Project Life 2013

I had a great time doing Project Life last year. It has transformed the way I scrapbook and for now, at least, I can't imagine doing it any other way. I absolutely love the ordinariness of it. I love that it captures our day to day lives, and not just the 'big' moments. I'm already enjoying flipping through the album and remembering...and some of the memories are only 6 weeks old!

Cover page

There was no question I'd be doing the same again this year. I did consider that it might be a bit 'samey' and I think at times it will be - but isn't that the perfect way to document the passage of time. That photo of the front of the house? - looks the same. But look closely and aren't those bushes and shrubs so much bigger and bushier than a year ago? The view from the deck? - wow - 5 more houses built in the last 12 months, and that same old picture of the bedside tables? - you can peek at the book I was reading at the time and that I had a cold because the cough medicine and a box of tissues is visible!

I picked the seafoam core kit to use this year. I love the neutral colour palette it has and the simplicity of the designs - I don't think theres a card design I don't like and won't use!

Weeks 2 & 3

Last year I confess to sometimes taking 3-4 hours on a 'simple' double page spread. And whilst I loved every minute of that time playing and being creative I think Chris would like a bit more quality together time! So I want to still have fun with the creative side but in an effort to keep it more simple and straight-forward to put together I'm trying to use more of the kit and less of my own papers. 5 weeks in, and that seems to be working. The other thing that is working for me is to keep completely up-to-date with it. That way if I have a spare 10 minutes in the evening I can pop into my craft room and cut up that receipt or tag I just got and pop it into a pocket. Or spend those few moments resizing some photos. So by the time I come to put the spread together on the weekend it's already half done! My weeks are running Monday to Sunday and I'm generally getting the pages together on Sunday or Monday night!

Week 5 & a Vizsla!

This year I'm sharing my layouts on Instagram - if you're on a computer you can find my feed here or if you're using the app on your phone my Instagram name is brit_chick...

More Project Life (weeks 21 & 22)

Week 21 covers the 20 - 26 May. Lots of movie watching for us this week. I rented a couple from iTunes for my journey back from LA (to watch on the new iPad of course!!), and then we had a early season trip to the drive-in theatre too - and watched Men in Black 3. It was better late than never with the plants tthis week - I finally got all the peppers, tomators and herbs planted - would've liked to have done it sooner, but time has been slipping away this spring!

and Week 22 covers 27 May to 2 June. We Started the week in Oliver for our 1/2 corked marathon. Chris sprained his ankle mid-week and then the culmination of a years work for me and the professional conference I'd been planning went off hitch-free! Busy, busy times!

Project Life catch-up (weeks 19 & 20)

So it might seem like I'm behind on project life here on the blog, but after a weekend at home to myself last weekend I am completely up to date! It's just getting around to photographing them all and uploading to the interwebs! Playing catchup last weekend reminded me just how much I enjoy whiling away hours of time on being creative!! I still love this project, although I know it takes me quite a bit of time, so I don't know if it's sustainable year after year (I'd like it to be, but the way I play right now it's too involved!) Just need to try and figure that one out....!
Week 19

Week 20 covers the week 13 - 19 May. At the start of the week took the plunge and paid our deposit for our new puppy - 7 long weeks to wait until she can come home to us! Within hours of posting the news on facebook for name suggestions we settled on Meli - Greek for honey - so perfect as we married in Cyprus so a sweet Greek word is kinda significant - and of course she's going to be our honey! I jetted off to the scrapbook event 'Inspired Journey' in Los Angeles for the Canadian Long weekend - it was also perfect to stop and see my Uncle and Aunt in Orange County, and of course get some serious shopping in (got a new iPad!) and lots of great food which had to be recorded! 

Project Life (weeks 17 & 18)

I've slipped behind a little with my project life. Thing is with this fabulous project is that LIFE gets in the way!! I'm not stressing it, because I've been so busy but I've been missing my creative outlet.

