Project Life Tuesday: 6 Months Behind Edition
Welcome to Project Life Tuesday 2014
If you are new to The Mom Creative, welcome. I hope you will stay awhile. I’m Jessica – wife to Matthew, mom to Elias, a silly and spirited six-year-old, and Adeline, a spunky three-year-old. I’m also a marketing professional, savvy deal finder, photo lover and memory keeper trying to juggle it all. The first Tuesday of every month, I share my most recent spread as well as host a linky for readers to link up their pictures/layouts. Some links are affiliate links.
It has been two months since my last Project Life Tuesday – yikes! Moreover, I am the furthest behind I have ever been on Project Life… when I started to work on my album this week I was at the end of APRIL.
APRIL. That’s SIX months and feels a bit overwhelming.
My husband asked if I was just going to throw in the towel. I said, heck no! But I still was a bit nervous to start. It just feels like so much – and it is. Six months of photos is a lot, but it isn’t impossible. I knew that I just needed to get going, and that as soon as I did, it wouldn’t feel so bad.
I was right.
I developed a big batch of photos in September from May-June, so I just started with that stack. I didn’t worry about perfect dates (mixing Instagrams with regular 4x6s) and instead went chronologically and by story, with Instagram 12×12 pages interspersed. I also didn’t worry about editing photos down and planning spreads. I just added pages as needed and used all the photos I loved.
It was an easy, freeing, no-rules process. Just because it is different than how I have worked in the past, doesn’t mean it isn’t right. When I think about how sick I was during April-August (first trimester) I am grateful to just get those photos and stories in an album. In 20 years, my family isn’t going to say, wow, this Project Life album isn’t as good as the rest. They are just going to be happy to have the photos developed and not sitting on a hard drive somewhere.
Within one night, I got 11 pages worth of photos and journaling cards in! May is now done, and I am going to start to tackle jounaling cards.
Matthew is out of town for the next two weeks, so I am going to leave my Project Life stuff out in the dining room and work on it every night possible. (Also, blame him for the less than awesome photos – he has all the good camera gear with him!) I am hoping that I can at least get to October by the time he gets back. Last night the kids were happy to color and craft while I went through photos, so hopefully that will continue.
I hope that if you are feeling behind this encourages you. Just get started!
Link up your Project Life pages below. Be sure to link directly to the post (not the main page on your blog) and mention Project Life Tuesday.
So good to hear that I’m not alone in this catching-up-on-Project-Life business! I’ve just been working on my April and May of 2014 as well…good to go back and fill in the stories. How would I post a pic of my spread if I don’t have a blog/website to link to?
Sorry, the only way to link-up is with a blog or Instagram link
So glad to hear you didn’t throw in the towel so to speak and yay for getting a start on 11 pages! Whenever I get behind that’s what I do too, place the photos and then work on the journaling later. I find it easier to drop in and write a couple memories here and then it doesn’t seem as daunting to be playing catch up.
Thank you so much Jessica,
I am quite behind as well and I know once I grab the bag full of developed
pictures from MARCH onward, I will feel less stressed.
Because it is supposed to be fun right? Not a burden!
Here’s to catching up day by day!
I think being 6 months behind isn’t that bad! I used to traditional scrapbook a lot…my daughter has one book for every three months of her life up to age 4. Now she’s 8. Once I had my son and had two kids, I got so behind and just quit. I recently did two photo books (Girl Scouts and t-ball for my son) via Shutterfly. It was so much faster. Maybe not as cute, but done! I think I might start again and just let go of the perfectionism. I think I’ll start with Christmas of last year, because I’m feeling in the holiday spirit. Then I might tackle other big events and try to do a book fof the year for each of them. One book at a time is better than nothing, right?
LOL! I am still finishing last year! :O Seriously, I started last October, and I’ve made it to last October, so I’m making progress and I’ve done a few months of this year. 😉 My goal is to get the photo in the pockets, old school style. I’m not even worrying about journaling at this point; just grouping by month. I am basically batch printing as you are and putting them in.
It’s so nice to know I’m not alone in being behind!! I’m half way through June right now. I’m using his month to really get caught up S I know once December starts I’ll be super focused on my December Daily book. I want to have a complete year for my first year of doing PL. I’m just finding that it’s hard to find that balance between what goes in there and what I want to do a traditional page for. I love those whole spreads and have missed getting all the goodies out to play!!
Yay for catch up!
I need to catch up. I have pictures done for my first half of the year. I have June to finish up journaling.
UGH. That means that I have 4 months of photos! Hopefully I won’t have too many photos. :/
I’m super behind too and tried to get caught up a bit this weekend. Managed to organzie the photos I had already printed by month…Wound up with a pretty decent pile of I just don’t know that I’ll fill in here and there. Put about 1/2 of May in to pages – no journalliing card though. Slow and steady and hoping to get the album finished by year end. I only had printed photos up through 1st day of school in early September.
That’s how I’ve been doing PL from the start. I don’t really plan but just use the pictures I have and tell our stories the best I can. It’s worked for 3 years now and getting caught up on several months just takes a few hours. Glad you got some done!
I’m so glad I found this link up! I just started project life, with absolutely no background in scrap booking! I cant wait to check out all the other links!
I used to follow Project LIfe Tuesday as a stalker because I never got around to doing Project Life despite the products I acquired. Never – until recently – with the Project Life App! I was hoping to link up this week and now feel sad there’s no new post. 🙁
This is how I prefer to work! I don’t mind being 6+ months behind because I know it’s easy for me to batch process and get things in albums. I do my best to stay on top of backing up photos (from my phone/camera to an external hard drive), writing down specific memories I want to include (I keep them in my phone), and spending an evening or two each month selecting favorite photos to put in a separate folder for when I’m ready to print (but I do this on the couch while I’m watching TV with my hubs) and then when I get a big pile of photos printed I spend a few evenings getting things in the album. I don’t think I would enjoy it as much every week.