Project Life® 2015 │ the beginning

January 24th and I finally started my 2015 album. I took a much needed break from making after finishing my December Daily® album and I took a lot of time to figure out how I wanted to tackle the new year. I loved reading all of the blog posts I saw at the beginning of the year on how people planned to tackle the project for the year. One of the overwhelming themes I saw was how different everyone wanted the year to be. Different in the sizes of the albums they would work with, different in the scope they wanted it to take and different in how they were approaching the project as a whole. I could totally add myself to the list of people that really want to do it differently this year. Reading these posts by others helped me in some ways but also left me wondering how and on some days even if I would proceed with the project again this year. I mentally started making a list of things that I knew I wouldn't do the same this year which was great but it left me with a lot of unanswered questions on what I would do.

Probably my biggest decision hurdle was the size because size was a big concern for me this year. There was a huge appeal to go smaller because I have learned that mini books are totally where its at for me, my total happy place as far as recording goes. But the expense of some of the albums and protectors I saw out there was a huge deterrent, especially since I have such a huge supply of 12x12 protectors. I'm also afraid that if I went small I would end up with just too many volumes for the year. Right now in 12x12 I end up with two per year and that's a manageable number for me. I'm afraid if I went small I'd end up with four and that's not a manageable number to me. That being said the biggest appeal of the smaller size albums is the ability to switch things up and play with sizes and shapes of the spreads. This is a huge draw to me as its something I love doing in my December Daily® albums.

I could go on and on with the pros and cons of all the decisions I had swirling in my mind and even wrote to a friend how foolish I felt worrying so much about it. The thing that put everything into place for me was a trip to Michael's and seeing that all the albums were buy one get one free and they happened to have two of the Heidi Swapp black and white stripe Project Life® albums in stock. Decision made.

My hope for the year though is to switch things up size wise inside the album. My other main change will be that I'm freeing myself of the one spread per week that I have done in the past. I want this year to be way more loose, way more free flow. I want to be able to sit down and see what I have that hasn't been covered and if its one week great, if its three that's okay too. I'll turn it into however many spreads I want to in whatever size I want to.

Another change this year is when I sat down to actually start I didn't want to use a pocket page for my title. I've done how many now and I just wanted something different. Taking my cues from the black and white stripes I made a full 12x12 page for the title.

The year cut file is from Paislee Press, the glitter stars are old Studio Calico, the sequin heart is Heidi Swapp, loved those things and grabbed a few before they were gone. I added in a simple stitch of hot pink thread around the photo and it was done.

I knew I wanted a few more photos and details included so I also made this page for the back side. A simple black and white grid of photos, cards and paper. Some of the cards are from the current Studio Calico Project Life kit and some are old. The circle vellum came in the Studio Calico Sparkle class kit as did the rose gold stars. The pink flecked hearts are in the current Studio Calico kit and the rest of the supplies were from my stash.

So there you have it, a beginning.  I'll be back when I have more to share which hopefully won't be that far off.