Even though I give myself strict guidelines when it comes to including extra inserts in my Project Life album, since I contributed to the Project Dig Deep ebook I am not averse to including extra spreads here and there in the book.

In fact, this one might look familiar-ish to those of you who have bought the book.

Our one year of living in Schubert HQ was March 10…. so that week I took some 1-year-house-tour photos.

This milestone is a lovely part of our story to include in Project Life. … with the 8 4×6 slots I included 7 photos of major rooms in our house an 1 photo of the front yard.

In the 3×4 slots I just included basic grid journaling cards – 1 title card, 1 accent card and 6 cards with our story of the work we’ve done on this house in the last year.

(the blurred text one the 3rd card is our address)

I like to think that we’ll make enough changes that this will be a yearly insert …. but we’ll see. Money and time are in short supply around here.

(if you’d like to see the images larger, you should be able to click through to view them on Flickr)

Left side:

Right side:

Supplies used this spread:

• American Crafts 12-Inch by 12-Inch D-Ring Modern Scrapbooking Album, Cardinal
• Photo Pocket Pages – Big Pack of Design A (60 Pages)
• 100 Journaling Cards – 3″ x 4″ with Grid Design
• ColorBox Classic Pigment Ink Pad, Full Size, Fresh Green
• journaling cards of my own design
• assorted cardstock from my scrap pile
• HOME SWEET HOME stamp from Elise Blaha Cripe

Project Life, created by Becky Higgins, is a flexible, easy-to-use, highly customizable way to preserve your memories and record your stories in an easy way. Learn more about getting started with Project Life or check out all my Project Life posts.

My weeks have been slow around here … a few highlights here and there (interviews, spray painted projects) but for the most part the last couple months of Project Life spreads are just lovely everyday life. The kind of stories in my One Year email series. The kind of stories I wish I had of each of my grandmothers raising 6 kids. The kind of stories I want to remember to document.

I love this project.

These are my Project Life spreads from February (Feb 11 – 24) …. My weeks run Monday to Sunday – which I love, because they keep the weekends together in a chunk. So the images are *roughly* arranged from Monday on the left to Sunday on the right.

(if you’d like to see the images larger, you should be able to click through to view them on Flickr)

WEEK 7 : February 11 – 17

Coming home from AZ, errands and a photo shoot

left side:

Andrew moved his mixing set up into our guest room (instead of the middle of the living room). Better than it was, but I still would like that to be a guest room.

He also spent a lot of this week hand-making Ghostbot Records tshirts. By hand. He is such a rockstar.

He hand-cut stencils from the logo and spraypainted each tshirt …… and then left them to dry throughout the garage.

Looks a little like ghosts

right side:

More work for Maggie Keegan Gross Photography … Taking packages to the UPS store is more or less an every-other-Thursday project.

Andrew had an eye appointment – his first in about 4 years, I think.

Also Saturday afternoon, assisted on a family shoot for Maggie. At the Annenberg Beach House – my first time there. I LOVED it! I want to visit all the time now.

Saturday afternoon, Andrew drove down to San Diego to see a friend.

Sunday morning I tagged along on an ordering session with Maggie so I can have a better idea of how she works.

Full weekend for sure.

You’ll notice we didn’t really do anything for Valentine’s Day. Not really our thing.

Just for fun …. Ratio of Amy photos to Andrew photos: 11:4

WEEK EIGHT: February 18 – 24

Even slower week this week…. Interview, Andrew working on a record release and rain.

Left side:

The cards that are blurred out are details about the job interview I went on….  Interesting part of our story this spring. (kinda glad I had a reason to blur that out because my handwriting looks horrendous).

Also this side? Andrew needs a haircut, I hate driving in the rain, and sometimes I wake up with a cat on top of me.

Right side:

Stayed home sick on Friday … this was a rough week for all my coworkers. I think all 20+ of us got sick this week.

The rest of this side is almost all Andrew … He’s getting ready to launch this 3-record box set, so we’ve got photos of the records, of his newsletter release (that I helped him with) and putting together the boxset with the artist.

Saturday afternoon he drove down to Riverside to see another friend (and his sons) who were in town.

