The life and times of Libby Withnall

There are LOTS of posts around about Project Life but a few people asked how I do it so I thought I’d share. I’m a lazy scrapbooker and a lazy project lifer. I figure it’s better to be done quickly and simply than not done at all. Even though we’re almost half way through the month I still hadn’t set up this years project life so I had the brilliant idea to pay the girls to do it – $2 each and it’s done!!

You can just do each week as you go but it’s easier as the year goes along if the inital set up is done. It probably takes 30mins max. to do it. Becky has a great video on how to do it.

Here’s the first page of the Clemintine kit….just waiting on some photos….

And week 1 for 2012….

This is my forth year doing project life so it’s fun to compare weeks.

2011…

2010…

2009… I missed out on a kit this year so just made up my own – using free printables…

Unfortunately I’ve never actually kept up a whole year of Project life.

The first year, 2009, I only journalled till June, and added photos till August…

In 2010 I journalled til May (but then we went overseas for 6 weeks). I photographed the whole year.

Last year, 2011, I journalled till August and photographed the year. Still hoping to get back and finish the journalling.

At least each year sees an improvement on the last so hopefully this year I’ll keep up and make it ALL the way the end. I can print photos at home (on my Selphy printer) which makes it very doable to set aside 30mins a week for printing and journalling. At the moment I’m trying to pick a photo out daily and make journalling notes right on i-photo but maybe I should keep my journalling cards on my desk and just write up when picking photos.

You do see some wonderful looking Project Life albums on the web. Mine really is basic. It’s the kind of project you can make your own and do any way you see fit. even digitally.

Please let me know if you’re joining in this year.

I do have a Day in my Life post coming later but I’m not feeling the best. In the meantime here are some of my recent layouts. I’ve been managing to get a page done most days and am really enjoying it again. And it’s been fun using all my new goodies (and some older ones) I did a lot of these layouts for LOAD and some are from Got Sketch Express 2.

Here’s a video of the goodies I got from Scrapbook.com. It might seem a LOT, and it is, but it’s my first order all year, and will keep me going for at least 6-12 months.

I knew it had been a while since I’d had any layouts to share with you but I didn’t realize it had been OVER 6 months. That’s crazy. And sad. I’ve been really struggling about whether to keep going with my scrapbooking. I do enjoy it but kind of feel it’s a bit obsolete with having the blog. So I’ve given myself a Christmas deadline to get back to doing on a regular basis. And in just the last week I have completed the following layouts. It’s funny, the more I do the easier it is becoming, and the more I want to do it.

Expect to see more soon as a big box of goodies just arrived from Scrapbook.com

I’m still a bit lost with my scrapbooking so when I saw Shimelle had a new class called EXPLORE I thought it might be just what I needed to get the creative juices and inspiration flowing again.

Best thing is that it’s a class you work on at your own pace – so it’s not to late to join in if you want. I found an old pink mini album and decorated it. It already had some pages, but I added others and added some photos which inspire explorations as instructed.

The first task, after setting up an album, was t0 take a self portrait. For the album I did crop out the shower stuff . We then had to write about where we were “creativity” wise at the moment. As you probably know I’m just not feeling it at the moment. I want to scrapbook. I love scrapbooking. It just seems I’m repeating what I’ve already blogged. But when I was writing in the album I realized that in years to come no-one (besides possibly me) is going to read through all my of blog posts, but they might pick up a scrapbook album.

The next prompt involved writing on a postcard about our most adventurous moment. Amazingly enough I had a postcard of a whale shark in Exmouth and wrote about how I was adventurous enough to swim with one – even though I didn’t as none showed up that day. It’s funny. I don’t really think of myself as adventurous but people are always telling me I am. I guess I’m willing to get out there and give a lot of things a try, as long as it’s on the safe side .

Shimelle then had us playing with maps. It really is a fun class so far and I look forward to seeing where it takes me.

Let me know if you sign up, or are already doing the class.

I haven’t scrapbooked much lately so to try and inspire me I thought I’d share some layouts from a few weeks ago.

….finally.

Yes again.

Unfortunately it has been in this state for quite some time.

This was originally the girls computer desk, hence the pull out shelf. But now that they each have computers on the other side of the room this has become a dumping ground. I think it’s looked like this, getting gradually worse, since the October school holidays when I started decluttering my scrapbook supplies.

Of course mess attracts more mess, which was certainly affecting my scrapbooking mojo.

Yesterday I decided it was time to get the room restored to it’s former glory and went to Office Works to purchase some supplies to fill up this big gap to stop this happening again, and to make the room look more finished.

Since I knew Kevin would be tired after work I thought I’d try and make them up myself, since I did get three of them. Luckily they were VERY easy to build and I had them done in no time.

For less than $70 and half an hour of my time I had three great new storage units. Then today I got stuck into the mess and sorted out what I was keeping and what I was getting rid off.

I will buy three matching trays for one top of the drawers next time I’m at Office Works but these work for now (borrowed from around the house). Oh, and I still need to add some labels.

Just a bit of an improvement don’t you think?

To recap… before and after…

Then, of course, I thought I’d best tidy up my desk area…

Ah…much better… now I can’t wait to actually do some layouts.