My 100th Post!! Project Life Weeks 1-5

This is my 100th post on this blog!  

I'm so excited, and for it to be about Project Life is a wonderful coincidence!

I'm doing our Project Life book a little different than most people.  Because we aren't super active, and I don't take a lot of pictures, I'm using only one 12x12 page per week.  This means that when the album is open and you see two page protectors, that's 2 weeks worth.  I am using both Style A and Style D of the Photo Pocket Pages.

I'm just starting and finding my way.  I decided to just BEGIN and then I can always go back and make changes to my album--which I've done several times already.  So here are the photos of my first few weeks:

Opening Page

My opening page, which includes cards from the Cherry Core Kit, some Life Quote Cards I downloaded from Project Life's freebie section, and some digital scrapbooking pieces I printed.  The teal quote on the bottom left is one of my favorites.  It says "everyday I fall in love with you more and more.  well, not yesterday, yesterday you were pretty annoying."  I'm not sure where I got it from, but it's our sense of humor, and keeps things from becoming too "Perfect Life."

Week 1 Left Page

For the first week, I did use a 2-page spread.  We moved into a new place in a new town and started a new school.  So a LOT happened that week. The giant camera on the bottom left is a digital scrapbooking clip art I had printed.  The other elements are from the core kit.

Week 1 Right Page

The bottom center is a card from the core kit that is a beautiful turquoise flower, one I'll be using as filler art a lot, I believe :)  The "Be Awesome Today" and "I have found that if you love life, life will love you right back" are digital scrap elements.

Week 2

 The yellow card on the top right will be a picture of me celebrating after hooking the TV, Blu-Ray player and cable box up by myself--something all single Moms should celebrate!  This page includes a small photo of one of my son's pictures of his Angry Birds toy set--he loves to take pictures of his toys, and they're usually a good fit for the 3x4 slots.  One day I'm sure we'll look back and try to remember what happened to those!

Week 3

There's that beautiful turquoise flower again!  Week 3 started off with a make-over for me (thanks Mom!) and spending a beautiful sunny MLK Day exploring town and ended with me and James both sick with bad colds.  The temperature dropped significantly that week!

Week 4

So this week started with us both being sick--and the funny picture of me is one I would never have scrapped before, but one thing I've learned through Project Life is that the "normal" moments, the ones with your hair messed up or laundry in the background, are often the best photos to keep.  The silhouette of the girl with a ponytail is actually the card that came with a stamped necklace I'd ordered from a site called Between You and Me, and I love it so much.  The blank spot on the bottom right will be a picture of it.

Week 5

This page is one I'm not happy with.  I can't really explain why though; too much white, maybe.  I love the picture of my Mom, taken in Home Goods while we shopped on a "Girly Day" while James was at his Dad's.  The Visitor card and the receipt below it are from the Book Fair--and I'm always a sucker for buying books for James, and this was the most I'd ever spent at one fair.  But we got some cool new books, real comic books for Adventure Time (which is totally mathematical!!) and Ninjago.  

The book page photo on the bottom right is probably not going to stay, but it's an important lesson for me.  I'd been collecting Book Page projects for about 2 years.  Since I'm such a book lover, I thought I'd love these craft projects.  So I finally (yes, after 2 whole years) got around to making one from a canvas I was trying to salvage, and...I HATED it.  It looks like a bunch of torn pages laying on the floor.  Or hanging on the wall, depending on where it is.  I ended up deleting almost every pin from my Book Page Pinterest board and throwing away some books I'd been keeping just for these crafts.

Ironically, I found this quote on Pinterest last night, and it sums up my major problem:

Source

Instead of collecting Book Page projects, I should have tried one first.  Oh well, Life Lesson learned!

At this point, I fell behind.  My son's birthday was at the end of February, and between that and Valentine's Day, school conferences and a trip to my brother's house in Alabama, I was too busy living life to have time to create my layouts.  I have sooooo many pictures though!  I'm planning on making a couple of 12x12 classic scrapbook pages for James's birthday pictures and another for our trip.

I also have a TON of new journaling cards and 3x4 art cards.  Most are from Studio Calico, who has a monthly Project Life kit I was on the waiting list for, and from Memos Cards from Echo Park paper company I bought at Hobby Lobby.  So I know for sure that these pages are going to change.  But I also know I must STOP going back over my first pages obsessively and instead move on and catch up!

Since this is an image-heavy post, I'm going to make my 101st post a round-up of my crafts and art that I've been up to.  Thank you for reading!