3/20

Project Life

Crafts, Photo Books & Scrapbooking
By Elsie Larson

Project Life- Chicago TripEver since my first Project Life experience I've been anxious to create more pages. I am actually planning to have an epic weekend where I'll try to put several years of photos into albums. I love the idea of getting a lot done in a condensed/focused session. What do you think? Any tips? I would love to hear from some of you who have been making Project Life albums for years. (I have so much to learn!)Project Life- Chicago Trip Project Life- Chicago Trip Here are a few photos of a page I made about our recent Chicago trip. As much as I want to "catch up" and do a million photos in one day, I also LOVE the idea of spending time reflecting after each little event or season. That's super special and a method I would like to use in the future to save our family memories in books.

Supplies I used: Project Life Photo Pocket Pages – Design D, Seafoam Kit, Love Note Tags by Chic Tags, Kid Made Modern Tape (from Target).

Thanks so much for taking a peek at my progress! I can't wait to finish a full book. xo. Elsie 

88 Comments

  • As much as I’d love to keep up with it every week (like Elise!!) that never happens. I always end up doing several weeks at a time and it works well. BUT, if you wait too long it gets a little overwhelming to think of how many weeks are incomplete! I still have a few weeks from last year, early in my pregnancy when I had no energy that aren’t done. And now looking back, I can’t really remember what happened those weeks enough to write things down.

    Your pages look great!!

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  • I’m sure a lot of work goes into a project like this. But in the end it will have been worth it!

    LUXESSED

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  • I love this. I have made a few scrapbooks for family members, friends, as presents and for myself, but there was always a point where I had to force myself to finish. Some pages where screaming MOTIVATION, others were more or less whispering it. I started ‘Smashbooking’ and I love it. It is a fun way to collect memories and pictures but without all the layouts and detailed nit picky work. It’s FUN!

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  • This is such a fun idea. I always want to make scrapbooks but fear the little details. This project is just as effective as a scrapbook…but seems was more efficient :]

    looks great!

    freelyronnie.blogspot.com

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  • I really want to do one of these for my new son Arlo’s first year. I love that the design doesn’t interfere with the photos too much- the memories get to stand alone.

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  • that is absolutely amazing! ive made scrapbooks before for specific events like the birth of my son and his first year, my engagement etc. this is such a nice idea though wonder if I did it if it would last though. im so bad at that. xx. gigi. food and beauty blogger @ http://www.gigikkitchen.blogspot.com

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  • I love the idea of getting a bunch of pictures organizes at once, I did a bunch of childhood pics that way. If you have a bunch of 4×6 ish photos to use, you might want to try the protectors that hold just 4×6 photos. Each page holds 6 pictures, instead of just 4, and you can decorate them or not. Good luck!

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  • It’s so great to see that photo books exist outside the realm of the computer/internet. As a child I would eagerly flip through my parents and grandparents photo albums, which I so deeply adored. Your process however is especially wonderful because it’s crafty and it includes text. In that sense, anyone flipping through can do so and still understand what is going on (instead of guessing liking I had to do in some cases involving really old photos). This seems like a great way to organize photos and have fun at the same time. Thanks for sharing.

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  • This is BEAUTIFUL! I can’t wait to get into Project Life. I’ve made a promise to myself that I have to deplete my scrap booking supplies first before I can switch over!

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  • Hi! Sometimes playing significant catchup can get a little tedious (it happens to me all the time – i’m in the middle of working on it right now!) especially if you have tons of photos AND different project life layouts. I know some people stick with with just a single page protector (layout A seems to be popular) which helps when you’re doing mass amounts of photos because you know exactly how many photos of 4×6 and 3×4 you’ll need. And the back of each page (when you turn the page over) stays consistent since they’re all the same format.

    If you have different layouts (which I think you do!) I found the easiest way for me to organize is to chunk the photos into categories on whatever software (ie: by event or month or whatever works) and “map” out on scrap paper or using post it notes. I’m slowly learning to only use my favorite photos when I have hundreds per trip/event/special occasion (and if I have too many, make separate albums or photo books). And remember that the page you use will also have a back side so you need to coordinate those sizes. paisleepress does mock ups for example, which I think is a great idea! it’s a lot of work but i find that if i don’t organize before hand, i have a zillion photos and i don’t know where they go or i’ll have empty slots or too many photos for one page! Hope this helps!

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  • ps. your album looks absolutely perfect. love that you use your 3×4′ journaling cards but don’t cover them all the way with photos so the patterns show. genius.

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  • I loved the Project Life layouts you shared last night! Because I have little kids, I have to be quite disciplined with my Project Life sessions otherwise I fall way behind and it becomes almost impossible to catch up. I update our family album on a weekly basis, and then I update each of our boys’ PL albums on a monthly basis. This system seems to work great for me.

