Tuesday, March 12, 2013

life documented.

if you know me at all you know i almost always have a camera (or two!) within arms reach of me quite often.

i've always loved taking pictures. just documenting everything.

i also love looking through old pictures, coming up with stories, and just imagining or remembering the way things were.

i was super hesitant to get a digital camera until i figured out a good system for printing and keeping them. i wasn't about to let my memories sit on a computer or memory card, and if i did print them there was no way i'd leave them all pile up in a box. (ahem! ma!)

so back in 2005, while working at camp, i was introduced to archiver's and my world (and wallet) would never be the same.

as a single girl i didn't mind paying to get my pictures printed, for me it was just part of my monthly spending. as soon as they were printed i'd crop them down and slap them in a scrapbook. i was the laziest scrapbooker. rarely would i add embellishments or even journaling. it worked, and from 2005-2007 that was the way i documented the every day.

then i got married...and husbands don't really see the value in capturing all of life's moments. as a stay at home wife i felt guilty spending his our money on pictures and scrapbook stuff.

so 2008 i went digital and made books. that whole year is done in mini photobooks from mypublisher. and i like it, but it just wasn't the same as having prints to flip through.

so back to printing it was, except in 2009 we had a baby and there were many pictures snapped, and less extra money, and even less time to spend putting them in books.

so i became my mom...and they sat in boxes. gasp! i was so ashamed.

slowly i printed more and more from shutterfly, and the piles and boxes multiplied.

until one day i posted this picture on facebook.

(sadly, that was just a portion of the pictures i had.)

then a friend commented and asked if i had heard of project life.

i had not, but after watching that video i sure was intrigued. after all, i am a lazy scrapbooker.

looking around, i was immediately hooked. the products all looked so fresh and fun, and easy to use!

so i invested in my first pack of pages, and used a smaller 3 ring binder to hold them together (while i waited for the beautiful seafoam line to be released) and got to work.

first thing i did was organize all the pics i had printed into photo boxes. that way i could just grab a stack and work little by little.
i started with september of 2009, after all, that's when our life really began with eliza's birth!

i loved seeing the pages come together so easy.
i was giddy when a page had a theme, like this one with enola and eliza's first meeting...
(space left for journal cards)

and eliza gets so excited to see herself and enola as babies. that's what all of this is about, sharing the memories!
i went back and rounded the corners and added some journal cards i found at archiver's. they sell sheets of them you can cut down, and they fit perfectly!

i finished off 2009 pretty quickly. just in time for 2013 to begin. so i made a choice.

i will go back and work on the past little by little, but starting with this year i will not let myself get behind.

i decided that i wanted to take less pictures, but better ones. documenting a year so far removed there were many pictures i omitted and realized i didn't really need to keep. not everything had to be captured. (crazy, i know!) i wanted to be in the moment more, but still get the pretty great parts down. plus it would save money not having so many pictures to print!

i also found an awesome small business that prints in the two sizes needed for project life, AND they will round the corners! the quality and customer service is awesome. (persnickety prints) they also print instagram photos!
the day these arrived in the mail i was overjoyed!

the seafoam edition was also finally released so i got my binder and journal cards all ready. at the end of january i had my first month printed, and by the first week in february they were all in the album. pretty impressive with a newborn!

i cannot tell you how great it feels to have a system that works.

i try and drop the pictures to my computer at least once a week. then i start a folder for the ones that are ready to be printed. i go over them a few times and make sure i pick the best shots, and narrow them down, and down and down.

then i have a notebook so i can plan the layouts ahead of time. that way i know which pictures need to be what size. ordering is a breeze once i consider portrait or landscape and have a slot for each shot.

and facebook and the blog help me remember the dates for certain things so it's easy to fill in the details after the fact.

for now you have to order through amazon, but i cannot wait until may! archiver's will be carrying them in store. excited to look over it all in person.

there are so many inspiring blogs out there for project life. a lot of people do a layout a week. i like to fill mine with pictures. maybe one day i will have more time for the fun stuff, but then again...i'm lazy!
i'm just happy to have our life documented and the pictures under control!

(no i was not given anything to write about any of this...i've had a few people ask, so i just thought i'd share!)

1 comments:

Cori said...

Wow. I have my pictures neatly organized in my computer...but I've been so bad about printing them the last FIVE years. You've inspired me.

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