My Plans For Memory Keeping In 2015

After a long hiatus from all things scrapbooking/memory keeping due to a long personal journey I won't bore you/everyone with, I'm ready and finding my way back. I don't think it was an accident your site was the first place I came back to at the end of December. Looking for inspiration, and perhaps a little confirmation that everything would be okay again, I found it all here. I signed up for the One Little Word yesterday and then I saw this post today. Again... it's no accident :) I stopped believing in 'accidents' a long, long time ago. I have been thoroughly overwhelmed with the "how do I begin again?" thoughts stomping around my head with heavy boots on after seven years away from all this. Your approach, your honesty around the idea of change in approach was exactly what I needed to see - not that you posted this for me or anything - but you know what I mean :) It resonated. A less structured approach, free-flowing perhaps. I see this direction for me as well. I can't go back to what I did before and I can't approach documenting life the way I was before. Here's to moving forwards and releasing past expectations. Thank you Ali. I have followed your journey from the very beginning. Our lives have taken similar turns these last few years and I have found and continue to find comfort in your everyday strength and your infectious creativity. All I can say is thank you. The gratitude is genuine. Onwards 2015 :)

love the idea of keeping things more simple!!!
{Project Life is a wonderful tool - love the phone app also ;-)}

this year I am going to focus on documenting when it feels right
and make a weekly plan to print at least 4 photos of the previous 7 days

I'm finding that other things have taken priority over scrapping
feeling like "I can't keep up" makes me not even touch it :-(
(sad place to be!!)

I still take notes - journal when I can - and I'll keep doing that
now my approach will be to live and document as we go - whenever I can - with what I have on hand - and accept that this is what I can do right now - and it's enough

I used to "scrap from the top of my desk" when I felt behind - no rhyme or reason - just insert things in albums using pocked pages so I would have them organized - it's so much fun to look back at the randomness ;-)

thanks for continuing to share your story Ali - your journey - your ideas - THIS is why I love this craft!!!
I've met the most amazing people through scrapping :-)
(did I mention that years ago when I was selling product my business name was "Scrap Your Story"?!)

here's to an amazing year of documenting our lives everyone!!!

love this idea...can't wait to see what you do with it. always an inspiration. thanks!

Thanks for the inspiration! I've been thinking a lot about a change up too! I usually do digital, but I'm enjoying the story stamps & story kits, so I'm going to mix it up! I love playing with paper! Now that my life is simplified, I can get back to more of a project Life format, but not daily! Such fun!!

Holy crap! I LITERALLY JUST finished writing this in my Heidi Swapp Memory Planner: "Project Life 2015 will be less structured this year - no more week by week."
It's like you were in my head when you wrote this post! I've been doing Project Life for about 4 or 5 years now and I LOVE it! I've converted a friend'o'mine over to it but she jumped right into her own version: no dates, more artistic pictures, not chronological, including vacation photos, minimal journaling - in fact, when we get together at a crop, we don't call it scrapping, we call it "arting." We're creating art, in our own unique formats, and I think PL2015 will be a bit more "flowy" and a lot less week 1, week 2... Although I am tracking my Instagram photos that way, just to keep an idea of when...
LOVED Lens of Joy, by the way! Just finishing up the last two videos this week - I got a bit sidetracked!
Happy 2015!!!

I decided a few months ago to mix my memory keeping up a little and more simple (hopefully) at the same time. I love Project Life, but not the implied pressure to document every single day. So, I decided to just take pictures as I go, then do a monthly page or two (whatever the number of pictures I have dictates), with the addition of a calendar page at the end of each month, showing appointments, etc. I kinda did this last year with Heidi Swapp's Memory Planner. Loved the idea, because it combined the memory keeping system I had when my kids were small (and before scrapbooking became a thing) - the wall calendar! and my current passion - scrapbooking. Actually completed it on January 2. And love the finished project - but decided to translate the idea using my favorite 12 x 12 album with the ability to add other sizes, etc. I'm excited.

