on the bandwagon...off the bandwagon...and then back on

Listen, I love the idea of project life. I love the variety of options available and the beautiful approaches people take in completing it. And I tried, I did, to do my own version of something like that. I struggled and kept up for a little bit but in the end, that just doesn't work for me. Basically, I gave up on it but then, a few weeks ago, I found Izzy oohing and aahing and "I remembering" over this:

and I knew that somehow, someway, I had to keep this up.

This morning, I knocked out four weeks worth of PL in about 3 hours. Start to finish. Selecting and printing photos, brief captions, the barest of embellishments. You guys, I think I can do this. Finally. I'm not sure it's worth sharing all four weeks because it's pretty boring. Not kidding. I'm not saying I'll stick with this photo + kraft look Every. Single. Week. but it's working for me now and I'll definitely continue in this vein while I plow my way through the backlog (not necessarily going to do all the weeks between when I fizzled out and the present but we'll see what happens.)

"hello" brush from STUDIO CALICO | dot card from STUDIO PEBBLES

heart brush from AC | hearts + "let's do this" from LLP

flip up on center right has more journaling...QR code is a link to Jake's VP speech

star and paper from PAISLEY PRESS here and here

I almost never pull out my "real" camera anymore. I'd estimate 95% of the time, I'm using my phone camera. It's terrible. But I figure for project life, I'm sticking with phone photos. That's it. No looking back. If I have a dSLR photo I have to use, I'll scrap it with a regular layout (and as little as that's happening these days, I think I may add layouts right into my PL album!)

So my process now:

1. I have my Dropbox app set to automatically back up my phone photos to my computer (which is AWESOME because the file name is the date/time the photo was taken.) Having the file name set to the date makes it so easy to quickly browse through and choose photos from the week.
2. Momento is perfect for quickly refreshing my memory (via, instagram, twitter and facebook updates) about what was happening during the week. I'm getting better about using the note feature too (which is how I remembered that quote that I found + loved in week 37 and my current playlist for week 39.)
3. I have easy templates set up for the week card as well as the caption cards (adding the social media icons for text taken directly from a tweet, facebook status or instagram upload - here's a good font for those.) I simply plugged in the text - copy and paste for many of them, and printed on kraft cardstock. 
4. Figure out where there are still holes to fill, and add what works. 
5. Cut, slide into the sleeve pockets and embellish in the most minor of ways.

One of the appeals of project life, for me, was the inclusion on kid art and little bits and pieces of life "stuff." I'm sure it will work it's way into the actual spread here and there but mainly, I'm just adding a regular letter size page protector every four weeks or so and sliding in the stuff I can't bear to part with (dated on the back, of course.)

So this is what worked for me this time. I'm hoping to spend another few hours this weekend getting current for October and then, possibly, work backwards into the months I've missed. It's maybe basic and boring but I'm going with "timeless." And done.