Project Life 2013

So, I haven't posted about Project Life since I think June. oops. But I have been keeping up with it. Well, except for the last month to two months. I have to finish up the album still. But I have started moving on to 2013 because I don't want to get behind while waiting to get motivated to finish 2012. 

I have done digital books through Shutterfly in the past but decided to try something new with the Becky Higgins Project Life system. My problem with digital in the past is although I completed a page a week, I never had a uniformity to the book and it was a little all over the place. So when I saw her system I loved the idea and decided to try something new. 

Below you will see my 12x12 Shutterfly book from 2011on the the left and my TWO albums of Project Life on the right. Once I realized it would take two albums to complete the year using the big 12x12 albums, I knew I could not do this every year. I just imagine myself handing my kids 40 or more of these huge albums when they are grown up. They would say what I would say, "What am I going to do with all of these?" I loved making these albums though because I could keep so much memorabilia in them. Everything I wanted to save from the year could be in one place, ticket stubs, kids drawings, cards from people, DVDs of the years home videos, etc. I love it for that reason, I just can't store all those albums. The Shutterfly books are much easier to store and display. So this year I am going back to digital. But I'm super happy to say I'm still using the Project Life system, because she made it all available digitally also. I used the Cobalt edition in 2012 and I will be using the Clementine digital edition in 2013. Plus she is coming out with a ton more products this year!

The size difference.

2011 vs. 2012

I love being able to display my books and look through them anytime.

I did really enjoy using this system and here are some of my pages from the second half of 2012.

Love being able to slip some tickets in the pockets.

I also loved being able to add room keys etc to the book.

Because I did love her system so much and she is coming out with a Childhood kit now. I've decided to use her products to make books specific to each of my kids. They can hold professional photos and mostly items from their school years. I'm hoping to fit birth through 12th grade into about 4 books. That will be much easier to pass on to the kids when they are grown then 40 books. And they will get books that are specifically about them not just about the whole family. Below is Hunter's book. He is in Kindergarten this year. I used her black signature album which she is no longer selling. (Frustrated because now I can't have all 4 albums match, but oh well.) She has great dividers for the years/grades.

I can easily add report cards, artwork, certificates and other goodies.

She also makes these great envelope pages and to save on space in the book, I've decided to put all the photos from a school year into a soft cover 8x8 Shutterfly book that I can just slip into the envelope page instead of several large photo pocket pages taking up lots of space. (I take tons of pictures.)

Here is the 8x8 Shutterfly book out of the envelope page...

Ok so on to 2013...

Here is my first week of digital Project Life. I love adding qr codes of the videos I make, that way as we flip through the book we can scan the code and see the video that goes with it. I used mostly the Clementine Project Life products and a Ali Edwards stamp and a couple other Designer Digital products (like the stitching). Very excited about 2013!

The only drawback to going digital is that I don't have the satisfaction of seeing my pages when they are finished in a book right away. I will wait until the end of the year and all pages are finished and upload them to Shutterfly's site to print. Plus, digital I have one cost at the end of the year instead of paying weekly to get photos printed. Either way the cost is probably close to the same. Either way you decide to use Project Life, use it! I think it is a great way to preserve your memories.