    I love the idea of carving out a whole day to just work on PL, but it’s just not possible these days. Over the new year, I managed to put together our entire 2011 album (two binders worth of photos!) which was both fun and stressful, as I knew all the time I spent in my studio, my husband was having to look after our boys on his own.

    It works differently for everyone, I guess! Can’t wait to see more of your pages – they are very inspiring. Your style is very different to mine, but I love it all the same. 🙂

    Ronnie xo

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  • Beautiful Album….I do have one question about the photo sizes, did you have them especially printed out certain sizes or just cut up existing pictures to fit the template?

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  • I like that they are different sizes and you are handwriting descriptions to go along with the pictures. Are you printing the photos at home? I did a few years in a couple days and I think it’s almost maddening, but I think I did too much in too short of a time span

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  • I just got back from chicago (first vacation ever!) and it was amazing!! I went to that donut store and let me tell you, pairing the Maple Bacon Long John with a Ginger Apple Woodchuck cider was one of the best decision I made that whole week!!!

    Next time you go to Chicago get sushi from Toro Sushi in Lincoln Park (but go early because their will be a wait!) This will be the BEST sushi you have ever had.

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  • Love this! By the way, what is the font you used for your highlights scrapbook? I love it!

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  • This looks awesome! I think this is such a great way to document, even if you only do it in batches of time, or for events that are special to you. I’ve done 2011 in a PL album last year, and it doing a little bit at a time each day helped me catch up on it, but I couldn’t imagine doing a huge amount over a weekend or anything, I would get bored with it too quickly! This year I’m doing weekly pages digitally, and I’m going to print them out and put them in the divided page protectors.

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  • This made me so happy!! 🙂 I haven’t scrapbooked in ages but keep telling myself I’m going to get back into it…your pages always inspire me (but you know that!) 🙂
    Love the thought of this simple and fun way to scrap!
    xo
    Charin

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  • Wow! I love this idea and may just have to give it a try. I have so many pictures stored all over the place….it would be nice to sit down and actually put them in something like this that tells a story and has some meaning to it. Hmm….maybe this can be my next BIG project since Spring isn’t coming to my neck of the woods any time soon! 🙂

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  • I love what you’ve shown here, the only thing I can say it to keep your phone away (my biggest distraction)! Maybe I will pull out all my scrapbooking to get done!

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  • I really like your take on PL. Very visual /photo oriented.

    I just started Project Life this year and I have to admit I’m having a hard time with it. I almost feel I’m being overwhelmed with ideas and keep changing my mind how I want to lay out the pages. I’m actually a couple weeks behind now but I’ve been keeping notes for each week and I also use Facebook (checking in places, etc) and iPhone photos to remember what happened when.

    I really want to make an album for my honeymoon (finally, 3 years later!) PL style in an 8.5×11 album style and more themed PL style albums. I am planning a weekend of album making soon to catch up!

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  • Looks like a fun project! I love cutting and scrapping things too. You write so pretty!
    🙂 Liz @ rusticpeach.com

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  • I have never posted a comment before (even though I wanted to because of your beautiful give aways), but I have been a reader of your blog for about 2 years now. I admire you for doing what you love and I hope a future like that for me. Anyway, I was wondering, how do you organize all your photos? Where do you keep them all the time? Are they organized in a certain way? Is it all inside your computer or do you actually have special drawers, boxes or something to store them? How do you keep track of all your beautiful photos? That is what I struggle the most with! I hope you read my comment. Thank you for inspiring me every day over two years now.
    Tamara

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  • Oh, and I forgot to ask. How do you calculate how big your pictures need to be when you print them in order to use all the space in the page? (I am sorry for my bad english…)

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  • I love the way you have combined those photos.
    I have found you by bloglovin and now i’m following you.
    🙂 Bye

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  • This is such a great idea! I’d love to do this travel-diary style.
    I agree that there’s no better way to get things done than in “sprint mode”, doing as much as possible all at once. That’s how my essays sometimes get done, and they tend to be the better ones.

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  • Love seeing your project life pages 🙂

    I still have old Love, Elsie papers that I have been hoarding and am meaning to use up in a Project Life album near you!

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  • I’ve made a scrapbook for every year since my Freshman year of high school. 10 scrapbooks later, I can tell you that whether you intend to spend time reflecting on each picture or not, you will. I tend to do it after I finish a page though and look back over the work. It can be expensive, but my trick is to use dollar store construction paper. It adds a lot of texture, is fun to layer, and gives a lot of variety. Spurge on just your favorites of the fancy supplies 🙂 Have fun!

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  • Last summer, while visiting my folks for 3 weeks, I managed to complete 2011. I had already edited, cropped and printed my photos and gather ephemera (always doing this) from our lives, so I just sat down and slip them into pockets. Leaving a few blanks here and there. I broke it up by months/trips. Later I went through and embellished a little and journaled a little and put in pretty cards. DONE!

