Project Life Storage

I saw this video on Youtube by Inki Quill about how she organised her Project Life cards, and it inspired me to organise mine.  After my recent de-stash I ran out of time to organise my cards and I think if they are easier to find then I will make more inroads into them. Win-win!

On UKScrappers another crafter recommended a re-purposed tray from Poundland (originally for father's day) to store PL cards, but my local shop had run out when I got there. Disappointment all round.

 Seeking solace I headed to Ikea, and found a couple of 'Tjena' boxes in the sale; reduced as yellow is not everyone's choice of colour.  They do sell other colours too at full price, but I went down the bargain route!

To make the boxes strong enough to hold my cards I used both wet and hot glue to put them together...

...and made use of large amouts of washi tape to secure the edges of the lids and add a little decoration.

I planned to use the smaller of the two boxes for 6x4" cards, but it was a little wide and would waste storage space,

so I made a partition (from a cereal box covered in the wide washi tape) to store a set of 3x2" cards too.

The larger box came with 12 partitions large enough for 3x2" cards...

..so I sorted them mainly by colour, using washi tape on top of each partition so I know which colour is in which space.  There's also a little room for a few die cuts made from the cards.

The smaller box has all my 6x4" cards sorted by colour, and the space at the side holds 3x2" journalling cards.

So now I can find my PL cards I MUST use them on 12x12 pages and pocket pages too! And as the box is still full, no more buying Project Life cards for me :)

Project Life January

I always find this month hard to complete in  my Project Life album as it is sooooo quiet! The first six days have been covered by the end of my Christmas journal and then not much else seems to go on.

I did manage to find a few January photos (thanks to my phone!) and add them to my PL pages.

Project Life 2015

Here is my cover page for this year's layouts.

After buying a Crate paper grungy/chalkboard kit, this page has a very different feel to earlier ones.  Photos are B&W again (as on last year's cover page) and the date is stamped.  I will stick to this stamp throughout the year for my dates. Can't guarantee this is how it will look all year, as I do like the odd pop of colour!

Project Life Catch Up.

Although I had my photos together for PL at the end of last year, work after half term was so busy I didn't manage to catch up until the Christmas holidays.  Once I got going, it didn't take long (that's the beauty of PL) and I did manage to get a number of pictures scrapbooked.

In October I watched a lot of Strictly, the garden looked gorgeous as we had a late autumn and all the trees changed colour at the same time, and I had to carve the pumpkin.

November was the month when Hannah left home for her job in Nottingham, we had a day at the NEC christmas craft show, skittles in Nuneaton, shopping in the German market with Pauline and silly hats on Harry.  Not as quiet as October!

The December page is always small as I journal daily in my Christmas journal, but it is useful for any left over pictures that didn't make it into the journal. Christmas decorations in the city centre and dressing up at work made for this month.

The page is 6x8 ( another journal leftover) and I used both sides for the festive season.

September Project Life.

A very busy month due to work, and a weekend trip to Aberystwyth with Katie heading off to University.

A family funeral following the sad death of my Uncle and lots of (very dull) work.
Not much time for anything else :)

August Project Life.

August is always a busy month for us as we actually feel like we have lives when  we don't have to spend over 50 hours a week working. This summer was no exception as we completed our holiday in Dorset, and spent a few days in London with my brother.

All of this meant that it was a squeeze to fit in all the photos to the August Project Life. I solved the problem using Simple Stories photo flips allowing me to add lots of extras on an interactive layout.

Note to self: I need to get some more photo flips.

July Project Life

Typing this at the beginning of September July's long days and warm weather seem so far away.

 Here is my page for the month to record what we got up to.

As July is holiday month and always busy, I added and extra 6x8" Simple Stories page, it will help with August too, as I'll have my London and holiday photos to include.

I found these cute little paper clips in The Range, both male and female for only £1 a pack.

The page forms part of the UKScrappers Project Life challenge; we had to include typography on the layout.  I decided to pierce and stitch mine on a journalling card for a change.