This weekend was the culmination of more than a year's work for me; organizing a conference for 185 child care professionals. It happened. And I was incredibly happy with how it all turned out. I've organized a couple of other events - a music event for around 2000 and a smaller professional event for around 50 in the past. But this was something different again. It was a new challenge and it's been an exciting time for me. The last couple of weeks have been full of those little butterflies of 'what if's' and 'what have I forgotten?' but it really did go off without a hitch and flicking through my delegate evaluation and feedback forms people seem to have been happy. I had a moment come Saturday evening when the last of our stuff was packed up and I was making my way to my car to drive home, where my eyes may have welled up a little - this was my baby....and it had flown the nest! Back in the office on Monday morning and there's still plenty of wrap-up work to be done. But in 2 weeks time the 'project' will be shutting down and I'll be reducing my hours at the agency. It's the end of an era!!

Not content with 2 days of working around 12 hours a piece on my feet and in brain overdrive, I then decided to skip the Sunday morning much deserved lie-in and do a 10km trail run race. My first 10km trail race!! Another amazing event by the Dirty Feet people. We took part in the 5km last year but I was ready for more of a challenge. A fabulous venue through Myra Bellevue Provincial Park with view of the city and lake (not that you can spend a lot of time looking when trying to skip your way across the boulders and streams!) Chris has sprained his ankle last Wednesday. Bad. Like me back in December. It swelled up much worse than mine, but we're experts in dealing with ankle sprains in this house and we were straight on the treatments and luckily he's been walking without crutches. But my fellow trail running companion was most certainly out of action!! It was a tough course - the first half at least - I think from km 3-5km it was just straight uphill walking - it was all I could do not to stop - but I didn't. I like my downhills and was flying come the half way point. In the end I finished in 1:16. Perfectly happy with that. I was surprised just how much it took it out of me. I was utterly gimped for the rest of the afternoon and evening!

Anyway. That's life. And before all the busy busy-ness kicked in, I did do some project life pages. These are weeks 17 and 18, covering the period  April 22 to May 5th - I can't believe it - it seems so long ago - this covers Chris's birthday and a visit from his Mum!

Week 17

and Week 18

As you can see I was incredibly short of photos!! Still I did LOVE this shot of the beautiful Lake Okanagan on my run so it was also a great one of blow up nice and big. I also added in some food packaging due to the complete lack of photos!!

Project Life Blog Hop (& weeks 15 & 16)

Once again this month I'm participating in the Project Life Blog Hop hosted by Jill. Once you've visited here, your next stop on the blog hop is Jennifer. 

I'm not very good at remembering stories and writing them in - I'm still in the mindset that it needs to have a photo - which of course it doesn't! It's something I want to focus on in the coming weeks and months - record the stories and memories and stop sweating having the photo to match. Funnily enough Chris and I were talking only this week about the pressure to take photos. This is completely self-imposed pressure (and as a scrapbooker I think we're worse!) that we have to get 'that shot' and file away the memories. Right now our neighbourhood is amase of blossom in the fruit orchards (you name it we've got it here - apples, pears, cherries, peaches) Anyway...I'm driving through it every day to and from work, and I keep thinking that I must stop and take some photos while it's here. But really NO. I see it every day, God willing I'll see it every day for the 2 week window for many, many years to come and what's important is loving it and living in that moment and appreciating it every day I clap eyes on it. That's not to say photos aren't great, and I have some awesome blossom photos taken over the years. But if I'm not inspired or motivated to stop and take photos, then I need to let it go. It shouldn't be a 'chore'. What I do know is I appreciate and love it every day. And that's good enough for me. (And maybe, for a change write down my thoughts rather than take the photo. When we look back on these PL albums a good old fashioned 'story' or memoir mixed in with the photos will be quite lovely.)

Anyway, that's just my little rambling thoughts there. Fairly unrelated to the next couple of weeks of PL. Without further ado here are weeks 15 & 16 (I'm running about a week behind right now, which I'm completely cool with!)

