On Catching Up..
I have recently changed the way I approach my Project Life album, and I’m excited to be sharing more recent pages soon! Before the summer I fell back with my PL, and even though I heard advice from several people who had been able to catch up by working on the current week and then working backwards, I stubbornly refused to work current, and kept working chronologically. Since I use different type of protectors, I didn’t want to be locking in the design of the previous week by working on the later one. (how stupid is that?? 😉 But I kept at it for months!)
The problem is that once you’re behind, you don’t really have a strong motivation not to fall even more behind. You’re already behind, so what’s another week going to do? The result is that I let an entire month go by without completing a weekly spread! So a few weeks ago I decided to give this new approach a try: work on the latest week, and work on the older ones at the same time. It has been going well so far: I started with Week 44, then caught up with Week 43, and completed Week 45 on time. I haven’t finished week 46 (last week) yet because I was away on a business trip, and I’ve been super busy since I got back, but I have about half the pictures printed out already.
My mom is arriving later today for a 2 week visit, so I will likely fall behind again, but I want to keep up this method because I know it will help me get caught up faster.
Style Change
One thing I noticed when I compared the albums of scrapbookers I admire with mine is that I have so many photos in mine that I often have to make collages to fit all the pictures. Collages are great, but I love having bigger pictures in my album. So I’ve been moving towards larger pictures, even if it means I need to add an insert. I’ve added an insert for the past couple of weeks, and even though it will make my album bulkier in the end, it makes me happy.
What Next?
11 months in, I’m still excited about this project, and I cherish my album dearly.
I will keep doing PL in 2013 as well. I have too much fun stamping in my album to give it up, but I have simplified my style (I don’t try to color match as hard as I used to) and I make extensive use of the 3×4 and 4 x 6 Grid Cards. Another common theme I noticed in the pages I admire is that all of them have a white border around pictures, so I think I will start trying that look in 2013.
Photographing and blogging my pages is a huge time commitment, but it’s a good motivator too, so I plan to keep doing that as much as possible.
What’s your approach with Project Life?
