Project Life Knock-off

I am SUPER excited to share this with you. As I gutted my house of junk last month, I was able to put all my finished scrapbooks in one place. Looking through them, I got nostalgic and realized that I really miss scrapbooking! The kids absolutely love looking through the books, I miss the fellowship of scrapping with friends and I just miss the creative process in general. I also really don't like having my photos only on the computer. When I gave up scrapbooking as a hobby several months ago, it was because the stuff and the time and feelings of being behind at something that was supposed to be just a hobby, were becoming overwhelming.

But, I missed it. So, I started brainstorming ways to get back into it with less stuff and less guilt. (I did get rid of a LOT of the stuff, keeping only paper and stamps and tools. All the stuff I have left has a place and gets used by the kids and me or my co op class often).

After searching for ideas online, I was reminded of the Becky Higgins Project Life line of products and got really excited. But, I wasn't going to pay her prices (it's a fast $90, just to get started if you buy those specific albums, inserts and journaling cards!)

Instead, I went to Hobby Lobby and bought an album and photo inserts (all half off). I think this album is just the cutest:

I decided to just start with last year and not go too far back. Organizing pages by month rather than giving each event or group of photos its own page with a complicated layout was very liberating for me! I got some photos printed and cut up a paper "stack" I already had into 4x6 pieces to make it easier to get started. Here's what I did yesterday:

I started with April because that's the month I had all the photos for. I have since began uploading other months to Snapfish to place a big order and have all the photos ready to go.

What I love about this photo album scrapbook idea is that the creative process can still happen--I can decorate (or not) to my heart's content! I can add captions and journaling if I want to and even though I've only done two pages, my kids are already loving looking at those pic from Nebraska last year! I still need to do the Easter photos before April is done, but other months only have a few pictures.

I'm thrilled that this is fun for me again. If you're curious about Project Life, you can order those products on Amazon--the photo inserts aren't too expensive and come in more layouts, but I wanted to keep it simple for now and use what I could get cheaper at Hobby Lobby. There is a lot of inspiration for this concept on Pinterest too! Check it out here :)

As an added bonus, my girls are getting into scrapbooking too, so this can easily become something we do together! Scrapbooking at home when my kids were little was next to impossible, so this is exciting for me :)