Hi guys. I kinda want to try to start Project Life again (just for me... starting officially in 2019, but on and off in 2018 to get back in the swing of things). I already have the Mommyish Template Maker 2 to make my templates (even though I feel as though I should pre-make maybe five and stick with those for all my pages). What products do you guys recommend for Project Life? Do you have any tips for keeping it clean/streamlined? Looking back, this is my old style, and I'm in a love/hate with it. I kinda want to keep it a lot simpler. I'm also thinking of doing just a monthly, no page limit, sort of thing rather than going week by week. Thanks!
I've mostly been using any large kits and collabs already in my collection (BYOC are good) with PL templates. I did pick up the Storyteller Luka collection by Just Jamie in the sales and I've used that successfully for 2 months now.
Well, two thoughts. Just Jaimee has the ready to Go templates. Just drop in your photos. But, those are busier. For simple, I love using simple elements. And of course, any of the Memory Pockets Monthly! I love Chapters, and this add on:
With the Storyteller kits you can't go wrong, all you will ever need is in them - and you can be as simple or as elaborate as you want to be. You also get a 2 page pocket template so if you want condensed you could use that or use it in combination with your own. For a year I used the RTG templates and they are so easy. No work at all if you choose to use them as they come but highly customizable as well. Leave elements out to make them more simple or change things around, swap things out etc...
I don't do PL exactly, but at the end of every month I do a monthly spread that I call my misc. pages. It's a way to capture the smaller events and memories without making a separate page for each one and they honestly are my favorite pages in my books because they capture so much on two pages. I have been using Jaimee's RTG pages for years for those spreads and I LOVE them. They are super busy, but I very often just take off a bunch of stuff and use them for the layouts. and the Storyteller kits have just about every little thing you could ever need to swap out elements for whatever your photos are about. These are my pages from December and I stripped them down quite a lot:
Fantastic ideas! I love Just Jaimee's Storyteller collection. I love that you can do PL, but it can also be used a million other ways. I've been using the Project Life App on my phone, then finishing in PSE. However, I'm not in love with the shadows on the PL app and I'm too lazy to do a workaround in PSE, and I did a preset for the shadows so I can use other templates in PSE and have everything uniform. I got a new computer that is much easier to scrap with, so I will be looking for a fantastic set of temps in the near future. My books HAVE to look the same all the way through, so I have thru August, then I am going to switch it up. My pages are simply whatever fits on a page, and I group/break where it makes sense. I drove myself crazy trying to do it by week. Some weeks I have no photos, some weeks I have 20 pages.
PS- I don't share a lot of my PL here because it contains many images of other people that I don't feel comfortable sharing so publicly. This is my 2018 PL album with mostly storyteller products if you would like to peek! 2018 Project Life 50 photos
I have been using Mommyish's template creator for the rounded corners for my pages this year. I keep my embellishments to a minimum as I want the journaling and photos to be the main items on the pages.
I have gone with pretty elaborate pages when I started in, I think, 2011. I was still in love with elements back then but now I want it to look clean but pretty. My focus is photos and/or stories. I think when I keep up with it I can remember what I want to write from our shared iCals but it was better when I uses Momento and had digital reminders. I don't know why I stopped that. I did use a Jamie template to get a week done just now but mostly that's too busy for me. I make my own Weekly card and now try to have a good amount of white space on each of my 2 pages. I also really like the patterned paper borders I use after shrinking my templates (Mommyish Template maker made) to allow a border under the white border. I'm still happy with that design.
@tkradtke Tracie, I'm tagging you because you've been doing PL for quite a few years and you've also changed up your style, so you might have some great input. I try to do PL but I get about a week or two done and then I don't make another page for, like, a month...so I'm never caught up. Sigh. So I'm not really gonna share what I do, but I will say that I like simple backgrounds...I've even toyed with the idea of not having a bg ppr but just saving my pages as PNGs so the actual album's page is the background. In the past I've had issues with Shutterfly not correctly cutting my pages. I figure not having a bg ppr would solve that problem because cutting would no longer be an issue...but that's for me and not an actual design choice lol.
Thanks for tagging me Sara! @Tree City I have definitely streamlined my PL pages this year. I'm behind because of computer issues this year, but with my simpler plan, I think I should be able to catch up fairly quickly once I get my new computer. Limping along at the moment though. I went for a cleaner look this year. I keep things simple with lots of simple black and white cards with a few splashes of color. To help with this, I've concentrated more of collecting word art packs like the PP ones @bestcee suggested. Even look back through the existing elements packs you have to find black and white word art to "stamp" on your own journal cards. Depending on how you place them on the card they can be the whole card or a title to a card for journaling. This is something I do as well.... it got to be too stressful for me to cram full weeks or stretch light weeks into two page weekly spreads. My pages basically read like a book, row by row, left to right. I place a week card at the beginning of each new week so I can keep track of the date. You can see some of my pages in the gallery or if you want, I can post a link to my current book in progress so you can see the pages in order.
I love how photo focused your pages are! Thank you for sharing. For me, I'm using the Just Jaimee RTG pages for 2018 as the drag and drop nature of them allows me to keep current in 2018 while I catch up traditional albums for previous years.