your photographs. If you are not one for digital photo editing, you may simply choose to get prints of all the photos you would like to include, from your local photo lab.

Or if you are like me, and you enjoy dabbling a little bit in photoshop, this gives you the chance to edit your photos and crop them. You can also add journalling direct onto your photographs before having them printed.

I print mine at home using an Epson printer, which has comparable quality to the online print labs like Snapfish. This is great if you are wanting to only print the photos you need, and don't want to risk printing out a heap of unnecessary extras.

Then simply pop your photos into the pockets, write your memories and journalling on the Project Life cards and add them into your album and you are well on your way to recording a year of your families memories in a hurry!

So if you have been looking for a space saving way to keep up with your memory keeping, Project Life may be just the thing you are looking for.

Digital Project Life

A couple of years into my Project Life journey, I switched to the digital project life system. I even had the honour of being on the 2015 Becky Higgins Project Life Digital creative team. What an incredible experience!

Digital Project Life is done using a program such as Photoshop Elements and creating and editing digital templates much the way you could create your physical albums. I love this because it means at the end of the year, I can get them printed into a slimline photo book!

And to simplify even more, Project Life has a FREE app you can use on your phone for digital project life. It is a simpler version than the kits you can use on Photoshop, however it means creating albums and layouts on the move. This is perfect for anyone who is super busy or if you don't have the software to work from your computer.

These days I actually do project life from my phone more than anything and save the physical albums for my travel memories instead, since it's nice to include postcards and tickets from your explorations.

You can see how I minimised my scrapbooking habits even more with digital project life. Several of my digital albums can be viewed here.


This post first appeared on Simplify Create Inspire

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