Week 15

What can I say? I still LOVE this project. Some weeks I'm finding it harder to 'fill' - my week 16 spread is a case in point. (Notice there's a few filler pockets with some PL cards and patterned paper.) I find that the Smash journal cards are awesome fillers. I have the entertainment themed pad and there's some great pages to jot down favourite music, blogs, playlists, restaurants - a great way to get some of those items recorded in a fun and easy way - AND a great filler when you're short on content! - Fun to look back on those sort of things and see how much your tastes change! (although actually the music I've listed on my note here I don't think has changed in the last 2 decades - I'm pretty old school when it comes to my music - seriously Purple Rain was my favouorite ever song back in my University days and the Eric Clapton concert was at the Royal Albert Hall in London. (My Uncle and Aunt had got tickets months in advance, but when the time came my Aunt had got pregnant and wasn't keen on going anymore so I went instead - my cousin is now 18!) Anyway, it's a good idea in theory...!

Week 16

And if you have the time stop by all the participants on the blog hop; for some more PL inspiration!;

Margie http://xnomads.typepad.com

Devon http://www.youhadmeatneurotic.com

Nikki www.inkyart.com.au

Laew www.crafty-creativity.blogspot.com

Helen www.helen-mills.blogspot.com

Jennifer http://vogtstories.blogspot.com

Brighton www.dearbrighton.wordpress.com


Thanks to Jill for hosting!

Project Life Week 14

We spent a wonderful 6 days travelling down to Portland for our anniversary this week so the whole spread was about our trip. There were lots of opportunites to collect menus, business cards and postcards from all the places we visited. With so much stuff, along with a busy photo week for us. week 14 deserved it's own insert - just a trimmed down design A page protector so I could sqeeze in some extra bits and bobs!

Project Life Week 13

Ha! We're getting far enough into the year now that I'm loosing track of which week is which - I'm going to wear the pages out on the early weeks for thumbing through them each week to count it up!! What I do know is that we're a quarter of the way through the year - WOW! And this project still creatively inspires me!

For March I played along with a little instagram photo a day challenge hosted by @fatmumslim. Chantelle hosts these challenges every month which is awesome but I don't think I'll want to participate every month as I think the picture-taking commitment could bog me down.It was fun for 31 days and I may well jump in on a couple of other random months this year. Anyways....all my little instagram photos were put together on a collage to make my first ever project life insert! I just made them all 2x2" and created a grid in PSE. I printed at home and then back-to-backed them in a 12x6" page protector. If you notice there aren't 31 photos - I skipped a few days of taking photos and going back to fill in after the fact seemed a bit cheaty-pants to me!

So here is week 13;

And some close-ups of the main pages;

Project Life Blog Hop (& weeks 11 & 12)

I'm delighted to be taking part in a Project Life Blog Hop this month hosted by Jill Conyers;

We're a quarter of the way through this year and I'm still loving this project. It sparked my creativity in ways I didn't realise were possible (after completing a miserly 6 layouts last year). I'm using my stash, and am sticking to my resolution to myself to buy fewer new scrapping supplies. I know the original concept of project life was simplicity but I'm happy to while away a few hours a week on the project and make things a little more creative!

It's also the perfect 'home' to record progress on my 2012 manifesto and in particular some of the monthly and ongoing items on that list (such as #14: taking a monthly self portrait #19 - making 10 crockpot dishes, and #32 - making 10 washi tape projects (all of which appear in these last couple of weeks!)

Be sure to visit Alissa at Life on Lakeland who's the next person in this blog hop!

Week 11


And Week 12;

I have the turquoise core kit for project life, but as the weeks progress I'm finding I'm using the kit contents less and less (hey - it's great for shifting my stash!).

Here's the rest of the people participating in this month's blog hop. If you get a chance visit them all for some fabulous project life inspiration! 

Jill http://jillconyers.com/
Margie http://xnomads.typepad.com

Natalie espoirdesigns@bigpond.com

Sarah www.documentingchaos.wordpress.com

Devon http://www.youhadmeatneurotic.com

Brooke http://everysnapshot.com/

Helen www.helen-mills.blogspot.com <<--You are here!

Alissa http://lifeonlakeland.wordpress.com

Jennifer http://vogtstories.blogspot.com

Arlene http://craftymomma-ph.blogspot.com/2012/02/project-life-2012.html

Project Life weeks 9 & 10

Without further ado, here's my week 9 and 10. Not really 'real' weeks as I mentioned before, but it does get me back on track with the weeks of the year, and that makes me happy in my OCD little way!

Still absolutely loving this project.