Pad Peek! Exploring the Project Life/365/52 sub-forum

Hello, Froggy friends!

Happy May! This article is a Pad Peek, where we dive into different areas of the Lilypad website for a closer look. Today, I’m showing off a sub-forum of the Scrapbooking forum, called Project Life / 365 / 52.  This corner of the forum has an abundance of inspiration ready for you to view and contribute to! 

Although the title of the sub-forum is Project Life / 365 / 52, it’s not just for “a slice of time” style albums. It’s designed as a space where scrapbookers who do any series of related pages can collaborate. Here are a few ideas of project albums besides the weekly and monthly albums that are timeless and popular. These projects and layouts are welcome in the subform!

• Wedding albums
• Vacation albums
• School albums
• Home projects
• Heritage / family tree
• Baby’s First Year
• Places I’ve Been
• Family recipes
• Life Lessons
• Books honoring a person or a career
• Precious Things (I’ve been working on this book for years – inexpensive things in our home that are precious because of the family member who gifted it to us or taught us a skill related to the object)

Project Book Formulas

There really aren’t any rules in scrapbooking. If you love your book, it’s perfect! That said, a lot of project books have a cohesive look by using the same or related items from page to page. The repeated items could be a template set, kit, journaling card set, alphabet, or font.  Using a formula makes project albums come together smoothly and sometimes quickly because narrowing down the choices eliminates the time we spend agonizing over supplies with each layout.  With a project album, you decide once, make a choice, then move on! Here are a couple of “formulas” you will see the regular contributors to the Project 365 / 52 are using.

Intensemagic, aka Polly Jan’s 2026 album

Jan has been doing a 2026 album a week at a time.  Impressively, she’s mostly caught up (this is never me)! Her consistent supplies are a monthly template set by Just Jaimee called Storyteller, March 2021 Ready-to-go Templates, and Numbers (Basic) Journaling Cards by Sahlin Studio. To top it off, she uses a bright fun Just Jaimee kit related to that month.  Here are a few of her layouts. The links to view and purchase supplies are included when you click on her layouts.

Dawn M (Polly)’s 2026 Planner,

Dawn has a different strategy for her 2026 memory keeping. She’s using a planner page format.  The cool thing about her format is that it has a really cohesive look because the planner shape is very distinctive.  Within it, however, she’s using different kits, cards, date stamps and fonts. Sometimes, all we need is one distinctive item – in this case the planner shape and strong lines – to pull a lot of disparate elements together. Take a look!

Great Minds Think Alike! Becky and Nancy used the same templates different ways

Becky, aka Scrapchyk (Polly), and I used the same kit for our project layouts last year!  She used a weekly template set by Nic & Joy. Sadly, the set is no longer available, but the style would be easy to re-create. Create a grid-style template (or use one from the TLP store) and then use one medium-sized circle to create your distinctive look, putting the week / month inside a circle and clipping the photos to rectangular. 

Here are a few of my layouts using the same template set. I chose a monthly 2-page spread to do an album for 2023 just in time for our daughter’s birthday. I’m always a bit behind with my scrapbooking, as I skip around from year to year. I kept the size and shape of the circle. Sometimes, I put the number 23 in it for 2023 and sometimes I filled it in with colorful flowers. The other consistent items across my layouts are my large title with family name / month / year, a journaling box, background papers, and heart circles from Joyce Paul’s You & Me kit. 

App scrapping plus TLP kits
Before I sign off, I have one more project inspiration for you.  In 2024, I took my family to Italy on a work trip, then we took an extra week for vacation. Wanting to be a bit faster completing our vacation book, I used an app on my phone, combined with TLP kits and alphas, to start the project while traveling and finish it at home.

Each night, I used the Project Life app on my phone to make two or three pages. First, I made a simple cover page for the day with a large photo and a few supporting photos and space for a journal card outlining the day. I left blank spaces for TLP supplies. My other layout(s) were photo-dense with nearly all of the grid filled by photos.  Once complete, I used hotel wifi to email the layouts, large, to my home email account.  When I got home, I completed the album in PSE, bringing in each “bare” layout from the app, placing it onto a 12×12 layout, shrinking it to make room for papers and elements, then adding those details to the layout.  I was very happy with how quickly and easily the album came together, and it didn’t take any time away from our vacation. App scrapping was my way to chill out after a long day, and to do something quiet while I waited for our daughter to fall asleep so I could go to bed. 

Here’s one of my daily cover pages.  I used the same journaling card on each page (from a former designer at TLP) and similar colors / buttons.

Here’s one of my “activity” pages.

As you can see, there are tons of ways to make a weekly, monthly, or project album look consistent from page to page. Each scrapper can choose how much repetition they’d like across layouts, and which key item(s) to repeat to achieve their desired look. I hope this gives you some ideas for your own projects.  I just tipped the iceberg for you with a short tour of the Project Life / 365 / 52 sub-forum.  Come look around for inspiration, share love on the layouts, and post your own!

Lynn Grieveson has a class and kit for planning albums!!!

Want more inspiration for planning your next project album? Designer Lynn Grieveson created a workshop for planning and creating beautiful vacation albums.  The workshop also comes with a kit, and there’s a sub-forum in the Scrapbooking forum called Travel Photobook Workshop with Lynn Grieveson for you to ask questions, post layouts, and share your travels.  I bought this workshop when it came out and LOVE IT!  The first lesson about planning is worthwhile no matter what type of project book you’d like to make. As a buyer who paid full price (it’s now on sale – woo hoo!), I can tell you it’s worth every penny.

Happy Scrapbooking to all!

I was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, currently residing in Oregon with my husband and 2 fledgling adult children. Although I’ve spent my life living within a 200 mile radius, i’ve been to 28 countries and am planning my visits to countries 29, 30 and 31 within the next year. I work in the fitness industry as a pilates instructor, personal trainer, and mentor to other instructors.

My creative style can be all over the map as I enjoy trying new styles. My default style is lots of photos with story-telling journalng. Reading family scrapbooks is what taught our daughter (special needs, Down Syndrome) how to read. She loves seeing pictures of herself, and I include lots of photos for her to highlight her activities with journaling to encourage her to read aloud. A lot of family history, vocabulary and education can be snuck into scrapbook pages!

I’m a HUGE fan of templates! About half the time, I’ll use them as is, and half the time I’ll move things around, add or delete shapes, or even merge two templates. 

If you’re new to scrapbooking, my biggest piece of advice would be to enjoy the process and know that your work is beautiful and meaningful just as it is. There is no one better at documenting your memories, or creating your heart’s visions, than YOU.