Project Life Plunge

For years, my friend has been showing me her beautiful Project Life layouts. As intrigued as I was by so much fun paper in one package -- I remained reticent to splurge on such a purchase, especially when I had plenty of other stuff to keep me occupied. 

Project Life is pricey. Plus I really like my 8x8" scrapbook albums. 

But months ago I received a gift certificate to an online store and I finally took the plunge. I figured with the Peanut coming soon, I might need an easier incentive to capture the memories, rather than full-on scrapbooking. Besides, I used up the last of my 8x8" albums on this rampage. 

It worked out that I had just enough pages left to end off that last 8x8" scrapbook on our moving day.

I figured with our fresh start in a new location, it was time to start a new project. Project Life. So this week, I did just that. 

Oddly, I didn't find scrapbooking 'super easy' with Project Life. Don't get me wrong... everything is pretty much laid out for you -- all you do is insert photos and choose the cards to add into the other inserts. 

I just found it a little restrictive in the creativity department. I wanted to add embellishments, flowers, and pieces of string to my page. 

Instead, only having certain sized pieces of paper kind of put a damper in my 'layout' process. 

I ordered an assortment pack of the pages, and it seems like there were a LOT of pages that only had room for one or two photos and then the rest of the spaces were for the small journal cards. I printed a bunch of my photos wallet-sized and used the actual pictures in many places instead of the Project Life Cards.

That being said, it was pretty awesome to whip out nearly a year's worth of events into a book of memories in less than a week. I still have to journal some of the details... but for me that part goes super fast. 

Nevertheless, most of my favorite scrapbook pages have been born out of creative mistakes. I glue something too fast and it looks funny, but instead of ripping it off the page, I work with it. I add pieces here and there to finally make the page stand out, even if I don't have all of the right shapes and sizes to fit into the 'puzzle'. 

So maybe I need to rethink this whole Project Life deal... and get some creative ideas on Pinterest, despite my earlier post about not bothering with that site.

I'm secretly hoping a glue stick is involved somewhere. And in the meantime, I'm keeping an eye out for more 8x8" albums on sale.