getting in early.

I first looked into Project Life a few years back, liking the idea of the little cards, and thinking it might be a good alternative to scrapbooking (which I was – and still am – disastrously behind on!), but in the end decided against it. As cute and easy as it looked, the pocket pages were just too far from my usual style to make it a good fit for me.

Then I started seeing more and more PL albums. And got further and further behind on scrapbooking – partly because I’ve become so slack at printing photos since my local lab closed, and partly because we added child after child (after child) to our family, and we all know what children do to time! With several friends getting stuck in as well, I decided to revisit the idea. Not as a replacement for traditional scrapbooking – I still hope and plan to do some of that as time and mojo permit – but as a week-by-week Sunday afternoon keep-up-to-date project. And so I hit up the Project Life store, and had a little stickybeak. So many cute choices. I ended up deciding on the Honey edition. And of course, that also meant I needed to BUY ALL THE MATCHING THINGS. A week or two later, I had a nice sized box with the core kit, 12×12 paper pack, 4×6 cardstock, 3×4 cardstock, monthly dividers and an album and page pack.

Isn’t it all so delightful? I’m super excited to get hooked in to it in January.My next job is to try out some different photo papers to see if I can find something that works well enough for the album. With no local lab now, I’m left with either BigW or Harvey Norman as my printing options, or send off to my pro lab in Melbourne. The first two I’ve been burnt enough times to not want to go that way again, and the pro lab has a minimum spend. Plus there is the effort of actually getting organised. I have one more online (high end but not pro) lab I want to try out for quality and timing, to see if that is viable too. But with this project, I’m hoping to update it weekly, so the convenience of printing at home is looking ideal, unless I choose to do it a week behind, I guess, or use post-it place holders and do the layout/journalling at the end of each week and add the photos fortnightly, or even a week behind. As keen as I am to get started, I think the 3 or so months before I intend to start will be a good chance to sort out all these little kinks!

I was also quite surprised at the size of the album – it is a lot wider than I expected, but then when I thought about it, it makes sense it would need to be wider than a traditional 12×12 post bound album, to allow for the rings and slightly wider page protectors. I am thinking I’ll end up splitting the year into two or three albums, depending how full it gets and how many extra inserts I end up adding in.

Today is a beautiful warm spring Friday. My mum is around to help me out with the small people, and Bear is home unwell. I’m going to take advantage of the extra pair of hands to pop out child-free and visit Bunnings for a weekend DIY project I’ve roped Mr Dove into. A couple of birthday presents to grab for a certain small boy turning 7 this week (how did that happen?). A quilt top almost ready to sandwich if I can steal five minutes. Another little project in the works that Miss Car is pestering me to see. Snuggles with the Beetle Baby and stories with the big smalls. Taking it easy and getting geared up for the weekend. Downhill run to 5pm starts now. Happy Friday everyone!