Project Life Process

I thought I would give you a peek at how I organize my Project Life stuff. Hold tight now, this is a very lengthy post! Hopefully you will find it useful to you though. First off a dear friend and I split 6x6 paper packs so we can get double the supplies. When I get a 6x6 pack they go into a Target basket. I have 3. I keep like company packs together, the one on the right is strictly October Afternoon due to size.

If I decide to prep one I put them into quart size bags and label them with the company name (My Minds Eye, October Afternoon, etc) then the collection name. I will cut them down to 4x6 and sometimes if I know I want a certain card for journaling I cut it down to 3x4. I keep all the scraps in the bag incase I need them. After cutting them, they go into a Stampin Up! card box and await my itchy fingers!

If I find that I have the itch to be crafty and am caught up on Project Life, I will then pull one of the cut sets out of the box and prep even further. I will decorate some of the 4x6 cards, make journal cards etc. I ink all of my edges with Creamy Brown chalk from Color Box, this year I have decide to not round my edges. For the individual times I use a Project Life card in a week I dont mind that rounded. I would have it the other way around last year when I had rounded. Some cards did not work being rounded so they had to be left squared. I may choose to go back to that again next year, who knows. There are some events that I know will always happen, and I may have "the perfect set" for that week. I will prep based on that event. Since I do not do any traditional scrapping anymore, I know a big event will lead to 1 or more inserts. For those weeks I will prep even more, and gear some of my journaling cards toward that event.

Here I have pulled a set to show you, called "Christmas Wish" by My Minds Eye. I split the set into 2 groups so I could use this for just a snowy week. Knowing my daughter Hannah LOVES playing in the snow, I knew there would be another snowman and more snow pics. I had a card that worked great with these colors so I put it in the baggy. I think it will be part of my Title Card. I then pulled journal cards from my various Project Life kits (Clementine and Seafoam) to add. Sometimes I do nothing to the journal cards but ink them, sometimes I add scraps of paper from the collection, washi, alpha stickers, doilies ( I have to hold myself back on the doilies or they would be on a card every week!). I know that I will have some full 4x6 pics on each side, and some cropped square that will need to be mounted on paper, so I put in 4x6 papers. I also know that their will be a full 3x4 pic or two on the layout. My guess for this week is that if there is snow, there will be a snow insert! I leave all of my scraps in the bag so I can add more if needed. I wont stamp anything on the journal cards until I see how much space is needed for the journaling.

I have one more set I will show you, and that will be it.The set is called "So Happy" by Echo Park. Our previios snow had all melted and all we had was brown mud. I needed a little pick-me-up, and this set was perfect to play with. If you have any of the origianl Project Life kits, you know the journal cards are much smaller. I mounted a couple of the older journal cards on patterned paper to make them the right size, and it also gives them alittle kick. I have baskets with precut journal cards from other sets that with grid or lines that are left over, so I keep them handy. (I will show my Project Life set up in another post) I used a manilla tag for my Title Card, added date washi to a card that will hold a smaller square pic on it, "friends" in Ovtober Afternoon letters, knowing there is always a friend over for one of my girls!, and then pearls to a journal card so I can list something for that week, maybe a recap, errand list, etc.

With the amount of supplies I have, I try very hard to keep myself organized. I am constantly moving things, pulling things out to an easier spot, putting things further away, based on what I am using most at the time. I mostly keep up on my Project Life, but I do like to have something to work on, so this is how I work that out. Hopefully this was helpful to some of you. Thanks for stopping by.