Project Life 2021

[Laura]

Ok, who is ready to move on from 2020 and look forward to a fresh start with 2021?  

I would like to invite you in this fabulous journey of Project Life 2021! I have never done Project Life before, so this is an exciting project for me! I look forward to being inspired by you and your layouts.  I’m posting this thread early so you can get a good start on planning.  

What is Project Life? It is documenting your life through photos and journaling. Before each month begins, I will post a list of daily prompts to use as inspiration for your photos. The key is to use the inspiration to photograph your life that day (or week, or month).  You can follow the daily prompts, choose one a week, or even one a month! The photos do not have to be professional quality. The goal is to show everyday life. Sometimes life can be imperfect. Do what fits in your style and life. Then, create a layout with your photos. It can be a daily layout, weekly layout, or monthly layout.  

There are 3 main parts of Project Life:  Photos, Journaling, and the Layouts. Below you’ll find some tips to help you be more successful in both of these areas.

Photos

• Prompts will be posted in this thread with a link to each month located in this first message for easy access.
• Take photos daily.  And not just of large events like parties, holidays, etc.  Take photos of everyday life. Don’t overthink it, just snap a few keep it simple and fun.  There’s no need to drag out your big dslr for this, your phone’s camera is perfect to capture the everyday memories.
• Also keep in mind your photos for PL do not have to be those “perfect” photos.  Sometimes the imperfect ones capture the story best.  
• Consider taking some time at the end of each day to review the photos you have taken and delete the ones that you don’t want to use.  While doing this remember you’re not just looking for those “perfect” photos. Sometimes the imperfect photos tell the story the best.
• Big events, choose a couple of photos that best represent the event and use them on your PL page.  Then tuck the rest of the photos away for your pages that you do for the event. That way if you don’t get to scrapping the event it will still be represented in your PL book.
• Trim/crop the photos to remove clutter or to spotlight the main story of the photo.  Remember there is a lot of photos on these pages so it’s best to really showcase what the main story is.

Journaling

• Words...stories are just as important as the photos.  Without them, all you have is another “pretty” photo. Unless you journal the memory or feeling behind the photo you lose detail.
• You don’t have to write a book sometimes “short and sweet” is enough because a photo can speak a thousand words.
• Sometimes writing can be hard for people. If you were showing a photo to someone, what would you tell them about it?  How about the “who”, “what”, “when”, “where”, “how”, and “why” of the photo.  This is a good start.
• If you are like me and have horrible grammar and always misspell words, you can copy your journaling to a word document to identify mistakes that need to be changed.  Also check with your software editing program for tools such as spell check. 
• Quotes can be a simple journal hack. Quote your loved ones in the photo, or tell the story behind the photo.
• Depending on your style, it may be beneficial to keep a journal or planner of your photos if you scrap them later. One idea on doing this is to type a note in your phone and screen shot it to add to your photo collection. Another idea is to keep a planner, documenting notes or ideas of what you want your journaling to say.  A third idea is to keep a word document in your photo folder with the information related to your photo.

Layouts

• Regardless of taking daily, weekly, or monthly photos, it is important to scrapbook these pictures. That’s the main point of this project, right! The layouts can be whatever you want them to be. Some examples include 1 page with the whole month’s photos, or 1 page per week, or a daily page.   
• The focus of the page will be photos and journaling.  Don’t’ stress out over making it overly artistic or technical. But don’t be afraid to add “just a touch” to express yourself.
• One option to mix it up is to use black and white photos and pair them with black and white journaling cards, elements and papers.  This will give your book a clean/classic look.
• If your using colored photos, keep your paper/embellishments colors the same through the book.  Using a pop of 2-3 colors won’t compete with your photos.
• Plan your album ahead. If you’re not doing a double page spread, coordinate colors of facing pages
• Add a border to your photos.  This will let them pop off of the background paper. Adding a shadow will also help with this.
• If your page is too cluttered for journaling, add journaling to the photo if there’s empty space.
• Keep embellishments small for accents.

