back to the future

It was towards the end of August last year when I dropped into the chat. “Would it be mad to consider doing project life again?” “DO IT,” came back the resounding reply. I had just finished my Week In The Life album, and was fired up to get back into printing photos, journaling our days, and documenting our life in a beautiful way.

Looking though my archives, I was shocked to realise it is now over a decade since I’ve project-lifed regularly. In 2013 I started late in the year, and was sharing my spreads weekly. In 2014, I shifted to monthly/story-based documenting. I on-and-off PL’d through 2015 & 2016, and picked it back up in 2017 to document our homeschool. From there, the album languished, aside from a Day In The Life addition in 2019, a special spread documenting my 15@40 project, and my 2024 card a day project finally filling that 2017 album and calling it done.

2013-2016 project life albums

In the interim, I made some mini books and December Daily, and started on a plan to back fill all those missing years I wouldn’t go back and scrap. But I miss the regularity of printing and documenting our year as we go, and so, in November when I was at KaiserCraft, and spotted a 12×12 D ring album, I grabbed it.

Project Life 2026 is a go.

My plan is to work on the album on a Sunday, as part of my screen free sunday rhythm. I will likely print my photos at home**, but will also give myself grace to send them to print if there’s a stack to include. I’ve settled on running my weeks Saturday to Friday, for a couple of reasons – it gives me time to organise the printing of the photos before Sunday, and also I love the idea of starting the week with a weekend. it brings the focus on the fun stuff as the focus, and work just something we do after, rather than the fun stuff being something squeezed in at the end of a working week.

Most spreads will be 12×12**, with plenty of tip ins to mix things up. I want to take a portrait of the kiddos at the end of each month, including nagging Bear to text me a selfie from uni. I’m a bit behind but I also am hoping to get everyone to give me a highlight from each week to write down and pop in the album, and maybe even send me some photos. In the decade since I last regularly did this, all four of my children have gotten phones. They all have cameras as well, a mix of mirrorless, and my hand-me-down DSLRs, and cheap point and shoots, and a fun instax hybrid**. I’d love to have memories from the perspective of the children included in this album.

Some weeks, I’m expecting to pull up with a single page; some weeks might flow over three pages. Holidays, adventures, events, will all get a spread of their own. I’m just going to roll with it, and see how it turns out. The most important part is to have fun with it. 2026 is the year I return to analogue documenting – let’s do this!

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