Getting Started with Project Life

Project Life can be a very simple way to scrapbook all of your memories. Most of us now have phones with a camera on them and that is how 90% or more of all our photos are taken.  Only once in awhile do we have our "good" cameras with us.  And most of the time the pictures I take on my phone are not ones I would deem "scrap-able", but they are the pictures that truly show what is going on in our lives. I have over 700 photos on my phone. I take pictures of all kinds of things. And so does my daughter. I sometimes look at my phone and have over 20 photos of her just making faces at it. I want to get these moments into my albums as well and project life is perfect for this!


Basic project life protectors come with different slot orientations for photos and have journaling cards and things to add to them. Below is a sample of some of the different combinations of protectors. You just print and add your photos in the spaces provided then fill in with journaling or small photos.

Other than starting out with a basic PL kit (album, protectors, and card inserts) I would suggest a couple apps for your phone as well. These are not necessary but they make it even easier (if that's possible) to get your photos into your albums. The first app is Momento (I believe this is only an iphone app right now, but their are others available for android).  This app is like a journal for your phone and it also pulls your feeds from your facebook and other social media sites. Yes, you could use any other journal app but along with letting you add all your little moments if you are just adding it and want to use a photo on your phone that you maybe don't remember the exact date it was taken, when you click the photo it asks if you want to use the date/time the photo was taken as its date! That feature alone is completely awesome! So many times I take photos and then when I go to do my layouts I can't remember when it was taken. Sure I may know the general week I took it (not usually, lol) but this adds the EXACT day and time! The other thing I am loving about this is it has reminders for a daily photo so you remember to document something, and it pops up a reminder asking "how was your day" as a journaling prompt so that if you are as forgetful as me, you still will be able to jot down anything that happened that you want to remember!

The second app you need is PICFRAME. This app works so great with your phone. Project life has 4x6 and 6x4 photo slots along with 3x2 and 2x3 and with picframe you do not need to use a computer program such as photoshop to put two photos on one 4x6 picture to be printed.

Here is a screen shot of picframe and some of the layouts it has.  The highlighted one is the one I use most often. If you can look close in the top right corner of the picframe photo you can see it says 3:2 that is the ratio you want to add two photos for a 4x6. If your photos are more horizontal click the 3rd little block and make sure your ratio is 2:3.

They will print on a 4x6 picture together and you can leave the little border or get rid of it. Then all I do is cut them apart and round the edges if I want. 

I also keep the walgreens app on my phone and upload the photos to walgreens at the end of each week for my project life albums. 

To simplify it even more, I keep all these apps in one folder on my homescreen of my phone so that are all together and easily accessible. 

Becky Higgins and Project Life are joining Stampin' Up!

Can you tell how extremely excited I am for this?  Awhile back I done a post where I was starting project life and wanted to use SU products to do this. Admittedly I was not very good about doing that or keeping up with it. The pre-made products are just so much easier and quicker to use!  So last year I broke down and was doing my PL album with a Becky Higgins kit and was pretty good about keeping up with it. At least for awhile that is. I know for many of you, you are familiar with Project Life and how it works but for those who are not, you are GOING TO LOVE THIS! It will get all your photos off your phone, instagram, facebook and computer and into albums where you will be able to keep them forever. I am going to try to do at least one weekly blog post with project life tips and things per week once the PL items are available starting next month so make sure you keep checking back.

Click the link for the SU blog with more details and a preview of some of the new products that will be available.

Year in Review

2013 is almost over. I am always a little sad at the passing of a year and start of a new. The kids are getting older and many things didn't get done that I would have liked to have finished. At the start of last year I wanted to do a project life album. I started out fairly strong and I think I completed it until April. After that NOTHING! Then at the beginning of December I had intentions to do a December Daily album with all the pictures from this month. How do you think that is going? I have not done one page. I do have the album, the inserts and embellishments and have taken notes for some of the days, but I didn't get pictures of every day.  So now I am trying to determine how to do better and stay on track for project life next year and if I should just go ahead and do a December Daily album this year with the few pictures I do have.

I think the biggest obstacle is not getting my pictures printed. I take 99% of my pictures each week with my phone. That helps me get more taken because it is always with me but most of them are not what I would normally consider scrapbook worthy. I made the decision last year that I didn't care about that. The kids don't care about the photography and just would like to look back and see their photos. I even lost my good camera in the pool last year when we went to Disney.  I got another nice camera this past fall but have not used it much since they are so bulky.  

So if you do project life or are one of those people that are great about getting your pictures printed, help me figure out a system that will work for me. Give me your tips, tricks and anything that has helped you to get the pictures off your phone and computer and into your albums! And would you do the December Daily album anyway even if you only had about 12 pictures to use? Or would you just put them in your regular album?


This picture is blurry but it was taken in December and will go in my December Daily album if I decide to do it.

All month the cat has been good and just laid under the tree, but after I added presents Christmas eve he must have thought it was too crowded under there and decided he would lay IN the tree instead.