I was having fun messing around a little in the "newer" art of scrapbooking, with only a couple of photos and multi-layred embellishments...each page taking at least an hour to complete. Which of course, I didn't realize until I pulled my head out of the monthly kit bags I'd signed up for or a few episodes of Mad Men passed by unnoticed. I was loving the well-curated kits from Freehand Scraps (no longer in production) and this rekindled love for mixing paper, stickers, and pictures. The one aspect that I couldn't get past was all of the time spent only 1 or 2 pictures when I might have had 10-15 worthy of the spotlight. I eventually started adding more and more pictures and less and less embellishments, which was a lot less time consuming and more conducive to my needs and history with scrapbooking.
During this time, I also started getting into making minibooks of events and/or seasons, giving me a whole book dedicated to whatever I wanted it to be. Seeing an end in sight AND completing a project felt really good. I found myself actually preferring this method of memory keeping and the 12x12 method was not my go-to for scrapbooking anymore. I came across Leigh-Ann and Elise and Eva, and really connected to their style and use of this smaller space. I ordered one of Eva's Christmas mixed paper books one season and LOVED working from the kit that was put together so well with coordinating paper and embellishments. And it only took me until February to complete! ;) But, the important thing to me was that I DID complete it.
I was also curating my own 4x6 or 6x6 mixed paper books and adding those to my online shop. I didn't really put a whole lot of energy into pushing them to sell, but they did sell well when I would set up tables at local craft shows. I think it's something people like to flip through in person to think about how it can adapt to them. I wasn't blogging completing pages so people could see them in action, but I did have samples to physically look at on my table at these shows, which helped. But, in reality, I was happy to make and complete these for me, and selling was just an added perk.
This was my main method of creative memory keeping throughout the seasons and holidays of the year. Until Project Life. Oh, Project Life...how much I adore thee. To me, it was like the heavens opened. It is the perfect combo of large format, more traditional methods of scrapbooking I started doing in high school & college and the small, tangible format of a mixed paper book. Hell yes. I'm trying to remember where I first saw a Project Life layout, but I do know it was sometime in the Fall of 2011. I knew immediately that I needed to dive in, but was confused on who owned it, where could I buy it, and how much was it going to be. It wasn't until later in the year that I got it all organized, and by then they were selling out like hot cakes! Guess I wasn't the only one that caught on to awesome it was going to be for the new year!
I was finally able to get the Design A pages that I was stalking Amazon for, the Clementine core kit was not a problem to order, and I went with the more basic black binder. I hunted the internet for inspiration and found so many different ways that folks were using the products, and finally narrowing it down to those whose stye appealed to me. I love that you can adapt it to suit you. I love that you can put however much energy you want to the spreads as a whole and what each pockets holds. I love that I started the book with a two-page weekly spread and ended it with a one-page weekly spread and it didn't matter. I've seen some where every pocket was like a full scrapbook layout, and some that simply held a photo with no writing or embellishments. And they were all awesome. So, naturally, I got completely overwhelmed and thought that my spreads would never look as good as the ones I was seeing. But, I said screw it - I can do this and I dove right in, hands first...to never look back. I.love.it.
And here's to 2013, which I plan on sharing in this space on a "regular" basis. Here's a peek of my title page…I'm a big fan.
See more about my 2012 Project Life here, here, and here.
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