Ratio of Amy photos to Andrew photos: 8:6

Not too shabby. Andrew is the BEST at taking photos for Project Life

Supplies used these weeks:

• American Crafts 12-Inch by 12-Inch D-Ring Modern Scrapbooking Album, Cardinal
• Photo Pocket Pages – Big Pack of Design A (60 Pages)
• Seafoam core kit
• 100 Journaling Cards – 3″ x 4″ with Grid Design
• journaling cards of my own design
• assorted cardstock from my scrap pile
• washi tape from Freckled Fawn

ALSO: I have recently contributed to a Big Picture Classes ebook about Project Life! It’s all about using the Project Life structure to dig a little deeper into your stories. Check out more details including a preview here!

If you have questions about HOW I put these together, you can check out my recent posts on the process with supplies, the process with journaling, the process with photos and the process with design.

Project Life, created by Becky Higgins, is a flexible, easy-to-use, highly customizable way to preserve your memories and record your stories in an easy way. Learn more about getting started with Project Life or check out all my Project Life posts.

This is one of those installations of Project Life where the REAL seeps in (and not just the happy and fun).

My grandmother was diagnosed with brain cancer during the weeks covered in this post.

It breaks my heart. There’s a lot that is super sad about this story – but also a lot that could be worse. So at least there’s that.

I’m planning an insert specifically about it – but I’m waiting on some photos and things so that will need to wait for another post.

In the meantime …..

These are my Project Life spreads from the beginning of February (Jan 28 – Feb 10)…. My weeks run Monday to Sunday – which I love, because they keep the weekends together in a chunk. So the images are *roughly* arranged from Monday on the left to Sunday on the right.

(if you’d like to see the images larger, you should be able to click through to view them on Flickr)

Week FIVE: January 28 – February 3:

The last week before 30 Days of Lists registration opened!

Also this week: the first Day in the Life exercise. But I’m documenting that separately, so you’ll only see a couple photos from that day in the spread.

Left side:

Andrew is hard at work – mixing for some clients and getting a new Ghostbot Records release ready. I don’t know how he does everything he does. He seems to have an unending supply of energy.

This week I had a little “interview” that did not work out, and spent an absurd amount of time in the car. That traffic picture is from my drive to work on Thursday, although really it could be from any day of any week. It’s ridiculous. I try not to think about how much pollution I personally contribute to the world.

Right side:

This week was FULL of final 30Lists preparations! Coordinating with Simple Scrapper about the kit, writing and scheduling final email blasts, keeping the affiliates in the loop. The REGISTER email went out LATE Sunday night, so there was a a big big chunk of my week focused on 30Lists.

In fact, Sunday, Andrew and I took a walk together in the early afternoon (feet photo below), and then he left for several hours to go to a Superbowl party (bottom right photo). Not that he watches football or cares, but he knew I had a lot to do so took up a friend’s invitation to get out of the house. Bless him.

Also this week: worked on my long to do list for Maggie and Andrew spent several days organizing his boss’s iTunes by DAY the song was mixed.

True story. Sounds tedious, but it’s exactly the kind of project Andrew loves once in a while.

Week SIX: February 4 – 10:

30Lists launched officially and we visited San Diego and Phoenix in 48 hours!

Left side:

30Lists registration FLEW! Almost 300 registered in the first 48 hours! RECORD-setting…. Kam and I are so excited Plus I decided to do mine in a kit this round, so I started playing with the papers and all to figure out how I wanted to make the book.

Screenshot of my tweet (one of the many reasons I love Twitter and the internet) mounted on a Seafoam card.

Sleeping babies and Andrew got some AWESOME news about his #1 client. That’s his “happrehensive” face (happy+apprehensive). I’m so proud of him

Right side:

Early morning (for me) Friday to have my eyes examined. I really like our optometrist. Friendly, easy, not pushing anything I don’t need. Such a refresher.

Mid-morning Saturday we drove down to San Diego to go to my friend Jamie’s housewarming party! She and her then-boyfriend-now-fiancee bought this adorable house in the suburbs. 1960s, lovely plot of land, super cute. Loved it

We left San Diego mid-afternoon and drove over to Phoenix.

We spent Sunday in Phoenix visiting with family – particularly my grandmother. Most of the day was just spent watching TV (that’s all she has the energy to do right now) and eating food that my aunt made and brought over (it was rather extreme, actually).

Sad, of course, but relaxing. And I love seeing my grandmother. She’s the best.

