Just Make Stuff

Project Life 2017: Summary

I only shared one batch of 2017 pages last year, so I am finally sharing the rest now.

I love using the app as much as ever and continue to be really grateful that it's this easy to save memories each week.

At the end of each year I have tallied each book when it was complete...

2015: 98 pages 791 photos

2016: 124 pages 1,108 photos

2017: 116 pages 1,021 photos

I still do one page per week and then extra pages for any event I have a few (or ton of) photos from. One of my favorite parts of the book this year was saving a bunch of screenshots from my Instagram stories.

I have had these printed as 8x8 prints through the Project Life app and plan on moving up to 10x10 prints for 2018.

Project Life 2017: 01

I was working on week twenty-seven today (and received my second batch of printed pages last week), so I thought I'd finally share week's one through sixteen. 

For 2017, I am using the same title cards each week (it's the Project 52 Fresh Edition set available in the app) and I've really liked keeping the same simple design with them. Besides my one page each week, I've made a few extra pages for holidays like Easter and Mother's Day. And I included all my Week in the Life photos and journaling.

Even though the year is only halfway done, I am already thinking of next year and contemplating switching to two pages a week so I have more room. Big life decisions, I know.

You can see my other Project Life posts here.

Project Life 2016: Stats

Just like 2015, I took a few minutes and counted everything up...

In 2016 I put together 124 pages with 1,108 photos.

I finished my last 2016 page on December 31st and immediately ordered prints of the last 40 pages I had for the year. The were all sitting in my album before the first week of the new year ended.

Wish I was that capable with everything in my life.

Project Life 2016: 06

These are the last of the pages for the year....amazing how fast all the holidays went.

Project Life 2016: 05

This little collage of twenty Project Life pages is from the beginning of August until the end of October. At this point, I had 100 pages done for the year with two months left to go. 

Project Life 2016: 04

Still catching up on sharing Project Life pages from this year. This was from July and the beginning of August...we were so lucky to have the best summer.

I am actually a couple weeks behind on making pages, but seeing all of these together has me want to go start working on them right now.

Project Life 2016: 03

Apparently I have completely forgotten to share anything in months, but I am still completely committed to using the Project Life app to crank out pages.

These twenty pages are actually from mid-May to early July. With Mac's high school graduation, there was lots of extra documenting beside the usual weekly stuff. 

I continue to really love the details I am catching that I know would have never been made into something otherwise. For instance, I have a whole page of photos from driving him to high school for the last time...I know those will rip my heart out in a few years. Heck, they already do.

Project Life 2016: 02

The next batch of Project Life pages arrived in my mail box today. So far this year thirty six pages of memories have been saved with many more to go.

Project Life 2016: 01

Getting ready to print the first batch of pages for 2016. Two tiny changes I made this year were not having rounded corners on the photos and having weeks run Monday through Sunday. Other than that, it's the same documenting of lots and lots of details.

A few Project Life tips...

Since I'll be catching up on the first three weeks of 2016 sometime this weekend and after going on and on a couple of weeks ago about how you have to do Project Life with me, I thought I'd share some of the things that have worked for me over the last year. 

First I have saved my pennies...literally. Loose change got saved to take to a Coin Star machine and traded in for an iTunes gift card (since you do not get charged a service fee when you select credit towards something like iTunes or Starbucks). I then used it to purchase in-app kits of journaling cards. 

Oh and the extra layout sets...those came in super handy too. (Above are some of my favorites.)

My plan last year was to make one page per week and then make an extra with a special event whenever I had enough pictures from it. I am sticking with that again this year. I did switch from having my weeks last year as Sunday through Saturday to Monday through Sunday this year.

I often used the Rhonna Designs app to add words to my photos. Since I mostly used the Project Life app on my iPad, those times that I had a few minutes and just my phone I would spend time editing photos with the Pic-Tap-Go app and then adding words. That way they were all ready when I went to put together a page. 

I also would just save a photo or two as an entire 8x8 page. I only did this a couple of times this past year, but I loved it and will hopefully do it more this time around.

Oh and I don't think I ever shared the two photos of Mac cheering. He fell in love with cheer when I was a high school instructional aide and we would go to the football games. His senior year was the first time in four years that we went back to the stadium for the high school I had worked at, so I made him walk back up into the stands on the opposing side to duplicate the photo now that he has been living his dream.

Hope you maybe decided to join in the Project Life app documenting this year...if you have any questions I'd be happy to try to help.

You just have to do this...

On Friday morning I finished the very last page and ordered a final batch of sixteen pages from the last month. In the last year I have fallen completely in love with using the Project Life app and gathering together memories big and small.

I have saved screen shots of text messages...dinners on the table...errands...all four naps Sean took during 2015. I have pulled over to the side of the road to get a photo of Mac being funny in the car...I have written down his quotes...and well documented every single one of the football games he cheered at his senior year.

I have captured more details than paper and glue scrapbooking could ever allow. There are 791 photos (yes, I'm a nerd and counted)...98 pages total. Pages that I worked on while watching tv, while waiting to pick up Mac at school, at Mac's tumbling class in between his back tuck attempts. Heck, I even scrapbooked during the weeks I only had one hand.

You have to do this too. Not that I want to be telling you what to do, but if you were an avid scrapbooker at any point and have been a little tight on time as of late, this is such a great way to go. It'll never be quite as fun as making a mess with patterned paper and stamps, but I still completely enjoyed every minute of it. 

And in keeping with the assertion that you just have to, I would love to buy the app for five of you. Please leave a "Pick me" sometime before Wednesday. I will email the five random winners and gift you the app through iTunes later this week.

Weeks Twenty-Nine to Forty-Four...

There is really nothing else I can say besides how much I love this.

Increasingly obsessed...

I received my order of thirty or so printed Project Life pages last week. I have been consistently making pages, but hadn't had them printed since March. It made me so happy to slip these into page protectors and see how many details have been captured. 

Speaking of detail documentation, I am going to participate in Week in a Life for the fifth year in a row this week. Here's 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014.

So easy...

Crafting has slowed way down over the last couple of weeks as I have lived one-handed for a bit and am now almost 100% back to two.

Despite this, I have been able to keep up to date on our book for the year. Apparently digital scrapbooking is so easy that you only need one hand.

Next batch...

I shared the first batch back in early March and have kept up since. Can't wait to get these printed...

The first ten...

Do you believe we are ten weeks into 2015?

This means I am ten weeks into using the Project Life app. I sat down this weekend and caught up on the last two weeks and sent the entire batch to be printed.

It's so much fun to see all these little bits of life captured for the first time in years...

Scrapbooking 2015...

I am not quite sure what made me think to start using the Project Life app for documenting 2015, but six weeks into the year I am really happy I did. I have it on my phone and iPad and love that I can work on it while waiting in the car, while stirring stuff around for dinner, while I am watching television, or while I am tucked into bed. I also have found the Rhonna Designs app to be super useful to add text to my photos before inserting them into the page layouts.

I have never actually done Project Life, but I really like the idea of something like A Week in the Life for 52 weeks. I had 8x8 photos of my pages printed at Costco and was less than thrilled, but I am going to try Persnickety Prints or maybe the printing service within the app.

I started scrapbooking almost nineteen years ago...officially half my life. It's amazing to think of how much it's changed, and it makes me super sad to think of the past few years that have been majorly lacking in the crafty documentation department. That's why I am really grateful to have a new way to gather memories together.

Although I cannot begin to imagine giving up good old printed photos, patterned papers and lots of stamps.