project life - a learning curve!

i'm having so much fun with project life.
i love messing about with paper, and photos, and washi tape.
i love that it's the kind of craft that you can do in short bursts, and don't have to spend large chunks of time paying close attention to - that makes it so much more manageable for me.

it's been a few weeks, so i've got several layouts to show you, and i will say that there are things i love about each of them, but lost of things that i'm not thrilled with. that's the best thing about a new craft - everything you learn about colour, texture, pattern, and design through trial, error and play.

so, here are my latest layouts, with a bit of reflection on the success each one.

october 21 - 27, 2013

love: the photo of arty and his oddmother, the pink/black/white colour combination, incorporating the butterflies that arty and i painted together.

don't love: the black and white stripes are too stark, i used a pen with too fine a tip and the text is too light.

october 28 - november 3, 2013

love: the way the colours complement each other, the way the game cards my friend jerry made me fit perfectly in a 3x4 pocket, the feather accent from pretty little studio

don't love: the sticker in the bottom right corner.

november 4 - 10

love: the way the colours work together

don't love: pretty much everything else... it's just a little bit too plain, or something? i don't know.

november 11 - 17

love: the bright colours, the inclusion of the ticket from the theatre, the photos from the farm, the pocket full of all my birthday cards.

don't love: the title card (i'm planning to redo it)

project life: october 7 - 13

i kind of love this spread.
with regards to colour, it's pretty simple, and i haven't embellished it too much, but i painted all the leaf details with watercolour, and i'm really pleased with how they turned out.

i also love the two photos of arty and his oma that feature on he right page. they capture the love between the two of them so well, and they make me happy every time i look at them.

like a hole in the head

if you know me, you'll know that i spend all my spare time crafting. and with a toddler in the house, the concept of spare time is pretty laughable most days. i have about three different quilting projects on the go at the moment (okay, four... FINE! seven! i have seven! are you happy now?), and my embroidery needle is never idle for long. i also draw and paint.

so i think it's safe to say that i need a new craft like a hole in the head.

but...

i really like paper. and i really like recording stories.
whenever we go travelling, i make travel journals with descriptions of our adventures, and stick in everything from postcards to bus tickets, to receipts from places that we shop. when i read over them, years after the fact, i get to revisit little details of the places we went that i would never have remembered otherwise.

a page from my travel journal, paris 2008

and here's the thing: i know that there are going to be hundreds of little details of arty's babyhood and childhood that i am going to want to revisit in future. the funny things he says, the clever ideas he has, and all the day-to-day stuff we do together are what make this time so precious.

arty's first potato print, ready for the album

so i have caved. and i have started project life.

my friends talia and ren have both been doing beautiful things with their own project life albums, and seeing their work was what finally tipped the balance for me. they showed me that scrapbooking doesn't have to be fussy or twee. it can be a colourful little love letter from the present to the future. with washi tape.

as a completionist, the idea of starting at a random point in the year was a little bit distressing, but i made myself let that go, and just got started.
to compensate, i have decided to do a single page for every month of arty's life up until the proper weekly scrapbooking begins. luckily, i had letters to arthur, facebook updates, and a well stocked instagram feed to help me fill in all the details. the process of going back over just those 19 months of his life confirmed that this is definitely something i need to do.

here are the weekly double page spreads i've done so far:

september 9 to15, 2013

featuring: some of arty's pinting, a reipe that sj baked for the royal show, a photo of the 5 leaf clover i found in the backyard, a hand-embroidered sunshine card, and a partially successful attempt at including fabric hexagons.

september 16 to 22, 2013

featuring: some silly little drawings by me, a repurposed greeting card, three kinds of washi tape, and a story about arty wearing a flower in his hair.

september 23 to 29, 2013

featuring: sj's grand final ticket, hand painted title and filler cards, a bumper sticker from sj's choir concert, and a story about arty being unwell.

30 september to 6 october, 2013

featuring: tickets from our trip to the royal show, arty's first potato print, a drawing of my d&d character, and a story about arty's developing language skills.

so expect to see some ramblings about this project here, along with talk of embroidery, quilting, and other sewing projects. if you're doing project life too, set me up with a link to your stuff - i'd love to see!