Last year, while I was on the World Race we usually had limited internet access, so the few times I was able to get online I would go to my favorite blogs and quickly save them to my desktop so I could read them later.  One day, while I was in Mozambique I had some downtime so I decided to read some of the blogs I’d saved.  Most of the blogs I read are by crafty, creative people and there seemed to be this overwhelming topic between all the different bloggers, something called “Project Life,” it looked awesome, and I decided right there in a hammock in Africa, that I wanted to do it too.

Now let me back up a little bit.  I started scrapbooking when I was in college during the time when scrapbooking was starting becoming “cool” again.  I bought fancy papers, stamps and rhine stones and amassed a pretty significant collection of materials.  A collection that ended up sitting in my American bedroom as I lived abroad and traveled the world.  Then, one day in 2011 as I was preparing to leave on the Race, I looked over at my drawers filled with scrapbooking materials and I realized, I didn’t love it anymore.  The idea of decorating a 12×12 piece of paper with 50 embellishments to go along with a tiny photo of a day at the beach weighed on me, and it wasn’t how I wanted to record my memories.  When I look back at these moments in 20, 30, 40 years, it’s not going to be about how well I decorated the piece of paper, it’s going to be about the moment captured in the photo…

And that’s why Project Life caught my eye.  It’s a memory keeping concept that’s more about a life well lived than a page well decorated.  Some Project Lifer’s don’t decorate their pictures at all, filling the slots simply with photos and journaling cards, while others go all out like they would with a scrapbook page, sewing and embellishing…. My style is somewhere in the middle.  I’m not super simple but not over the top either.

Originally, since I was going to be in Bolivia until August, I thought my journey with Project Life was going to have to wait until 2014, but when I decided to come home early it was the first thing that shot onto my radar, and when my mom asked me what I wanted for Christmas I knew exactly what I would ask for.  Unfortunately my  Mom forgot to change the address when she ordered from Amazon and my binder/page protectors ended up being shipped to the middle school she works at and I had to wait until after school started again to be able to get them.  So, as I waited patiently I decided to work on my title page design…

I went through a lot of ideas for what I wanted my title page to look like.  Most people space it out like they would a typical weekly layout. I love this one by Elaine (see the confetti!).  But the one that caught my eye the most was this nearly full page layout by Kelly Purkey.  In the end though, when making a full page photo layout it all comes down to the photo, and the perfect photo just wasn’t working out for me, so I brainstormed and I really like what I came up with, take a look

Unfortunately today’s stormy NW weather didn’t allow for the perfect photo taking conditions but in the end the lighting turned out ok.

 

Like I said, this year is the year of CHANGE…

 

I’m so excited for the weeks to come and seeing how my style evolves over the next year!  Right now it looks like I’ll be using a lot of the supplies I already have on hand, but this spring Project Life is releasing some pretty sweet core kits and I’ve got my eye on a couple different ones.  Now the big decision is what one to choose!

Stay tuned, I’m hoping to post my layout from my first week of the year tomorrow!  Can’t wait!

P.S. I have a confession… I actually made an insert that said 2012 before I realized I was apparently stuck in the wrong year and promptly changed it to 2013.  Wouldn’t that have been awkward?