I'm crazy about the new download. Is it possible to cut using a Cricut? I hope so because I found a bunch more of these that I would love to buy!
Thanks!

Loved this post. I have also been tossing up the idea of changing it up this year but wasn't sure how or where I was going with it...You just helped me consolidate how I was going to incorporate your Story Kits into my "PL" album this year... this post just has me going, "yep, that's me, I'm sorted."

I know what I'm doing and where I'm going and how I'm going to get there now. Thank you as always.

P.S. At the risk of sounding like a stalker... we have an Ali Edwards - Australian Followers facebook group for anyone interested.

I totally love this. Have had it in on my saved list to read. I truly had been tossing up the idea of not even doing a PL album this year. As in week to week. I find I do take the photos but I can't keep up on the weekly layouts. Then you feel guilty. Then you just don't go back to it. I thought why even bother this year. So I was just going to do my projects that really are only the ones I do with you. I truly love project life and I think I'm just going to be kinder to myself and not worry about dating that little weekly card. This may get my stories back in an album without the pressure. Thanks Ali. I can breathe a bit easier knowing I'm not the only one who has felt this way. x

I have always done this. I knew I couldn't commit to weekly especially with sons in college. I've also done a mix of page types.

Love this post, Ali! I'm really getting excited to start scrapbooking on a regular basis...all part of my DISCIPLINE...and reading about how you are going to approach this got the wheels spinning in my head and I could actually see how I would put an album together. I'll be at a 3-day crop next weekend and I plan to put together some different sized layouts then! XOXO

I've done weekly (sometimes combining weeks) for the last two years. I definitely need something to freshen it up. I'm exploring doing biweekly spreads or a mix of 12x12 and pocket pages. Or maybe both of those. I love that others are interested too - that means I'll find lots of inspiration!

Hi Ali,

I love this post because I can relate! In the beginning of 2013 I started PL in the traditional 12x12 size, but decided one spread for each month was more realistic than one each week. A few months into it, I realized that format was too rigid and required a lot of planning, which I did not enjoy, and that it seriously lacked in the journaling department. Then, about mid year, two things happened: I got my first iPad and I switched to the 6x8 sized album. This made a huge difference in my memory keeping experience because I started a regular journaling practice with the iPad and found the smaller album size to be completely flexible (for me) as far as time sequence, and I no longer needed to spend time planning layouts. Smaller groups of photos allows me to tell any story of my choosing in as many or as few pages as I like. Furthermore, I can add pages in wherever I like if I want to expand on a story or if I just decide I want to add something like memorabilia I found somewhere tucked away and forgot to include. Overall, this has been a huge success for me - I have managed to fill 6 albums!

I'm actually committing to a weekly-in-Design-A Project Life album this year - going with the flow has felt too scattered for me in the past. Love seeing your evolution and plans - such wonderful food for thought!

I want to focus on the stories this year too. Love that idea

I started in 2014 with PL and making scrapbook layouts, respectively. So I'm not make a week by week PL up to now and in my first 12 x12 album I mixed PL pages with traditional layouts, some sketches or other thing which I want to remember and I put in the album without page protectors. I liked this way from last year and decided to make it also in this year. I want to make my PL clean & simple without to much embellishments and do further traditional layouts as well as some mini albums. So i'm very happy to hear that Ali decided to make it in a similar way and that there is no straight border between the two ways. Mixing different papge protectors sounds interesting and from Alis OLW workshop I was also inspired to try this in my albums. Thank you for this very beautiful inspiring post
Mandy

Where is the yellow hello card from Ali. It speaks to me. I have a handwritten yellow hello sign on my bedroom wall

Yay! I've been so stagnant and overwhelmed. This seems like the way I need to consolidate too. Boo! I just bought all my Project Life supplies again!

Oh yes! I'm totally putting PL and all my layouts together in one big series. I've been adding my digi layouts in there too! :D