Craft Warehouse Project Life Design Team Charissa Miller

Meet Charissa Miller! Her love for Becky Higgins Project Life inspired us to invite her to be on our design team! This is what she says about this way of memory keeping, "I love Project Life because it gets me to record and document those everyday moments - those little things that don't always make it to my 12x12 'traditional' pages.  I love being able to look through my book and see how things have changed, how my kids have grown, where we have been.  Each spread is an incremental step in our lives.  Project Life also pushes me to journal and actually write down the stories of my life.  On my traditional layouts, I don't always journal for a variety of reasons - space, artistic/design feelings, etc.  Project Life gives me little pockets and that encourages me to use a few of them to really write - longer stories, more details.  Also, I love Project Life because my kids cherish my Project Life albums more than any of my other projects.  I don't think my 3 year old can always 'understand' my 12x12 layouts, but she gets absolutely giddy flipping through my Project Life albums, because she finds photo after photo of herself, her sister, her papa.  She can recall the events and activities photographed, she can even find her art work.  The accessibility of Project Life for my whole family makes me just love the whole concept and practice of Project Life even more."

 How long have you been crafting?

I grew up in a crafty household.  My mother always had craft projects for us growing up and my great-grandmother was an amazing crafter - making fabric crafts, paper crafts, and everything in between.  I started scrapbooking in 1999, but it was really only here and there because I was in graduate school at the time.  I really started scrapbooking on a regular basis after my first daughter was born in 2009 and now with two little girls my scrapbooking and crafting is a daily event during nap time.

What inspires you to be creative?

My children are my biggest source of inspiration - I had a never ending supply of funny and fun photos that always give me ideas for pages and projects.  I also love browsing online galleries, blogs, and Pinterest for inspiration.  Often my best and most fun inspiration comes from non-paper crafts or even non-crafty items, such as books, quotes, etc.

What Craft Warehouse products do you love to use?

Well, of course, I simply must say patterned paper - My Mind's Eye, Echo Park, Authentique and so many others found at Craft Warehouse are absolute musts.  Also who doesn't love We R Memory Keeper tools - they make crafting so much easier and more efficient.  And I cannot even count how many bare wooden pieces I have altered and covered.  They are my favorite go to for off the page projects.

How can you encourage others reading this column?

Project Life is such a fantastic way of memory keeping that really can make it easier to get all of those memories documented and preserved, but it also can come with a lot of stress.  Keeping up on a weekly schedule, having enough photos to fill a spread, keeping memorabilia, etc, can take Project Life from a fun, memory keeping project into a huge stressor.  Keep it stress free!  It doesn't matter if you miss a week or only can do one side of a spread for a week.  Or want to only do Project Life on a monthly basis or on a completely random basis.  Project Life is about your memories and should be whatever you want it to be.  Don't let it bring you extra stress!  This is true of all crafts - do not let them be a stress, enjoy them - it is for you to enjoy and cherish.

Make sure to join us tomorrow for Charissa's fun layout using the Flea Market Mini Kit available at your local Craft Warehouse store! In the meantime, visit Charissa on her blog and Facebook page!