Regardless of how you choose to do your PL, here’s a few tips to make it successful:

• Do Your Thing - choose a version that you think you will be successful with.  Do not feel pressure because there are people following the daily prompts. If you are more comfortable and feel you will succeed using monthly prompts then use those. What makes sense to you will be what you’re successful in.  And remember you can always switch back and forth.  
• Keep up.  Once you are organized and have a plan of action creating the layouts shouldn’t take much time at all.  
• Routine is key.  Maybe you sit down each night and go through your photos you took that day.  Or maybe your Friday night plan is to scrap your page for the week. Maybe you’re doing a monthly page and the 1st of the month you sit down and scrap.  Whatever it is...routine is the key to being successful with this project. 
• Keep it simple - don’t overdo it.  Remember these pages revolve around photos and journaling so you don’t need a lot of embellishments and such. Remember simple = success.
• Be consistent.  This could mean a consistent them, set of templates, certain kits, or even a “formula” such as 1 title, 1 photo, 3 embellishments, and 1 journal box.
• Once you create a page move on.  Don’t go back and rethink the page like you would a “pretty picture” layout.  
• Before you start have a goal in mind.  Are you doing daily/weekly or monthly prompts (or maybe your own thing)?  What are you doing with the pages when you are done? Are you printing? What size and who is the printing through?  Have you checked to see what tips printer gives you to make sure important things aren’t cute off. 
• The main goal to be successful is to remember your “why”! Why are you doing this? Is if for your family? Will it be an heirloom? Or maybe it’s for yourself. Keep that in mind if you find that you are getting behind.

So now for the details!

Prizes!!!!!!!

Monthly: Everyone month, one lucky participant will win a $5 Gift Certificate. All you need to do is simply upload a layout in the Project Life 2021 Gallery and you'll be in the drawing.

Quarterly: Winners will be randomly drawn from members who post layouts in the Project Life 2021 Gallery.  To keep it fair between those doing weekly or monthly layouts you are allowed 1 entry per month.  So as long as you post a layout each month you'll be entered.  The quarterly winner will win a Collection Biggie (valued at $9.99) of their choice.

Yearly: Everyone who uploads one layout a month for an entire year to the  Project Life 2021 Gallery will be entered into a prize drawing for one person to win a $50 Scrap Girls Gift certificate.  But what if you don't win the big prize?  That's ok...as long as you uploaded one layout a month, you will receive a $10 Gift Certificate for finishing the year.

And we have a new button for you to add to your signature if you would like!

 You can find it here.

Now is the time to ask any questions you may have.  We will officially start January 1st, that's when I will post the first month’s prompts. I hope that you will join this journey with me!

January Prompts

February Prompts

March Prompts

April Prompts

May Prompts

June Prompts

July Prompts

August Prompts

September Prompts

October Prompts

November Prompts

December Prompts

 

 

 

 

[Laura]

I'm starting to prepare for the new year's challenge. Here are some products that I found it helpful to prepare. I plan to take advantage of this great 40% off sale till the end of the year to get ready!  What's your favorite kits/templates for this challenge?

30 Days Of Gratitude - 12x12 Temps by Connie Prince. (scrapgirls.com)

http://store.scrapgirls.com/Value-Pack-Scrap-It-Monthly-6.html

Digital scrapbooking kit ScrapSimple Digital Layout Album Template Photo Frenzy April, by Laura Louie at ScrapGirls.com.

http://store.scrapgirls.com/Value-Pack-Photo-Frenzy-Q3.html

Digital scrapbooking kit ValuePack: Photo Frenzy Q4 by Laura Louie at ScrapGirls.com

http://store.scrapgirls.com/Value-Pack-Mighty-Mosaics-1-4.html

Digital scrapbooking kit ScrapSimple Digital Layout Album Template Wordy Months May - August, by Laura Louie at ScrapGirls.com

http://store.scrapgirls.com/ScrapSimple-Digital-Layout-Album-Templates-Storyteller-VOL.-2.html

[A-M]

I will be doing Project Life again for 2021 but mine will be monthly double pages and would possibly not get finished until the next month so like what happened for me in 2019 I will not be eligible for the prizes.

My plan also for 2021  is to complete my 2016 album which I never finished. I did two months and that was it. I am going to start all over again.

So I will share in our gallery any of the pages I create using Scrap Girls products. 

[scrapgarden]

@A-MI also do monthly double pages. I do the left side for the first half of the month and then cut the double page in half to post for the challenge prize. I usually post the second half also, but you wouldn't need to. Or just post the double page at the beginning of the next month.

I'm going to use a template set from Marlene Peacock and pick several kits from CWX to choose paper and elements from. Also will pick a style and font to use only. Will be in the blues for 2021. It really helped me to only have a select number of things to choose from this past year. Looking forward to next year! In more ways than one.

[MariJ]

@A-M It used to be that if you did monthly pages, you had a week or a few days after the month ended to upload your page, since it was difficult to finish until the month ended.

Laura or @angleigh should be able to clarify this.

I'm going to use Laura's "Wordy Months" templates for each month.  I love them and bought the value pack of the entire year awhile ago just for this purpose.  And, again, it would be difficult for me to finish and post on the last day of the month, so I think in this case I would have the extra time to finish and post.

