Ever feel like you just want to start over?

When it comes to my Project Life album, I want to start over.  I bought the core kit and the album for my birthday in November, 2011 (yes, 2011) and was gung ho to faithfully document my life through this incredible tool.  Well, I made it through February, 2012.  Boo!  And the fault is all mine.  In retrospect there were several factors that threatened to trip me up, but the biggest one is ME!

Here are the elements I think contributed to missing 10 months of documented life:

1.  I tried to put too much information into each week.  I tried to gather every tiny detail of life, instead of reflecting on the week and picking out the memories that were the most impactful.

2.  I tried to get too fancy.  I follow a lot of scrapbooking bloggers that do incredibly beautiful work and also do Project Life. (Ali Edwards, Elise Blaha Cripe, to name a couple).  I tried to emulate their style (because they’re amazing) instead of find my own style and frustrated myself because I am not them.

3.  I didn’t carve out time every week to work on this.  It doesn’t take much time, but when that time isn’t allocated it’s easy to let other stuff get in the way.

4.  I didn’t put good systems in place for picture printing and documenting.

Yesterday, I was listening to the Paperclipping.com podcast and their guests were Becky Higgins and two of her creative design team members.  Becky is the creator of Project Life and here is what she shared, “Yesterday I was on the Paperclipping Roundtable and the entire show is about Project Life. Elise Blaha Cripe and Catherine Davis, both brand-new to our Creative Team this year, also joined the discussion and we had a lot of great discussion about different approaches to using Project Life, as well as the benefits of keeping it really simple. If you’re interested in listening, it’s right HERE. I even talk about how I documented life on a weekly basis last year … until June. And then life took on some unexpected twists, and the whole last half of my 2012 book is still unfinished. However, as you listen you’ll gain insight as to WHY I’m not stressed, and HOW I am planning to easily and quickly wrap up the remaining 6 months of my 2012 book.” 

I cannot tell you how much her words instantly relieved me of the guilt I’ve been feeling at just completing two months of last year!  While I won’t be going back to fill in the rest of 2012, I promptly got my album out, collected my core kit cards and a few stickers and started fresh with 2013.  I had been jotting down daily memories and collecting them in my Iphone, so it was easy to write the stories and pop in the pictures.

I’m still trying to figure out the picture printing deal.  The CVS that I use has a policy that you have to order $5 worth of photo printing or else they charge you a $1.50 surcharge.  If I only need 7 pictures during a week (about $1.40), it’s not very cost effective to print every week.  I haven’t figured out how the cost compares to printing on my printer yet, so until I do, I will be collecting my pictures until I have at least $5 worth to print.  In the meantime, my solution is to identify which picture I want in which section of my page and then just put a sticky note.  Then when the photos are printed, I can just slip them in.

I am more dedicated to recording my stories and taking my pictures to ensure that I am documenting my life.  I am completely comfortable with maybe going back later to fancy them up with embellishments, but if I don’t do that then it’s okay.  I have the most important pieces in place.  I think I’ve addressed all four of the areas that I saw as stumbling blocks and am excited about the whole process again.

I love do-overs! 

“Is this why you take so many pictures of us?”