Last week, Molly and I went shopping. We went to LL Bean to look at backpacks, we went to American Girl "just to look" and came out with a DVD and a Christmas list, she likes to plan ahead, and then we went to Barnes and Nobles.
I do love that Molly loves her books so much. She did walk out with a few. She is very excited about reading this one together, The Mouse with the Question Mark Tail. It is about the smallest mouse that lives in Buckingham Palace during Queen Victoria's reign. Molly just loves anything that has to do with England.
She also picked out this one, Junonia by Kevin Henkes. He is one of my favorite children's authors. It is about a little girl going to a beach cottage for their family vacation. This is perfect right now since we leave in just a few days for Kiawah, our last trip of the summer.
At the moment, Molly and I are reading aloud From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. This is a story about a sister and brother that run away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Molly and I have already planned out our next trip to New York. We are going to go to the museum to see all the places they talk about in the book and then we are going to get tickets to see Cinderella on Broadway. We'll see if that happens, but that's the plan at the moment.
Our other stop on this shopping trip was to The Container Store. I've been in an organizational mode lately and needed some new baskets for my new overflow pantry in the basement that used to be Molly art room. But I never just walk out with just what is on my list. I always find something that I just have to have. This day was no exception.
Let me back track a little bit. This summer we did a lot of traveling in June and July, and then I had three full weeks of being at home and I had a to-do list of things I wanted to get done before our next trip to the beach. On that to-do list was my Project Life album. I started Project Life a few years ago. In the past, I did the elaborate, traditional scrapbook pages. I loved doing them. I enjoyed the creative part of them and looking at the pictures of my kids as they were hitting milestones and growing up. But reality now is that I don't have the time to spend an hour on a two page layout and only have a few pictures documented in an album. It just doesn't work for me anymore. So that is how I found Project Life. You get an album and a kit that is filled with journaling cards and you just slide everything into place. There are so many blogs out there that are dedicated to sharing their ideas on how they set up their albums, some do it once a week, others sit down and work on it once a month, others do a picture a day. Whichever way helps you get your pictures documented is the right way.
I myself, fell way behind on our 2013 album. Life just gets too busy and then I get an idea in my head of how I want to do something or how I want my albums to look and then when I have a free moment, I don't think it is a long enough moment to get done what I want, so then I don't do anything. It's a vicious cycle.
But on my to-do list for this three week period of time between trips, I was going to get this album DONE. I wasn't going to fuss over the font that I usually use and print all the cards on the computer, I was going to hand write them. I was going to do everything possible to cut down on time, and get it done because I thought, getting it done is better than it being perfect. Getting it done will make me feel good. Getting it done will mean the kids can look through the album instead of it sitting on a shelf not completed. I was going to get it DONE!
So back to The Container Store...as I was walking up and down the aisles, I found this photo storage case. I have a few of the Project Life card kits and even though Becky Higgins, the creator of the company, has some very functional boxes for the cards, they still took up more space than I would like. This case was perfect!
The large cards fit perfectly into the smaller boxes in the carry case and you can get two stacks of the journaling cards into one case as well. I pulled out my label maker and marked each box with the name of the kit and it all fit in just perfectly.
Then it was time to get this job DONE! The only month that I had completed was January. I had my work cut out for me. I did one month a day...June took a few days because we traveled so much and there was a lot to document but it got done!
I just came across another great find. We have a Walgreens right up the street from us. I can be there in a minute if I make the light, 3 if I don't. But last week when I was picking up my pictures there was a card in them saying that they have an app and that you can upload all your instagram photos right from your phone and they will print them on 4x4 prints. I downloaded the app, uploaded the photos, dropped Shannon off at soccer and on the way back, my prints were ready.
Here they are in my PL album, just waiting for me to journal about them. I was so excited about this.
So there you have it, our January to June is Done! It may not be perfect and there are so many ways to elaborate the album but DONE is better than perfect!
You can see all of Becky Higgins' Project Life products if you click the button on the right hand side and they are now available at Michael's. I just picked up some more photo sleeves the other day to get this project done.
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