Project Life 2021

[scrapgarden]

Here's my preface page for 2021. Took me forever to master the path pen, but finally, success. Project Life 2021 First page

[Laura]

@scrapgarden, I love the thought of a preface page! 

[alsoarty]

I'm in again - late to the party - I'll have to catch up on the thread.

[alsoarty]

On 12/22/2020 at 6:44 PM, CRS said:

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!

You're a rock star!

 

[alsoarty]

Ok I think I'm going to do double pages for the month, it got too hard last year with not enough photos to scrap. I'm going to use Syndee's Storyteller Vol 2. That's more my style.

[Laura]

@alsoarty Welcome to the group! Make it your style. This is for you! 

[alsoarty]

On 12/20/2020 at 9:19 AM, Laura said:

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

I'm sorry - where are the prompts?

[Laura]

@alsoarty, it is a hyperlink labeled "January Prompts" in the first post of this thread.  The link is to the 12/30 post within the thread but to safe from having to search through pages and pages of posts, I will post the hyperlink for each month in the very first post of this thread.  Make sense?  Here is the link: 

 

[alsoarty]

1 hour ago, Laura said:

@alsoarty, it is a hyperlink labeled "January Prompts" in the first post of this thread.  The link is to the 12/30 post within the thread but to safe from having to search through pages and pages of posts, I will post the hyperlink for each month in the very first post of this thread.  Make sense?  Here is the link: 

 

@Laura - thanks! Also if you can make it bigger? I missed it as I thought it was part of your Siggie. And move it above your Siggie?

[Laura]

@alsoarty, great idea! I didn't know I could do that. I never pay attention to the tool bars above, lol. Thanks for the suggestion. I changed it.

[Laura]

Well, I am off to a great start! Week 1 done!  I think that I will try to just do a weekly "diary" type thing, adding odd and end details as the week comes. 

[Jane in N.Z]

On 1/2/2021 at 3:34 PM, Mikelle said:

Exactly what you said Marilyn - I have a system for keeping track of thoughts and events so that I can journal more easily on my PL layouts.  I think April is really into bullet journaling, and knows a lot about it, but that's how I keep track of things.  At least, I call mine a bullet journal, but I pretty much only use it to jot down quick things to keep track of the days they occurred, and I paste a list of the PL photo prompts in it every month.  Photo below... I just started a new journal book, as my last one includes 3 years and is getting too fat to close!  Edited to add, as a family we use a shared Google Calendar to keep track of our appointments, who's doing what, etc.  It was a lot more full before COVID hit, but whenever I do a PL layout, I pull out my bullet journal and pull up Google Calendar on the computer, so I can cross-reference and try not to forget anything important in my journaling.

What a great idea  I always start off good and then life gets in the way but this is a great way to do it  

[Jane in N.Z]

I'm just going to continue with my own pictures and hopefully can keep to 2 pages a month. Saying that Jan and Dec are always longer.

Here is my page 1 for January

[AnnBK]

I don't know if I've followed any of the guidelines or rules, but this will work for me! I plan to do two pages at least every other week.  I'm off to a good start!

 

http://scrapgirls.net/forum/gallery/image/191121-january-2/

 

[Laura]

@Jane in N.Z and @AnnBK, looks great!

[Florida granny]

I actually took some photos... so off to a good start!    Here's my first Project Life for January.

[A-M]

My cover page

I will be basically using only this kit - Shades of Grey by Amie Harrison and another two  of white papers by Syndee and Susie.

At times I might do  like I did on this I recoloured one of the papers to have a deep brown look.  But basically my pages will be black and white with the photos being the main colours on each page. 

[Laura]

@A-M, that’s a cool idea! It adds texture but doesn’t take from your photos.

[alsoarty]

On 1/7/2021 at 5:21 PM, Laura said:

@alsoarty, great idea! I didn't know I could do that. I never pay attention to the tool bars above, lol. Thanks for the suggestion. I changed it.

Thanks!

[alsoarty]

HERE is my first layout. Since I don't print it, no use in me making a cover page.

[Mikelle]

Here's my first layout:  Week 1

I like to do PL from Sunday through Saturday, so for week 1 I included the first 9 days - the layout looks a bit stuffed! I also brushed out any journaling I thought wasn't fit for public consumption (has to do with politics and me weeding out my Facebook list).

I kind of wish I could stick with just one kit/look for my PL layouts, but I find myself getting too bored doing that.  Every time I work on a PL layout, what keeps me motivated is wondering which collection I'll use once I have my photos laid out.  I print my PL layouts and put each year in one 8x8 photos album, but I suppose if I had a book printed it might be nice to have all of the pages using one coordinated kit.

[MariJ]

On 1/10/2021 at 9:51 PM, Mikelle said:

I kind of wish I could stick with just one kit/look for my PL layouts, but I find myself getting too bored doing that.  Every time I work on a PL layout, what keeps me motivated is wondering which collection I'll use once I have my photos laid out.  I print my PL layouts and put each year in one 8x8 photos album, but I suppose if I had a book printed it might be nice to have all of the pages using one coordinated kit.

I love your pages, Mikelle and how individually beautiful they are.  And, I agree.   When I was doing weekly then bi-weekly PL pages I thought it would be easier to use one collection and set of templates, but that idea faded fast on my second layout!   Like you, part of the fun was looking through my stash and deciding what collection was appropriate and I wanted to use.   The only thing I did do when I did weekly pages was to solely use SRO's ingenious layout templates where you turn on and off the pieces you want and have blocks to use as bases on the pages.  They worked great.  I did print mine and to be honest, I'd worried like you about how the different pages would look together, but when I saw them - it didn't even matter at all and looked fine.  I think yours would too!

[Scrapin Pat]

I have decided to jump in again.  Hope I remember how to do this lol. I haven't posted in awhile.  My goal is to do it weekly from Monday to Sunday - a single page a week.  Here's my start 

New Year Beginning

Week 1

[Laura]

@Scrapin Pat, welcome! Looks like a great start!

[Pab]

I am going to say I am in and really try. I have never done this before and I hope I can keep up. 

[Laura]

Week 2 

I can't believe this month is half over already!  

[Mikelle]

Here's Week 2

[Mikelle]

On 1/16/2021 at 2:14 PM, Pab said:

I am going to say I am in and really try. I have never done this before and I hope I can keep up. 

Patsy, half the fun is trying to keep up, lol.  Jump in, welcome!

[scrapgarden]

Have 2 additional pages for January Eco Park

Eco Park 2

 

[MariJ]

4 hours ago, scrapgarden said:

Have 2 additional pages for January Eco Park

Eco Park 2

 

@scrapgarden Lynne, when I clicked on your links they both went to the same page.  I found the page with your journaling on the Forum, but wanted you to know the links above are duplicates.