Drive home was Monday morning, so maybe that will show up in next week’s Project Life.
Supplies used this month:

• American Crafts 12-Inch by 12-Inch D-Ring Modern Scrapbooking Album, Cardinal
• Photo Pocket Pages – Big Pack of Design A (60 Pages)
• Seafoam core kit
• journaling cards of my own design
• assorted cardstock from my scrap pile

ALSO: I have recently contributed to a Big Picture Classes ebook about Project Life! It’s all about using the Project Life structure to dig a little deeper into your stories. Check out more details including a preview here!

If you have questions about HOW I put these together, you can check out my recent posts on the process with supplies, the process with journaling, the process with photos and the process with design.

Project Life, created by Becky Higgins, is a flexible, easy-to-use, highly customizable way to preserve your memories and record your stories in an easy way. Learn more about getting started with Project Life or check out all my Project Life posts.

Movin right along!

I’m enjoying making this year’s album *slightly* different from last years – it’s the combination of using a core kit and finally having Photoshop.

These 2 weeks are basically all words+photos. No embellishments or extras (and I started out so well).

These are my Project Life spreads from the end of January (January 14-27) …. My weeks run Monday to Sunday – which I love, because they keep the weekends together in a chunk. So the images are *roughly* arranged from Monday on the left to Sunday on the right.

(if you’d like to see the images larger, you should be able to click through to view them on Flickr)

Week 3: January 14 – 20

Mid-January highlighted by Andrew’s brother coming out to CA after a year and a half in Chicago!

Left side:

Monday morning Andrew spent making some new Ghostbot Records t-shirts. I used this 3-photo template to make a little storyboard of how he made them.

Also pictured – I found Fang’s secret stash of destroyed q-tips. She likes to hang out under our bathroom sink. I always thought she just liked the hiding place but it turns out she was hard at work under there.

Our coffee maker REALLY started breaking this week – leaking about 1/4 of the water of any given pot we brewed.

Also this week I started my new very very part-time job, which included a few hours of training in the mornings.

Right side:

Since Andrew’s brother Daniel came into town, we spent most of Saturday at their parents’ house. …. including the FIRST family photo of all of us! This was Daniel’s first time meeting his nephew Joey!

Sunday was a lot more low key (for me at least). I just stayed home alone and worked all day – while Andrew went hiking with his brother and some friends. That’s them in the bottom left. They went to Stony Point where there is this whole stretch that you can walk up the walls! Thanks Jenae for the photos.

Week 4: January 21 – 27

Daniel left early Tuesday morning this week, but the rest of the week was pretty full anyway! Friends and photos and food

Left side:

Brothers. Poor Andrew. He misses his brother so much.

Tuesday morning after taking his brother to the airport, Andrew came home and did yard work. Bless him. In the middle of January. He ripped out a tree! I included his before-and-after Instagram photo. I love being married to him.

Also this week was President Obama’s second inauguration. I didn’t watch it – but still wanted to include a little piece of that history so I made a little journaling card with a piece of his speech. I love history.

Right side:

Thursday Andrew had friends over while I was at work. Lame. But was a good Project Lifer husband and took photos of all the fun I couldn’t join in on.

Saturday afternoon I assisted on a newborn baby shoot – one of my long-term friends is the proud new dad! So fun to see him

Sunday we had Andrew’s mom over for lunch (Andrew makes great burgers) and watching a boot-leg copy of The Hobbit! Best Sunday ever. That night Andrew basically spent working – setting up his mixing equipment all over the dining room table.

I’m enjoying having the Seafoam journaling cards to stick in and add a little bit of color!

Supplies used this month:

• American Crafts 12-Inch by 12-Inch D-Ring Modern Scrapbooking Album, Cardinal
• Photo Pocket Pages – Big Pack of Design A (60 Pages)
• Seafoam core kit
• journaling cards of my own design
• assorted cardstock from my scrap pile
• Paislee Press 4×6 photo template
• Cathy Zielske’s tutorial video: How to create a ghosted journal block overlay

ALSO: I have recently contributed to a Big Picture Classes ebook about Project Life! It’s all about using the Project Life structure to dig a little deeper into your stories. Check out more details including a preview here!

If you have questions about HOW I put these together, you can check out my recent posts on the process with supplies, the process with journaling, the process with photos and the process with design.

Project Life, created by Becky Higgins, is a flexible, easy-to-use, highly customizable way to preserve your memories and record your stories in an easy way. Learn more about getting started with Project Life or check out all my Project Life posts.

