Project 12 January

Oh yes.  It's Project 12 January.  In January!  Finally!  I know you have been anxious for the details of the new way of doing Project 12.

Project 12 has always been about capturing the moments of our everyday life, to use the less than perfect photos that capture our stories, and to tell those stories in our journaling.  One of my favorite thing about the sketches Becky Fleck has created for this challenge was the great big journaling box.  I’m addicted to that large space and love using a large journaling block on most two page layouts I create.

Life has a way of changing, and with the new challenge in this new year, it was time to make that change.  

The first one is a change to the 15^th of the month instead of the first.  That’s doable.  That change is easy enough to adhere to.  The new challenge itself is easy as well.

Scrapbook your life.  Whether you take 1 photo, 100 photos, or no photos, get it down on paper.  But this year, let’s include our memorabilia as well.  Let’s declutter our world of those things we save but don’t have a place for, tickets and receipts and programs and race running bibs, and lets incorporate them into our work.

Taking a photo a day has always been an overwhelming task for me to take on.  There are 365 days in a year (366 this time).  I could never do it.  But I do like the concept of Project Life, developed by Becky Higgins to incorporate your daily life in page protectors and journaling cards.  I’ve taken on that challenge for 2012.  I like the idea.  I also think it’ll be fun to involve my husband and my kids and have them tell their story with their own words.

But I still think an album like this has a place for art on a larger canvas.  So I think it’s perfectly fine to mix the two.  I also don’t think it’s necessary to do something to document every single day.  That’s too much pressure.  My life isn't always that exciting!  

For 2012 we don’t have a new sketch to work from every month.  Becky has created sketches for this challenge the last two years, and SCT has done a great job capturing all of them in one place on the website.  You can see them all here.

For my layout this month, which incorporates memorabilia and random photos from the first week in January, I chose to work with the August 2010 sketch:

Another twist on the challenge is to utilize a colour palette.  Revealed on the 15^th every month at SCT, this works great with the new challenge.  You can check out the the color suite for January here.  (and now that I'm on my blog in Oregon and out of Canada, I can type color instead of colour.  heeee).  So with the sketch I chose and the January color suite in mind, this is what I came up with:

As you can see, I included receipts, coupons, my racing bib from a 5k I did that weekend, and even a snippet of a letter I got in the mail regarding Orientation for grad school.  All of these are elements that will be fun to look back on down the road, as part of my history.  There will be a time when loading your Starbucks card for $20 will barely cover the cost of a latte.  J

You’ll also notice more random photos, like the one of my husband’s suitcase.  This is part of the new challenge to myself to document even more of the everyday than I usually do.  By the way, did you see how we mark our luggage?  I have a fabrip wrapped around the handle. It's been there a few years now.  Love it.  

TIP:  See the “splatter marks" on my layout?   If you are like me and want more control on where the mist splatters, especially when your photos are already adhered, try this:  dip a pencil eraser into a bottle of mist or stamp it on an ink pad, and stamp the splatter onto your page.   I also used the end of a Basic Grey file.  There are a lot of tools in your stash that would double as a quick and easy stamp.  Try it! 

One last thing.  I LOVE the large journaling cards.  Have I mentioned that?  I love them so much that I asked Marcy to create some Project 12 projects for me, and she has.  And they are gorgeous.  And I think you should get some.  Check them out:

Number badges and 2.88x8 journaling cards here here, and here.  The one I used on this layout was a prototype but the rest will be here, LIVE, asap.  Fun times.  Cut them in half and they look pretty on your Project Life pages too.  See?  Multi-functional. :)

The new Project 12 challenge is to document more of your every day on a layout.  Because some days we take more photos than the last, you can choose your own sketch among all the fun sketches that Becky has created for this challenge.  Utilize the colour suite as an additional challenge for yourself, and enter that monthly challenge for a subscription to the magazine, the best and most inspiring craft publication available, if I do say so myself. 

The Project 12 challenge is supposed to be easy to incorporate into your life and your albums.  I have to have some easy in my life, lol.  I wanted to be able to share an inspiration piece each month when I list the new challenge, and I love that I can do that with this new format.  The jumping around that you had to do in the previous challenge on the SCT blog was always something I didn't care for but we couldn't find a way to work around it if I was to live through the month like the rest of you.  

The amount of time you choose to document is up to you.  For this layout, I chose a week in our life.  Maybe next month it’ll be just a few days, or maybe 10 of them.  The point is to grab a piece of time in your life and get it down on paper for future generations to get a glimpse of your life, one layout a month.

I hope you will be inspired and play along!  Link me up too.  And then come back to see what others are doing, just like you used to do.  I'm going to do better about commenting too.  I used to be good at that.....

Thank you so much for supporting this challenge!  It has meant so much to me, knowing you do.  I've had emails directing me to various talk around the web about this challenge, and I hope that you are happy knowing it is still going strong.  

Have a great day!  Davinie