Project Life - a sampling

I have been a "scrapbooker" for as long as I can remember. I have several yellowing, magnetic page albums filled with newspaper articles, class pictures, notes from friends, and magazine clippings from my childhood. I also vividly remember covering entire walls of my bedroom as a teenager with pages from teen magazines. I've filled numerous sketch books with collages, I have more journals than I can count, and I even have a scrapbook that my sweet friends put together for one of my bridal showers.

When my daughter was born, I would spend hours making layouts while she napped or played next to me in my "studio." I loved the entire process (the shopping, the stamping, the creating), and I loved that I was able to spend time documenting our memories. By the time our son was born; however, my excitement had begun to wane. Instead of feeling inspired, I felt overwhelmed, inadequate, and a nagging sense of guilt about the lack of layouts for my little boy. I had a closet full of scrapbook supplies that sat virtually unused for over a year.

Enter Project Life.

This project has re-energized me, and given me a renewed excitement for documenting our memories. It's simple. It's do-able. It's fun. And it's a great way to document an entire year's worth of memories with a very minimal time commitment.

As promised, here are a few shots of my "Project Life 2011" album so far. These aren't necessarily in chronological order, just a sampling of how my pages are coming together throughout the album.

I've included 12 x 12 photos throughout the album

 a layout with Instagram photos

 81/2 x 11 page protectors with digital layouts fit right in

I also included an envelope filled with birthday blessings for Grant on his birthday

a 12 x 12 Birthday layout

and a few pages I printed out from blog entries and placed in 81/2 x 11 page protectors

I love having one central place to collect and store our family's memories. Along the way, I've included special school work, certificates, receipts, movie tickets, programs, etc... little bits of life that help to tell a more complete story of our year.
This is my second year doing some version of Project Life, and I have to say it is my favorite project to date!!