Ta da! The last bit from last year!

Just one more thing I’m waiting for Andrew to do and then this gets put on the shelf with all my scrapbooks (which I need to show you sometime).

Since we’re already almost done with January, I won’t get too mushy or reflective.

But I will say that Project Life is (without a doubt) one of the best things I could have done in 2012. I didn’t have a great year. House + kittens, yes, but a lot of stress headaches and frustrations and other things. I finally got all my (boxes and boxes) of scrapbooking supplies out of storage after 4 years – and realized I didn’t care about them any more.

I had paid a monthly fee for 4 years to keep all this stuff and now that I have it back I don’t care ….

… at least about “traditional” scrapbooking.

Project Life is different. And Project Life helped me get back into memory keeping again.

Which gave me an awesome creative outlet when the stress headaches just would not leave me alone.

I’m hoping over this next year to get more into my supplies, find what I will USE and get rid of what I won’t. And tell more stories.

And live more stories.

But anyway … onward with the last few weeks of the year…

Most (if not all) of these photos are in my December Daily (interesting doing both projects), but the different format focuses on the stories in a different way.

These are my Project Life spreads from December 2012 (December 3 – 31) …. My weeks run Monday to Sunday – which I love, because they keep the weekends together in a chunk. So the images are *roughly* arranged from Monday on the left to Sunday on the right.

(if you’d like to see the images larger, you should be able to click through to view them on Flickr)

Week 49 : December 3 – 9:

Work work work with a busy Saturday

Left side:

(a bit blurry I just realized)

This week included Fang falling in love with (another) piece of trash).

Andrew had another recording session (Pangea – one of his favorites) and I tried a new pork loin recipe for the first time. And accidentally melted the plastic cover of my meat thermometer. Which is actually glued in that second 3×4 pocket below.

Right side: Mostly Saturday. Also a tad blurry.

Saturday afternoon Joey came over (with his parents) and we got to see how he “walks” and did a quick little impromptu photo shoot in front of our chalkboard wall!

Such a cutie.

Saturday night was Andrew’s work holiday party – at a restaurant nearby. Fancy fancy (and delicious food).

Sunday was my parents’ 35-year wedding anniversary! My mom changed her profile to this photo from their wedding, so I thought it’d be fun to include…

a little detail shot:

I just wrapped this blank journaling card with washi tape (green to match a lot of the colors in the rest of the spread) and stapled the business card on.

Week 50: December 10 – 16

Sick, work, and just a few Christmas-related activities

Left side:

Monday night (at work) I was a wreck. Feeling feverish and nauseous and nearly falling asleep at my desk. Luckily for me our office is freezing cold so on my lunch break I just lay down on the floor by an empty desk, near the cold cold window, and tried to sleep. (Note: You might ask why I didn’t go home. When you drive at least 1 hour without traffic to work, you are committed to staying. If I went home, it would have taken me possibly close to 2 hours in the car. So I might as well just stay at work).

Tuesday morning I was still feeling a bit sick, so I got Andrew to go to the nearby store and get me a thermometer (I don’t know why we didn’t own one before). But it turned out IF I had a fever it was gone. Oh well.

Most of the rest of this page is from Thursday.

I took Thursday off work to go to the midnight show of The Hobbit. SUPER fun date-night for me and Andrew, and if I had gone to work I would have not even gotten home til midnight. Which means perfect reason to take the day off.

But, of course, since the movie wasn’t til midnight we had all day together too

In the morning we went (as per tradition the last few years) with Andrew’s mom to help her pick up her Christmas tree. At the time we also got our own – a 7.5 foot Christmas tree (journaled more here).

Visited Andrew’s g’ma in the nursing home where she was trying to recover from an injury and complications, more errands (library, Sprouts to get candy for the movie) then home!

I searched out a The Hobbit promo photo (this one I chose included the logo already on the image) and added my journaling about the movie directly on top of it.

Fun little piece of pop-culture.

Right side:

Friday began with news about the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting – which colored our whole week. I wanted to include just a little something about it – so I found a (non-graphic) news photo and just added a bit of text with the facts. I think that alone speaks for itself – no need to add my thoughts.

Saturday my mother in law had several family members over for a holiday craft day … .Feeling a bit more Christmasy this week!

