Documenting Life | 01

I've been really craving starting a new project. After seeing a couple of gorgeous Project Life spreads across the internet (like Manda's & Natalie's ) I thought I'd seek out the materials to start my own.

If you're not familiar with it - Project Life (there are half a dozen similar versions, but this name seems to be the most popular) is a scrapbooking approach that tries to simplify the idea of scrapbooking so that you don't necessarily need to use glue or scissors or to spend hours collaging papers. I guess it kind of streamlines the whole experience so that you can concentrate on documenting and recording moments without the mess and hassle. You just use your photo prints and write on a card or two and insert them into the pockets in the plastic sleeves - it has a lovely simplified look and is less hassle than conventional scrapbooking.



I liked this idea and the way that the layouts looked, but I couldn't really bring myself to buy all of the branded cards and stickers, etc. when I'd really prefer to make them myself (and I'm cheap). So I bought a generic brand of plastic sleeves with pockets and a different brand's binder and cut some cardboard to size. Several brands make the same plastic sleeves with pockets and the same goes for the binders and cards. I really like 'scrapbooking' but I don't think that you necessarily need to go into a shop and buy a bunch of 'scrapbooking' things - you can make your own scrapbooking bits and pieces from magazines, paper scraps, cardboard, stickers from the $2 shop and add your own hand drawn elements. But for people who don't have the time/energy/inclination to do this, you can buy 'core kits' with colourful cards to insert.

I'd like to fill a binder sheet with photos for each month for Theo and I'd like to do a page every week or two with photos of things we've been doing and write little notes to accompany them. I like the idea of making a folder for each year and doing it little by little so that it's not a massive undertaking at the end of a year. I really enjoyed putting the pages together and I know it's going to be really nice to look over a whole year at the end of it. I thought I'd share a couple of the pages I've made so far.




+ The first day (including a picture of the sunsrise on the morning of the day Theo was born, photos of his first few minutes, when I first got to see him (thanks cesarean), the obligatory unflattering photo of oneself in hospital and his little arm band).



+ The first few days in hospital (including exhausted parent photos).


+ Coming home (including a photo of the outfit he came home in, one of us in the hospital before we left and standing on the steps of our house before we brought him in and the horribly unflattering photo the newspaper took of us the day after he was born.

I might try to post a couple of pages here every now and then. Do you do Project Life (or something similar)? I'd love to see your pages.