Coral Project Life by Craft Warehouse Project Life Design Team Member Jennie McGarvey

Hello there!  Jennie McGarvey happily sharing with you a  Project Life spread for 2014.

I love Project Life, I love that this is my second year with this project. It's really doing EXACTLY what I want it to do -- which is remember the details of our day to day life.  I'm able to keep receipts, movie tickets and mundane things right here along with my photos.
I also love that Project Life is beautiful.  You can take the most ordinary bits of your life and make it all cohesive and colorful.  Even better, it's unique and how you Project Life is up to you.

Because I'm still a scrapbooker and I still create many 12x12 pages, I choose to create Project Life in a simple way.  Do I still embellish?  YES!  Do I still stamp?  ABSOLUTELY!  Do I create pages I love?  OH YEAH!  However, I do not go crazy.  I do not create 4x6 pockets that rival the best work of art.  I let the photos, the words and the cards tell our day to day story.

As you can see from my pages below, I like my pages to be fun and cohesive, but I do not embellish heavily.  I also love to be flexible.  If it means more photos one week and less the next, great.  I might have a photo that needs to be big, even if it's not technically the best photo ever. (but the story is a great one)  Being flexible helps me keep from going crazy and also helps me learn more and more.

Here's the LEFT SIDE:



 One of the things that makes my work unique to me is the handwritten journaling.  On pretty much any page (12x12 or Project Life) you will find my handwritten journaling.  I believe so much in telling the stories -- and I know how much I love seeing family members handwriting.  It's so much a part of them, and I believe that someday someone will feel the same way about mine.  And if not?  Oh, well!  Handwriting journaling is a quick way to tell the stories that are so important to me!

The RIGHT SIDE:


As I mentioned above JOURNALING is where it's at.  I love to add journaling directly onto a photo.  Most of the time, it's with a Slick Writer, but occasionally I will digitally add it before printing a photo.

And, the whole thing together:



See?  Simple.  However, it's always a process.  Every week the pages change - I find new ways to embellish or learn something new to add to a layout.  (This week?  The Becky Higgins corner rounder.  I seriously wanted to round everything in sight!  It was easy to use and I loved the effect of the round corners!)

That's the name of the game.  Documenting our stories. The fact that I have fun while doing it?  Icing on the cake. And Project Life?  It does it all and I'm grateful for that.