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Project Life 2014 : Going Digital and Keepin’ It Clean

January 28, 2014 18 Comments Holly & Nat

You know we’re huge Project Life groupies, right? Well, guess what? I have been TOTALLY slacking on keeping up with it over the last year. I was lucky to have some campaigns that motivated me to complete layouts or I don’t think I would have anything documented from 2013! Note: Project Life is not supposed to add stress to your life… which leads me to my decision to go ALL DIGITAL for 2014. (For my main family “yearbook”… not catching up on old photos, vacations, etc.  I’ll definitely be doing some traditional pages, too!)

Why I’m going digital – for anyone who’s on the fence or considering trying it.

1. I don’t have to wait for photos to be printed. This was my biggest hangup by far – I just couldn’t keep up with the printing.

2. I can change things! This is huge for me because I change my mind. A lot. You’ll see what I mean.

3. I can e-mail pages to grandparents, etc. and make multiple copies of albums for my kids easily (even if it’s down the road when I can afford it!)

4. The digital kits are inexpensive and SO versatile! It’s fun to mix and match kits and play without taking over our whole kitchen table 😉

Now, here are the few disadvantages I foresee. (But I’m SO over them, for the record!)

1. I won’t have an album to look through until the end of the year. Not a huge deal for me since I always seemed to be behind anyway.

2. No physical memorabilia. This one was hard to swallow at first, but I can always scan things, and I’m working on a traditional School album for Bella that will include lots of memorabilia.

3. None of my handwriting. I hate to say it, but I really didn’t enjoy writing on cards because I got so caught up in the spacing, handwriting etc. I do however, want to leave some for my kids to enjoy so I’ll have to work it in somehow.

Before we dive into my plan for this year – I wanted to let you know about an awesome FREE Project Life Kit! It’s a digital Project Life Starter Pack – that comes with ALL of this:

Yup, free! You can download it here: Project Life Starter Pack and give digital a whirl! I think it’s brilliant that they are offering this so that you can get a feel for digital without investing any money. You will need a photo editing program such as Photoshop or Photoshop Elements to work with these products.

HERE are some traditional Digital Project Life layouts I made last year using the All Boy and All Girl kits. These use Design A (which is included in the Starter Pack) and were also easy to put together. I just prefer the cleaner look now (see below!) and am excited about how it makes the photos really pop!

Using these layered templates is really the way to go.
They’re a great way to try out digital and see if you like it!

Okay, now we get to this year. I spent way too much a lot of time trying to choose a look I liked for this new year. I’ve done the traditional layouts and wanted something a little more simple and clean. When I came across Linda’s gorgeous pages, I thought designing my own templates would be fun and give me a unique look. Tried that. Took forevs. Went to Plan B.

Another favorite Project Lifer of mine is Cathy Zielske. I love her clean and simple approach to this way of documenting life. So I purchased a set of her newest templates – with lots of clean lines and white space. Yum, white space! Then I messed around with them and came up with this:
Oh, crap. When I realized how long it would take to change ALL the templates I would need it totally overwhelmed me. Sorta defeats the simplicity of Project Life, right? So I changed my mind again, dragged everything over to the regular template I bought, and called it good. It’s going to make it so much easier to put everything together each week. What do you think? It still has the white space, just no border for each picture or patterned paper in the background.
 SUPPLIES USED: Midnight Edition Core Kit, Coral Edition Core Kit, Cathy Zielske templates Life Basics Minimal Template No 1, Every Little Bit Brushes
The plan for now is to share my pages and tips here 2 times a month. How do you feel about that? Too much? Not enough? What help do you need with getting started and staying motivated? I’d love to share what I’m learning as I go! Next week I’ll share the month of January and we’ll go from there!

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Filed Under: Digital Project Life, Photos, Project Life

About Holly & Nat

2 Sisters. 2 States. Sharing our latest creations keeps us close. We are moms, wives, daughters, friends, creative souls, singers, living room dancers, Jimmy Fallon fans, & consumers of dirty Dr. Pepper.

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Comments

  1. jamie@eighteen25 says

    January 28, 2014 at 5:04 pm

    Your last page is my most favorite!! Do you print all the pages in a book at the end of the year? I was thinking, if you printed each page out separately and put them in a page protectors, then you could add page protectors with some of that memorabilia you wanted to add too. ??? Just a thought.

    Reply
    • Nat and Holly says

      January 30, 2014 at 9:10 am

      Thanks so much, Jamie! I was planning on doing a printed book – I honestly hadn’t thought of doing page protectors to add memorabilia – thanks for the great idea! Maybe I’ll do a price comparison and decide from there!

      Reply
    • Susan Bowers says

      January 31, 2014 at 4:17 am

      Hey ladies,
      I do PL all digital too. I print my pages 12 x 12 through Persnickity Prints and insert them into a 12 x 12 document protector and into a We R Memories Keeper album. I order a couple months of pages at one go so I don’t have to wait a whole year to see some result. It’s a great way to go!

