Catching up on a month of Project Life

As we are into those busy summer months are you finding yourself behind on your Project Life?

Is it now becoming a drag because your behind and want to catch up?

Are you struggling to motivate yourself?

This is the situation I was in and I was seriously behind as June was the house move and so all of my crafting supplies were packed up as we waited and waited for exchange and completion.

However I resolved to get July done in two days...yes that is right two days.

So during nap times and in the evenings I pulled my four boxes out and let it all spill out onto the lounge floor and I got to work. I found that I had to have a routine / process to get it done and so I thought I would share that with all of you. 

* Please excuse the poor quality photos - the big camera gave up the ghost and my mobile isn't that great, but I figured it was better than nothing right? *

1) It starts with the photos. I know this is for most of us the boring / time consuming task that holds it all up. For this month in two days I just ordered a whole wallet of pictures from the free prints app. They're free and so if I don't use them all it doesn't matter, but it gives me more choice. For the next month I have got organised and sat with post-its, a notebook and a tablet with all of my instagram pics in front of me to plan each layout. This is a better way to do it as you already know what photos you need and they can all be the right way up to fit in the wallets too. 

2) With my wallet of photos I spent an hour just trimming photos and filling the pockets for the month of July.

3) Add any bits and pieces that you have hoarded for this purpose. This has been my goal recently to use the little business cards and napkins that I keep - for me this is one of the main differences between Project Life and regular scrapbooking that you can include the little bits and pieces and not worry about it ruining your overall layout. For the above layout, which documents his first pair of shoes at Clarks, I included the receipt and the appointment card.

4) Limit your supplies. If your like me and you've accumulated quite a few sets of Project Life cards try to limit yourself to one of two collections. For this spread I used mostly Jade and some Studio Calico cards I had leftover from kits. This narrows down the time spent sifting through your collection. I go through and pick out about 10-20 which would match with the colour scheme (my colour scheme is usually determined by the colours in the photos) and then just pop them in the remaining pockets and try not to overthink it.

5) Journal it. This is when blogging regularly or tweeting / facebooking/ instagramming can help as you may already have captions and journalling available to you. I have just journalled on one of two cards and the other cards were chosen to make it pretty - like the floral card below.

6) Last step, and this is optional, but for me an essential as this is often the part that I appreciate and enjoy the most of the process - the embellishements. I did limit it with just a few stamps, letter stickers and bling. For the most part I tried to work with the cards and picked journalling cards with prompts, phrases and words which worked with the photos. For example in the third layout for the month it was all about our house move and so I used journalling cards with pictures of houses on them.

So quick recap...

1) Fill the pockets with photos....

2) Select suitable journalling cards... 

3) Journal and embellish your page in a simple fashion...

4) And repeat with remaining photos for the month...

Coming soon ideas on how to scrapbook / Project Life a big sporting event. Can you guess which two sporting events it might be?