Sunday, Andrew broke his iPhone

Quite the eventful week!

another little detail shot:

We bought our fake tree but left a couple of the tags up for a few days. This one (picture below) has visible kitty teeth marks from where the cats crawled up into the tree and hung out for awhile and chewed on it!

brats.

Week 51: December 17 – 23:

work, final Christmas professions and family in town

Left side:

We have been spending some time trying to fix/adjust the water pressure in our master bedroom. The top photo is after an experiment that left the water pressure so high that I went through an ENTIRE tank of hot water with just one (normal-length) shower. Um. Back to the drawing board.

Also this week: Finished up the last bit of Christmas activities. Getting a couple more gifts, moving the Christmas tree and going to Costco to get ready for a house full of guests for 5 days or so.

The bottom right photo here was taken late late Friday night. My brother arrived with his dog, and Fang got caught unprepared – with the dog between her and the safety of the stairs.

Right side:

Basically just Saturday and Sunday. A house full of relatives ALL weekend.

I mean, you can kind of just tell from looking at the photos. I made dinner for 6 people Sat night and brunch for 12 people Sunday morning.

And then I sat in my chair with my laptop and worked the rest of Sunday while my brother taught my cousins poker.

The poor girls were so stressed out by the dog. Fang would be a little brave as long as the dog was lying down or staying still, but then the dog would see her, want to play, act like she wanted to chase Fang and then both cats would cower beneath our bed upstairs for hours.

Insert for this week:

A little Christmas.

Andrew has been Instagramming some photos of our holiday 7″ records so I pulled a couple of those from his phone to include. To prove we HAVE been listening to Christmas music even if the rest of me doesn’t feel very Christmasy.

The back of the insert:

I left the paper blank and just used the page protector as a pocket for the Christmas cards we got.

(The card in front is from the Keegan Grosses, the wedding family photo you see is from this family/wedding)

Week 52: December 24 – 31:

Christmas events and then work and cleaning.

Left side:

Christmas Eve night we did ‘Christmas’ with my family. Andrew told me he had to go into work a little bit that morning – but actually he just drove across town and sat at his mom’s house to borrow her tole paints and personalize these cat ornaments for me Sneaky. Also, I love them …

We had decided “no gifts” except for stockings, but my mom is not a good listener The poor cats were too scared to come down, so they just sat on the landing watching, their heads hanging over the rail. Hilarious and heart breaking

(Christmas day was an insert, below)

Right side:

Andrew’s grandmother died early morning Thursday this week. It was not unexpected, but still, of course, very sad. She had been in a hospital of some kind for about 6 weeks, so all the recent photos of her were heart breaking. I went and found this old photo of Andrew and his brother with their grandmother (from January 2011) and Andrew will be journaling about her on the card next to it.

The rest of the week we just worked and cleaned the house. My parents left Tuesday morning, my brother left early Thursday morning, and then the cats finally got used to not having a dog in the house sometime Friday.

Christmas Day insert:

Christmas Day itself was SUPER low-key. We got up. Said goodbye to my parents, ate a little. Then I went and took a nap. Awesome.

We went over to Andrew’s parents’ across town around 2p, went to visit his g’ma in the hospital, and then did ‘Christmas’ with his parents, sister+family that night.

With Andrew’s brother in Chicago, grandma in the hospital, and all the cousins who have been there for Christmases past not there, it seemed like a really small quiet Christmas.

insert back:

Just photos. Including the Schubert traditional Mexican food Christmas dinner.

AAAAAAND! That’s it! Project Life 2012 is done! Project Life 2013 started ….

Supplies used this month:

• Black Project Life Signature Binder
• Photo Pocket Pages – Big Variety Pack 2 (60 Pages) – Design A only used
• 100 Journaling Cards – 3″ x 4″ with Grid Design
• assorted cardstock from my scrap pile
• washi tape from Freckled Fawn
• white 4×6 index cards

ALSO: I have recently contributed to a Big Picture Classes ebook about Project Life! It’s all about using the Project Life structure to dig a little deeper into your stories. Check out more details including a preview here!

If you have questions about HOW I put these together, you can check out my recent posts on the process with supplies, the process with journaling, the process with photos and the process with design.

Project Life, created by Becky Higgins, is a flexible, easy-to-use, highly customizable way to preserve your memories and record your stories in an easy way. Learn more about getting started with Project Life or check out all my Project Life posts.