So last year I made a valiant attempt at chronicling our
year in a scrap book. My goal was to go from December 21, 2011 to December 22,
2012. I called it Waiting for the Apocalypse. I got to about March before I stopped. The problem was I take
so many pictures that I ended up with an overwhelming amount to go through. I
got frustrated and, not a big surprise, distracted by other things that were
slightly more pressing than scrapbooking.
But I still liked and clung to the idea of scrapbooking life
as it happened. And it was in the course of looking for new scrapbooking
resources that I stumbled across a few blogs that were talking about something
called Project Life. I traced the links back to a woman, Becky Higgins, who had
hatched and sold a scrapbooking system that cut out time consuming layout
dilemmas and matching papers.
Project Life is a streamlined system. Something I can take
out and spend an hour or two with and put away. I liked that.
I did not, however, like the price tag associated with all
the accessories. I’ve got accessories out the wazoo! Paper, stickers, vellum
quotes and sayings, albums…and did I mention the paper? I’ve got a lot of
scrapbook paper. I’ve got enough scrapbook paper that I’m probably going to
have to include it in my will.
The one thing I didn’t have was the nifty photo pages (photo
page protectors…what are those things called anyway?).
So I ordered some (FYI - Becky sells her supplies through Amazon). Just a small pack to see how it would go.
While I was waiting from my package to arrive I spent my evenings going through
my shoebox full of scraps cutting them down to sizes that would fit the photo
pages. I spent hours combing through the photos I’d taken trying to narrow the
ones I loved down to a reasonable 5-8. Five to eight photos to capture the week.
Reasonable and doable.
Once the pages arrived, I established a routine. Oh how I
hate routines (more on that later)! But I knew that if I didn’t establish a day
to scrapbook, it would just collect dust like the Camping book, the Apocalypse
book and the Birthday Fiesta O’ Fun books. Mondays, I decided would be the day.
Mondays I go into town and run my errands. I do the grocery shopping, I pick up
the miscellaneous things I need from Home Depot or Target. Mondays I would
print my photos and Mondays I would scrapbook.
And, my friends, I do. I am. It isn’t overly elaborate or
crazy with crafty and creativity but I’m getting what I wanted to accomplish
done. And that, my friends, makes me happy. And slightly proud because really
right now, I need to show that I can start a project and finish it.
