Inspiration from many

When I decided I was going to participate in P365 this year I knew I wanted to record more than just a photo for some of the days in my life this year. As I'm a "scrapper" for want of a better word, I wanted to record a hard copy of the little events, the everyday, journal more about the details (my memory is failing and I need to do this as I get older) of my day to day life. Not every day as such, but I felt a need to document the more mundane occasions.

My inspiration for the type of album I was looking for was to come from a few people. Firstly from my dear friend Lis Cassey - now Lis creates layouts about the little things that she and her family do. I have always admired her style of creating a "no fuss" layout. Believe me when I say she is a power scrapper, choosing to record the important rather than the plentiful. Lis can come up with a page in about 5 minutes (sometimes!) whereas I would spend hours (ok....days) fussing and fiddling with product and attempting to fill my page with enough product to sink a battle ship.

Secondly, I love the way Ali Edwards journals and records in her own eloquent words her memories of her own day to day events. Again without fuss. Including things like receipts, menus even cut up coffee cups.

One deciding factor in creating this vision was to attempt to use as much as I could of my papercrafting stash without purchasing very much at all. This I have managed to achieve so far!

I had an album – We Are Memory Keepers Green Corduroy 8.5”x11” purchased some time ago from Tomorrow's Memories.  I haven't decided what I want in the front window yet so I have just added a little bit of pattern paper for the moment.

I had some page protectors on hand and sourced some more like these and these.

Product – I have plenty of that!

Now I must have had my head in the sand lately, but please believe me when I say I was not aware of Becky Higgins' Project Life - I know, I know....where have I been? As I said I had my head in the sand. But when I saw this project I realised my ideas weren’t that original after all. My visions were definitely on the Ali Edwards path not Becky Higgins’ but since starting the year off with lots of enthusiasm I have adopted some of Becky’s ideas like the transparent monthly dividers with chopped up Maya Road calendars stapled to the top. Like I said I need to use up what I have and these worked a treat.

I'm mixing up the page protectors to suit what photos I want to showcase and also including little tabbed pages without protectors.  I like the idea of it being a little different.

I have even created a whole page dedicated to my word for 2011 - "Choose". A gentle reminder every time I open my album.

I am really enjoying this project - I can work on it as much or as little as I like and I find (like Ali Edwards) if it's left out on my bench then I will fiddle when I have ten minutes here and there.  Because I'm not having to create a 12x12 elaborate layout it is not so overwhelming.  Every couple of weeks I will get some photos printed off and hopefully that will inspire me again to keep going.  I'm excited to see the pages starting to take shape and more importantly the stories are being told about the little things.

I have also been creating some of my own journaling tags in Photoshop which have been inspored again by Ali Edwards.

These next 3 pages document my weekend away in Fremantle with my hubby including receipts and the little things I wanted to remember and keep.

Please if you are joining in on Project Life then leave me a link so I can come visit your "world" - sharing ideas is what it's all about.