[CRS]

I'm in again this year. I also do the monthly double pages. I haven't decided what templates or collections I'll be using yet. But I stuck to Angie's BYOL template set and her 2016 Everyday Collection and it made things much easier this year. This will be my 13th year doing this....wow!

[Laura]

@A-M, I’m fine with you uploading the pages a month behind. I want you to be successful and for this to be fun! The rule doesn’t specifically say “that month’s” layout. Good luck! I can’t wait to see your work.

[Laura]

@CRS, wow, that is amazing! Congratulations!

[Laura]

@MariJ, I am ok with giving a bit of a leeway at the end of the month. I don’t want you to stress about it. 

[Laura]

@scrapgarden, that’s a great plan! I like the font idea.

[A-M]

@CRS  Carla, my first P52 or Project Life was way back in 2009 so nearly as long as you have been doing them. 

[Laura]

@A-M, that’s amazing!

[Mikelle]

Tips for success: Keep up.  ? That’s one I need to pay attention to,  lol.  I’ll be participating again!

[Laura]

@Mikelle, I imagine that is the important one. 

[MariJ]

8 hours ago, Laura said:

@MariJ, I am ok with giving a bit of a leeway at the end of the month. I don’t want you to stress about it. 

I know it's what was always done since it was mostly impossible to finish a monthly page on the last day of the month if you were doing daily photos.  I'm looking forward to this new year of Project Life.

[CRS]

@A-M My first book was 2009 when dh was deployed. I just stuck with it ever since.

[barbaraj]

I'm in for 2021! It really encourages me to take photos. I'm going to use Value Pack: Photo Frenzy Q2 by Laura Louie.

[Laura]

@barbaraj, that’s a good plan as well. Can’t wait to see your pages!

[Florida granny]

I'm in again for 2021. I used to start the year and never finish. Then I finally found a format that works for me: I make the pages 8 1/2 x 11, so I can print them at home and put them into a notebook. I also post just the highlights of the month, sometimes one, sometimes two, rarely three pages. If I try to make a page for each week, it doesn't happen, LOL.  This year I used SRO SSAlbum 85x11 Super Simple and adjusted the photo masks if I needed to. It has been working great so I might stick with it for next year, too.
Thanks, Laura, for hosting this! It's one of the main reasons we scrap!

[Laura]

@Florida granny, that’s a great idea!

[scrapgarden]

16 hours ago, Laura said:

@MariJ, I am ok with giving a bit of a leeway at the end of the month. I don’t want you to stress about it. 

That's great to know. Sometimes it's a pain to cut in half.

[scrapgarden]

Picked my supplies. Going to use Marlene's 8.5x22 Monthly Scrap It #3 and for extra pages her Modern PhotoBook templates , Carol W's kits, value packs My Happiness and The Soft Blue, style is by Karen Schultz, Watercolor #3. Haven't picked a font yet. I think it will make for a pretty and I hope interesting book.

[scrapgarden]

@LauraIt this going to be the chatting thread and the posting thread too? Or will you have a separate posting threads like 2020?

[Laura]

@scrapgarden, I would like to keep just one thread. What do you all think? 

[Laura]

@scrapgarden, how about creating the double page spread. Once it is created, crop it to 12x12, just one side and save it.  Then, undo the crop, crop the other side and save it as your page 2.  That's how I do it.  Does anyone have any other ideas?

[MariJ]

12 hours ago, Laura said:

I would like to keep just one thread. What do you all think? 

I'd vote for one!   It was a good idea and plan to have two threads, but after awhile we got confused about which was which, so started posting in both anyway.  ?   It would most likely be easier for you and for us to have one.

[MariJ]

12 hours ago, Laura said:

@scrapgarden, how about creating the double page spread. Once it is created, crop it to 12x12, just one side and save it.  Then, undo the crop, crop the other side and save it as your page 2.  That's how I do it.  Does anyone have any other ideas?

That's what I would do.   I know Lynne does 11 x 8½ pages, but it would still work.  Lynne, do you crop from the jpeg or the psd file?  That was my mistake when I first tried it, oops!   I was trying to crop the psd file and oh.......... that was a mess!    ?  ?

[AnnBK]

I am so tempted to try this.  Life has been so hectic for the last few years, I haven't even taken many significant photos!  After this crazy year, maybe just dusting the camera off and trying to get a couple of pages done each month will bring something like normal! OK...I'm in!

[AnnBK]

And I should start by updating that photo...over ten years have gone by.  I may have changed a bit!

[Laura]

@AnnBK, welcome to the challenge! Nothing gets done until you start. Congratulations, you have taken the first step. And you are still as beautiful as ever.