Monday, March 26, 2012

2012 Project Life | Week 11

I ended up doing Week 11 and Week 12 at the same time this past weekend.  Week 11 was full of events.  I visited my good friend Sally who was pregnant with twins and on bedrest (and who has since given birth to healthy babies!).  Todd won a Toastmasters speech contest.  I celebrated a birthday.  We went to see Bela Fleck in concert at Anthology.  And I went to a Girls Night Out cooking class.  I had a TON of photos from all these events in ONE week.  I felt lost and overwhelmed.  At first I was going to include an extra Design G insert for my birthday photos.  Then I just got overwhelmed with the amount of photos, journaling, and memorabilia that I just stalled and didn't do anything.  It was not a good feeling.  It caused me a lot of anxiety about whether to continue with Project Life.  I find that I'm spending 5-6 hours every weekend doing Project Life.  It's not how I envision spending my weekends.  Besides my full time job and various activities, I simply cannot afford to spend this much time (almost half my weekend!) doing Project Life, no matter how much I love the results.  I'm at a loss as to whether I should continue doing Project Life when it takes me so long.  And before you say it's worth it to preserve memories, I've already got that covered with daily Oh Life journaling and my blog.  So, if anyone has any ideas on how to get a week of Project Life done in 2 hours, PLEASE share in the comments.  I would love to know.

Two-page spread for the week.  I ended up deciding to eliminate a lot of photos and just went with a few to highlight the week.
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Left-side page.  I got some new stamps from Catslife Press and Paper Source and I enjoyed using them.
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For the week's title page, I stamped the "Awesome" polaroid frame onto vellum paper with black ink.  Waited for it to dry, then cut the frame out and adhered it over the photo of my birthday drink.  The little "Week 11" ticket I designed myself in the Silhouette software and printed and had the Silhouette cut the tickets out. 
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Here were the ticket strips printed and cut out, still on the Silhouette cutting mat.  I designed them all myself.
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The tickets have perforated cuts in between them, just like a real strip of tickets would.  I took them off the cutting mat one strip at a time.
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And here they all are!  Pretty fun and I love them!  You will definitely see these in my Project Life album often.
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Photo of me and Sally, and some journaling.
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Journaling about Todd's speech contest, and also about my birthday.  I used stamps and banners to decorate plain gridded Project Life journal cards
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Right-side page.
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I adhered the special menu at Anthology for the Bela Fleck concert, plus the printed tickets, to a gray American Craft 4x6 cardstock.  I love using these 4x6 cardstock because I don't have to cut them down to stick them into my Project Life album.  I have them in white and neutral colors.
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"Fabulous" journal card from Smash Pad:  Blank edition.  Right side is another blank grid journal card decorated with my favorite graph washi tape, the ticket I designed and cut, and more stamps from Catslife Press.  (All product links are at the end of the post.) 
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I love this photo collage of all the dishes we made at our Girls Night Out:  Tapas Party cooking class! 
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That's it for Week 11.  Like I said, if you have any suggestions for me to speed up my Project Life process, I would love to hear it in the comments.  I would love to continue with Project Life, but I definitely can't be spending 5-6 hours every weekend doing this.  It leads to resentment and stops being fun.


2012 Project Life | Week 11 Supplies



9 comments:

  1. Christine, I love your Project Life pages and I am so grateful that you take the time to post them on your blog as they are very inspirational. I have all the Project Life kits but I have a hard time putting it all together; my biggest hurdle being getting the pictures printed. The PL pages I have done are all in-retrospect. I print out 100 photos and then cobble pages together based on what I remember: mostly weekend adventures and not everyday stuff.

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  2. Your tickets you designed are awesome! I have been looking for a ticket stamp like that for a while. I looked in the list of supplies you used and found the link to Purple Onion and they had some blank tickets stamps that are just what I have wanted! I am so exited to get them, thanks for sharing everything! :)

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  3. Gosh, I don't really have any ideas for PL taking up less time. I probably spend a similar amount of time on mine, but I usually do it in little bits of time throughout the week, not all at once. It's my little bit of quiet time in my hectic day that I really enjoy.

    I LOVE your album and the style in which you execute it. I look forward to your Project Life posts so much! I hope you find a method that works for your time constraints because I'd truly miss your pages if you stopped doing them! :)

    Also, I'd buy those ticket strips you designed in a heartbeat! They are awesome!! I have PayPal available if you're selling. Ha!

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  4. Something that has really helped me pare down the time it's taken to tackle my Project Life each week is a planning page that I found from Marcy Penner (http://www.marcypenner.com/?p=6911).
    I sit at my computer, go through my pages and pencil them in on the planning page while I'm printing them off. It keeps it much easier for me to keep focused when it comes to working on my actual layout.
    Also, I don't add a TON of stuff on my pages, maybe a stamp or two or a couple of things cut from my Silhouette. I tend to get my photos in place first, journaling in second and everything else third. Then at least I know the most important stuff is done.

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  5. I'm just starting out doing PL, and I have found the biggest hurdle is figuring out which photo insert to use, based on the pix I took during the week.

    I've been journaling in a word document in the evening when I'm surfing or watching the tube. This is because I can't remember anything.

    Love, Love your ticket stubs....so far I haven't really added any embellishments to my inserts yet. I too get overwhelmed.

    I enjoy stopping by your blog and love to see you and your hubs life adventures.

    Thanks for sharing.
    Julie

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  6. Thank you everyone for your suggestions and tips! I made a list (gasp!) of them and will try to figure out what works for me in terms of trying to cut down on the time I spend doing my PL pages. :)

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  7. Suuuuuper cute!! I got behind on my PL and am doing catch up this week! I love your tickets - might have to make some myself!

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  8. The tickets are AWESOME!! Man, I want a Silhouette.

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  9. I did a DIY Project Life last year & ended up getting 5 months behind (I did finish it in the end but the journaling wasn't as good as the here & now journaling) I printed all my photos & included everything. This year I am planning more, I look for the stories I want to tell rather than all the best photos of the week. It is ok to leave stuff out, it is an overview of our life. I found this has really helped me to stay up to date & when I am busy & get out of routine I use my oh life journal & copy & paste onto some journal cards & call it done. The end product is so much more than each weekly layout. In last year's book the pages I love the most are the ones with the most journaling & the stories I captured by writing them down as they happened. I have noticed that my family read the words & look at the pictures but don't really notice the scrappiness of the pages.

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