Lookalikes

As a child I didn't think I looked like my sister, but the older we get, the more alike we look.

 On holiday recently we went out to a local seafront restaurant with Katie and Kevin, as it wasn't open when we arrived we took the opportunity to take a few photos, and I loved this one of the two of us.

All the papers and decorations are from Project Life kits, cards chopped up to make embellishments, and some additional papers by Amy Tan (Sketchbook).

It just goes to show you don't need full 12x12 papers to make a scrapbook layout.

Project Life: May

The challenge for May's Project Life page was to include stamping.  Not too much of a challenge for me, as I stamp on every page!

 As our car was damaged back in may I looked for a series of car related stamps and found a cute set from Unity I have had knocking about for ages; perfect for this page!
I'm trying to include the weather photo on every month, and just had to include the chlakboard image advertising national Scrapbooking Day.

Project Life April

April was going to be a big month, most of the Easter holiday was due to fall during April, it was our wedding anniversary, and Kev had organised lots of family celebrations for my big birthday

I thought I would have no problems finding pictures for my PL page for the month so had planned a double layout; how wrong I was!
The month started well with silly pictures of me with work mates on character day at school. Emma was the funniest with an inflated rubber glove sewn to her top as an udder (the cow that jumped over the moon!) Of course we had Easter, so the eggs got a look in, but I had to be dragged out my sick-bed for my birthday photos in my highly attractive pyjamas. Finally, BBC2 saved the day by almost sharing their 50th birthday with me, so I managed to find a picture of the ident they were using to celebrate.
Page done!

Project Life March

For the the month of March, the challenge was to make a pocket to fill with sequins, and also to add extra photos in some way.   I cut a section of pocketed page protector and added it as a flap to the page using washi tape. Great if you have a busy month.

Kev dressed up as part of character day at his school, I took a few photos in the garden, and we went out for lunch on Mother's Day, a surprise birthday party and to the NEC Hobbycraft show. Harry went camping with the Explorers in south Warwickshire.

The month ended badly with a tooth abscess and a trip to the dentists.

Project Life

February.

Those storms seem a while ago now, but at the time we found ourselves wondering if they would ever abate. Memories of our neighbour's roof tiles ending up in his front garden, the winter Olympics, a birthday meal and a romantic tin of Love Hearts.

Just a quick post with a previously made page.  Not felt like doing any crafting this week.

Project Life Update

January's page, Mum had a big birthday ( and so do I in a few weeks!)

Kev made things with his lathe, a blessing for a lovely little girls

And family get togethers.

On the down side this week I had an emergency visit to the dentist with severe toothache; diagnosis a broken molar with accompanying abscess. Treatment? Antibiotics,  root canal filling and yet another crown. That makes 3 lost teeth and 3 crowns out of 22.  Anyone would think I never brushed them :(

Project Life

For non-scrapbookers out there, Project Life (PL) is a simple way of recording the little things that happen in a really maneagable way.  The system consists of a series of plastic wallets divided into pockets mainly 6x4" (the ideal size for most photos) and 3x2" in size.  You can buy kits of decorated ready made cards to slip into the pockets along with your pictures.  Also available within the kits are journalling cards, they are so simple to use that scrapbookers find it easier to keep up with their pages; the pressure is off!

I had a go at PL last year, many scrappers make a page a week, but i simple wanted to use it to make use of the photos I didn't get around to scrapping, it also allowed me to scrapbook chronologically, which I don't really do. I only make one page a month, and am continuing with PL this year too.

Here's my cover page for this year, I used a mix of Teresa Collins papers and the PL Blush kit, along with stamps  and negative space created using a Sizzix die.

You don't have to buy the kits to take part in PL, many crafters make their own, and there are lots of free digi printables out there if that's your thing.  I tend to add extra embelishments and detail to the cards, using plenty of stamps, die-cuts and washi tape. Flat embellishments tend to work best otherwise a PL album can become huge!