Project Life is a popular and simplified project for recording daily life. Using photo sleeves, or divided page protectors and journaling cards to write about your photos is a much more manageable and sustainable form of scrapbooking.
I’m glad it works for so many scrapbookers, but I personally have never been a fan. Here’s why: there is no way, however simple the format might be, that I could keep up with daily or even weekly scrapbooking. It’s just too much and too overwhelming. And to be honest, I am fairly certain my children don’t want to lug around hundreds of scrapbooks when I’m gone. Too many details to be sustainable and meaningful for me.
But, I love the simple concept of the photo sleeves and journaling cards so here’s what my solution is: Albums Made Easy. It’s perfect for me. No pressure to “keep up” with anything. I create the pages I want when I want to. I sometimes will do a month-in-review layout, but I can also slip in pages about events, relationships, personalities, or whatever I want. Love it!
Here are a few recent examples, plus links to more about these pages on the We R blog.
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| Read more about my craft room cleanout page HERE. |
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| Read more about my generations page HERE.
So, what do you think? Are you a Project Life fan, or more an Albums Made Easy person? If you’ve never done either, would you give one a try or stick to traditional scrapbooking?
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I am doing Project Life and liking it. It is interesting, after a few years of project life I actually feel like I am getting more stories told and I am actually filling fewer albums. Like you, I was always worried about the amount of albums my kids would get some day. I was doing 3 albums per year per kid. At that rate, they were going to need an extra room in their homes just for scrapbooks from their childhood. But now, I am doing project life and doing 3 albums total per year (not 9 – 3 per kid per year). What I realized after starting this is that if I look through my photos from the month after finishing my Project Life pages there are only a couple of traditional scrapbook pages per kiddo that I want to complete just to expand on a story. Otherwise, it is all in Project life. So do those weekly pages plus maybe 6 more and I am feeling great! The one thing I have not yet reconciled in my mind is how the albums will get split up among the kids someday since everyone's story is being told in the same book. But I will keep thinking on that one.
I am in your BPC class right now – I just posted the sunburst challenge page yesterday. My page was about my daughter's competitive dance called Allouette. I am living your class and how those challenges are getting those extra 6 or so pages done to round out my Project Life scrapbooking!
Would this system work with backlogs of photos? Namely 50 plus years. Any suggestions would greatly be appreciated.