      Reply
  2. Kira says

    January 28, 2014 at 5:43 pm

    Great reviews…I love the simple designs you decided to go with. I think it highlights the photos and stories more. And makes me feel less like tearing my hair out as I try to keep up.

    Reply
    • Nat and Holly says

      January 30, 2014 at 9:11 am

      Thanks my friend! Yeah, I knew simple would have to be the way to go to stay caught up! (Remember when I tried to do it last year? Fail! Haha 🙂 I miss you!

      Reply
  3. Carolyn Bennett says

    January 28, 2014 at 10:45 pm

    You can always print out pages and insert them into a traditional scrapbook album – which is what I do because I like to change the order of things…all the time… and it allows for memorabilia that a bound book won’t do as easily. It’s also easier on the pocket book when you can space out your spending on a per page project than an entire book at once…

    Also, consider hybrid scrapping. It could be as simple as glueing on a button or a ribbon or more planned out like leaving space on your page where you plan to attach a pocket and insert your memorabilia!

    Reply
    • Nat and Holly says

      January 30, 2014 at 9:13 am

      Thanks for your great ideas! I am interested to see the price difference in buying the sheet protectors/getting prints vs. the printed book. I know they would be a little more protected from sticky-fingered kids that way, too!

      Reply
  4. SueZee Alg says

    January 28, 2014 at 11:27 pm

    I don’t understand why you don’t get your pages printed. I do hybrid scrapping, adding an embellishment here and there and put larger memorabilia in one of the PL pocket envelopes. Sometime I print a 12×12 and sometimes I just add photos and digital cards an insert in the plastic pocket pages.

    When I do 12×12 I save up 10 or so pages to be printed. We don’t have a local printer who does 12×12, but there are many wonderful sites (Scrapping Simply, Persnickty to name a few) who offer wonder printing prices, $5.00 shipping no matter how many pages) and there turnaround is terrific–I usually get my pages within a week.

    But the best part of PL is that my grandkids love looking at my pages (lots of stuff about them). And at the end of the year, I often redo/reprint many of pages specific to a family and give them to my DIL’s as Christmas presents. They love them.

    Reply
    • Nat and Holly says

      January 30, 2014 at 9:14 am

      I do LOVE Persnickety Prints! I think I may have to try that and see how I like it and then I could always do a Shutterfly album for the extra copies. Thanks for the great ideas!

      Reply
  5. Mags says

    January 29, 2014 at 7:31 pm

    What program do you need to do the digital project life. I downloaded the free pages…but I am not sure I have any applications to open them in.

    Reply
    • Nat and Holly says

      January 30, 2014 at 9:15 am

      You will need Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. You can download a 30-day free trial of Elements and see if you like it before purchasing! Elements should be perfect for what you need, no need to get the full Photoshop! Hope that helps!

      Reply
  6. Stephanie says

    January 29, 2014 at 10:16 pm

    You know that you can get your handwriting made into a typeable font right? This means you can be digital and still have the beauty of your own handwriting! Plus you don’t have to write it our yourself! Darcy Baldwin does it. Here is a link:
    http://www.sweetshoppedesigns.com/sweetshoppe/product.php?productid=16149&cat=0&page=1

    Reply
    • Nat and Holly says

      January 30, 2014 at 9:16 am

      That is a BRILLIANT idea! I seriously hadn’t thought of that! Now if I could just have Holly’s beautiful handwriting… 😉

      Reply
  7. Jennwhite says

    February 2, 2014 at 11:16 pm

    Plus, you can just leave blank space and write on your prints when they come. I do that on page prints and in books. Sharpie will write on photos nicely. I use Persnickety and purchase credits when they have a sale, then I can print as many as I want whenever I want for just the $5 shipping! As for memorabilia, I often photograph and scan stuff to add to my layouts, or use a PL plastic page to tuck it in between my regular pages. Here
    s an example of how I use it digitally. http://www.digishoptalk.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=1883513&cat=500
    Welcome to the dark side! 😉

    Reply
  8. eversoscrumptiously says

    February 3, 2014 at 8:53 pm

    This was a really helpful post, thank you! Lots to think about. I’m switching from digital to paper this year, I’ll be curious to follow your process and see how the opposite switch works out for you!

    Reply
  9. Naomi says

    February 11, 2014 at 8:04 pm

    Another vote for having your handwriting turned into a font by Darcy Baldwin. I was amazed at how affordable it was and love using my handwriting in my digital projects.

    Reply
  10. Michelle says

    February 16, 2014 at 1:05 pm

    I am a little late reading this post. I pinned it a while ago and just got to reading it. I was interested in why you were switching over to digital. I LOVE digital. 2013 was the first year I started PL and I was doing really good until I broke my ankle at the end of April. Now I am catching up and it seems to go much faster with the digital. I am planning to print a book when I finally finish the year. Haven’t decided which company to use. I am thinking either Shutterfly or Persnickity Prints. Has anyone had an entire book printed for the year? Which company did you use? By the way… I love the pages you came up with. I don’t know how you chose because they all look great! Good luck with the digital.

    Reply

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