Project Life 2011, yep last year!

[Courtesy warning: photo-heavy post]

My Project Life adventure began in spring last year when the kits were first available in the UK from Amazon, although I've only started blogging about it this year.

I was in love from my very first page. The simplicity, the flexibility, the I-totally-got-this-down-ness of it all, not to mention the sheer fun. I said this in one of my recent PL 2012 posts, and I will say it again (and again and again): I get a little hurrah every time I slip something into one of those little pockets.

As you can see from my recent page shares, I haven't committed to weekly spreads, I'm a monthly gal. Also, I'm not one of those lovely talented artsy people who can make a mini masterpiece from each page. I love those pages. Adore them. In fact I have been known to rather swoon a little over them. But I know right now that's not for me. So I keep it relatively simple. Generally, it's a case of adding something from my PL go-to set list: photo collages, borders, patterned paper, artfully placed stickers, journalling tags, or maybe some lettering and some momentos; and I'm done. (Of course I then stand back and admire my shiny new pages too.)

Back in 2011, I was even simpler. You could say I was using PL at its most basic. Just photos, journal cards, pens, and the odd sticker. And people, basic as it is, it still rocks. I looked back at my pages and I still love what I see - such a cool way to capture those moments that would otherwise have been forgotten, that I wouldn't have done a traditional scrap page about. 

Here are some photos:

The conclusion? Project Life - as basic or as creative as you want - just works!

This is why

I scrapbook. For the uninitiated among you, you may be wondering what on earth that is. It's a mix of diary, photo album and art/design. It's a way of capturing everyday and high day moments and memories so that you, and your family and friends, can look back at them, laugh and remember. And for those generations yet to come, it's providing a legacy for them, so they understand where they come from and get a peek into what life was like 'in the old days'.

I didn't scrapbook until Chloe was born. When she came into my life, I knew I wanted to to be able to remember all her quirks and the moments in her journey to adulthood. Photos are all very well, but they have a difficult time telling the full story. As I've been scrapbooking our lives, it's made me more curious about the lives of my parents and grandparents and great grandparents. Most of my grandparents died when I was a child, so they're not around to ask now. None of them were very good at keeping photo albums and in some cases they took very few photographs. My mum and aunts have given me their boxes of photos, some of their own and some that had been passed down. And I've really enjoyed rifling through those (the scanning into the pc was a labour-intensive but so worthwhile exercise) and catching a glimpse of what their lives were like.



But it's been sad too. I recognise some of the people and places in the photos, as do my mum and aunts, but we don't know them all. It's like a jigsaw with pieces missing - I can't see the full picture. Hardly anyone wrote on the back of the photos who was in them, where it was, when it was, so it's not easy to make sense of some of them. It would have been so much richer a story and so much more fascinating to have had all this info.

So this is why I scrapbook. Whether it's full on page design, or just jotting the essential details and quotes from an occasion into the notes section of a photo album, I'm making sure that the memory is captured along with the photo. So when Chloe, or her children or grandchildren, look at these books and albums, they will be able to get the full picture.

Some of my fave pictures from the boxes I've scanned in so far....

My grandfather (in the middle of the back row) and extended family. The two girls sitting on the ground at the front - the one on the left is my Aunt Jeanette and the one on the right is my Mum.

This is a great picture with the old style tv etc but I have no idea who these people are...

My mum and dad in their courting days.