New Obsession: Project Life!

Okay! You may have heard hints in the past couple of posts that I have two new (kind of) crafty obsession. I finally took some pictures today so you get to find out Obsession #1!

(I'll post about obsession #2 in another post. Each thing is so awesome it deserves its own post!)

New Obsession #1: Project Life
I've never seen or heard of Project Life before but I came across it a week or so ago in this post on the blog Wee Wonderfuls. It's genius! (I also feel like it's a bit silly. I'll explain why later.)

Here's kind of what it is:

• You have a 12 x 12 binder.
• You have plastic pages with a bunch of pockets, usually measuring 4x6 in or 3x4 in.
• There are kits you buy with embellishment papers.
• You place your pictures and embellisments/journals in the pockets. 
• Voila! Done.

Here's my first page so you can see what I'm taking about:

When I first starting watching the video links (like these here, here, and here for example) for this I got that creeping butterfly-in-the-stomach excitement about this. Like, super excited. It was revolutionary for me that I could do this and that it was so easy and so quick. Here's the part where it's a bit silly...in the back of my mind I'm thinking: "How is this that different from a photo album which has been around for years? How is this a "revolutionary" idea of putting pictures and things into pockets?" Whatever. If it makes me happy, right?

I made Mr. 246 watch a HSN video on Project Life and they kept exclaiming "You just take your pictures and put them in the pockets!" I kind of cringed at that point 'cause I felt a bit silly being excited about a photo album, but it's so much more than that! Here...let me show you!

The "kits" I got were from Michael's and they are official "Project Life" products, but they're pretty much the same thing. The brand is Pocket Pages and they were on sale last week for 2 for $5 at Michael's!

You get a little embellishment & journal pack with 4x6 in cards and 3x4 in cards:

Each pack they sell kind of has it's own theme and color scheme. The one above is travel themed. Some of the cards have spots for journaling specific things, others just have a pattern (like the 3x4 cards on the bottom right), but all  of them have space for journaling on the back!

Look at this embellishment card:

It's beautiful and would look lovely to embellish any photo page, buuuuut that's not all, folks! Turn it over and there's space to journal!

It's kind of hard to see in that picture since it's so faint, but all cards have either a grid or a dot grid (so you can use it portrait or landscape orientation) so you can journal.

I love the journaling aspect. And the pockets. It makes it an interactive photo album/scrapbook hybrid. Who doesn't love a project that you can pick apart and interact with? It's like those hands-on museums which are far superior to regular museums. You really get to get involved. Little surprises everywhere!

Here's one of my little interactive journaling bits in action:

Wanna see the full effect? It's like paper crafting eye candy...

Some of the pages I put together a 12x12 collage in a photo editor and just printed those out to slip into 12x12 pockets. Also, you can see near Luna's birthday pictures in top I have an envelope I slipped in. It's an envelope from one of her birthday cards and it has extra pictures and other birthday mementos inside it. Fun, right?

You want to see some more? Of course you do!

I love that I can add in little memory things like the pressed pennies. The little San Diego Zoo title I cut out of packaging from a souvenir we bought (paper made from elephant poop!). Years from now we can take them out and touch them too!

Above is an example of some of the prompted journaling. I think on the back of the "Trip Details" I had written even more. You can see the top edge in the bottom right side where I used some washi tape to include our hotel parking pass and room key!

I've even starting day-to-day documentation. This page includes: pictures from my trip to the antique bookstore, pictures of Luna at Barnes and Noble's on "family night", picture of Luna doing her first painting, and I even cut part of the painting and laminated it to keep in the pocket. (See bottom left corner of photo). I love that I will have this stuff forever and it's displayed in such a nice way.

I've started my little collection of supplies in a photo box. It came with dividers which is perfect since I can divide up the cards by the themes they're sold in. I even have some Smash book supplies that were on clearance so I can add even more embellishments and whatnot.

Here's what I love about the "Project Life": I have a beautiful way to display our pictures (usually they sat on our computer and if I got around to it I would print some off or make a Shutterfly book). It's interactive, and fun, and easy! Print out some pictures once a week, put them in the pockets, add some journaling, and you're done. 

I could never do scrapbooking before since I'd literally spend hours on one page because I'd want it to look fabulous. You can't keep up with that. This you can keep up with.

I've started pinning things here if you'd like to follow that board.

Do I sound like a commercial? Maybe. But I told you, it's a new obsession so you were warned. Haha. I'll try to post pictures of anything neat I add to my book. I just really wanted to share. I hadn't heard of this before (usually I stay away from paper crafting) until I read Hillary's at Wee Wonderful's blog post. So, a big thank you to her!

So, what do you think? How do you keep your families memories organized?

Goodnight!

-Ms. 246