    I’ll be doing the same for 2012 this summer.
    As for 2013, I’ve completed week 10 and going strong.

    LOVE your style so much, so I know whatever you do, it’ll be awesome.

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  • Are you writing on your pics digitally or with a pen? Inspiring/gorgeous layout!

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  • This is the perfect blog entry for me to read right now 🙂 My goal for the summer is to take all my photos off my computer and print all my favorites to document into some sort of a book format. I have also done a lot of scrapbooking in the past and have scrapbooked all my major trips I’ve taken plus my life up until I graduated high school… but for the last 8 years I have neglected to document any of my day to day life, and wanted to do it in some form that would incorporate my fabrics, journals, and wall art too. I love that yours are all over the place and so creative, and really break the mold of those expensive confined pages of a scrapbook 🙂 Thank you for sharing!

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  • Elsie I love your project life! I have been really wanting to jump on the project life bandwagon, but I didn’t want to buy everything until I was sure I would stick with it. So this year I’ve started doing project life in 8.5×11 format using baseball card protectors. It’s working out well so far!

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  • Your album is gorgeous (no surprise there)! I love the saturated colors in this spread.

    I started a Project Life album at the holiday season and start of the year, and I’ve actually been doing it weekly… which is kind of a miracle. I LOVE the seafoam kit but I swore to myself that I wouldn’t buy a kit. I have so much paper floating around, so I’m slowly getting it all used in my album! Makes me feel accomplished.

    I feel that it’s really important for me to document this time in my life: married, no kids. Someday we’ll get to look back at this album and remember that there was a time with just the 2 of us <3 And someday our kids will flip through the album and be shocked and confused that their parents were young once!!

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  • I fall more and more in love with the two of you with every post I read! I have had the PL kit for a few years and never got started. This is just the inspiration I need!!!!

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  • Thanks for sharing, I do this as well, although my books (I’m on #6!) are a bit different. Since I’m a busy student, what has helped me stay organized is to put the the cutouts in the book, and keep the book visible as a reminder to do it! I set aside twice a month to accomplish the actual gluing of the images in the book. I think they’re great, like a personal ‘magazine’ if you will….keep it up!

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  • I have been doing Project Life since 2010. When I have gotten caught up, the first thing I do after printing my pictures is putting them in the slots. It sounds simple but really just slide them in the pockets and THEN go back and pretty things up. If you start doing Project Life on a weekly basis, I recommend highly keeping a routine.
    Biggest tip of all: Enjoy it! Don’t be afraid to experiment. Try new things, there are no requirements or rules.

    Your style is beautiful! I am so excited that you are doing Project Life. I can’t wait to see what you create. I also recommend checking out http://www.balzerdesigns.com she has a great artsy style and some really great Project Life downloads in her shop.

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  • i started doing project life this year too! i love your blog elise & emma, and look forward to seeing your project life post-elise.

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  • I love that you’re sharing these peeks at your project life albums, I just found out about project life and think I just might have to take the plunge. It looks so creative but so simple at the same time!

    Question – how do you plan out your pages? Do you print out a bunch of random photos first and then create the page, or do you plan out the page first and then print the photos? I’ve seen a lot of people add digital decorations to their photos but I love being able to print a bunch of pictures off at once online for cheap, I’d love to know your process!

    – Michael Ann 🙂

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  • Ooo keep these posts coming! Love your PL spreads! Very pretty 🙂

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  • It’s nice to see you getting back into scrapbooking! Is Jeremy texting/reading emails while driving? HAHA!

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  • This is such a great project and makes good memories to look at. We have lost the habit to print photos with our digital cameras. I think I will do the same with mines. Thanks for sharing your idea 🙂

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  • I am such a dedicated Project Lifer that I have gone all out and become a stockist of the entire range, you sure do learn lots along the way and I continue to tweak my efforts and results to be ‘just right’ for me, its wonderful that there is no wrong way to do Project Life and its a doable way to preserve memories and photos with todays busy lifestyles, biggest aha moment for me recently – I really dont like the corner rounding look, the core kit cards are ALL rounded – so I have designed my own and the corners stay square – much happier when I looked at a finished spread xx

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  • I love this idea, but wouldn’t have time for it. My plan for my photos is to sit down (when I eventually get a chance) and organise them in iPhoto, and then order a few photobooks from them. Photos organised + book on the way = 2 birds, 1 stone. x

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  • Hi Elsie,

    it would be cool to read some more tips on this! Do you print all the photos with a regular printer? How do you prepare them to make sure they have the right size? How do you cut them out – with scissores or a rotary cutter? How do you make the rounded corners? Would be fun and helpful to read a bit more about your process! (:

    Thanks so much for the inspiration,
    Laura

    Reply

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