"A Little Bit of Life" Blog

(I'm going to be making my "A Little Bit of Life" blog private...if you read that one and would like an invitation will you leave me a comment with the email address that you'd like the invitation sent to?  I won't post the comments, so no worries about your email being shared).

One of the things I've been trying to figure out is how to efficiently record our family memories.  Do I print out the 3,079,354 photos I take a year?  I've been a little overwhelmed by it, and the result is that the photos keep piling up on my hard drive and nothing is done with them.

I was introduced to the concept of "Project Life" by a friend (you can read about it here) and thought it was a great solution.  A photo a day..and a short caption, and the year is done. 

Right now I'm in the process of putting my 2011 scrapbook together. Putting the photos in an album and writing my corresponding journal entries.  I love this album, the memories, and it's been fun to compile.

Here's what I don't like about it.
1.  I have a LOT more photos on my hard drive because I took more photos last year trying to get my "picture of the day."
2.  The scrapbook binder is BIG.  I can't store one of these for each year until the kids are grown.
3.  Sometimes I want more than one picture of an event.

So, I've decided to do things a little differently this year.  First, I'm going to do the digital version on Shutterfly.  I've done a lot of photo books with them and am happy with the quality.  It'll give me a much smaller book that I can order for each of the kids at the end of the year.  It gives me flexibility with the number and size of photos I use on a page, so I can use more photos of things that are important to me like birthdays and holidays. 

I also plan to have more of a weekly focus rather than daily.  I still might have a week with one photo of the day, or there might be a week where it's mostly just birthday photos.  I don't want to be as rigid with it, but just have the memories captured that I want.

I've started the book and plan to try to make it as I go ~  hopefully adding the photos and captions weekly so it'll just be done at the end of the year.  But if I fall behind it's on the "A Little Bit of Life" blog waiting until I can get caught up.  

We'll see how it works out.  I wanted to share this because I've discussed this with friends and I know others have the same dilemma as to how to manage photos/scrapbooking/documenting life for the kids.

If I don't like it, I'll just try something new next year.  By the time the kids graduate from High School I should have it figured out!

Project Life

I just had to share.

I am loving my "Project Life" project.  If you haven't seen it, you can see it by clicking on the photo of the kids in the right hand sidebar of my blog under "Project 365."

I had a friend ask about it, and I thought I'd explain it a little better.

I've seen people doing "Project 365" on other blogs and I think most people use that to improve their photography skills.  Which would be fun to do, and I'd probably do that if I wasn't focused on recording memories for the kids right now (and this will probably change a little when they're all in school).  But for me, my purpose is to preserve family memories, and our life in 2011.

My friend Diane, did this project last year and I loved seeing her photos, reading the short blurb, knowing what was going on in their life ~ despite the distance between us.  The big things, like losing a pet, down to the little things like what Meg & Jake had for dinner.  :)  I knew I wanted to do the same and was excited to start this year.

Sometimes I have fun and focus on my photography hobby and try to do a nice photo,


and other times, I'm sprinting for my camera to take a snapshot of something going on in the moment that I want to remember.



And sometimes I might take a random shot of items or things in our life, just to preserve a little about life in 2011.


Then I write something very short about it (because it has to fit on a little journaling card in the scrapbook) and it's done!  I'm finding that I'm not spending as much time blogging because of it, and yet my intended purpose of blogging is fulfilled.  I love it.

Then I copy the photo and put it in a "Project Life" folder on my desktop so I can order the photos easily and just slip them into the scrapbook!   So easy.  It feels like a manageable way to streamline how I scrapbook and preserve memories for the kids.

And I don't mean to sound like an infomercial.  You know that with my following of 5 people, I am not being approached to endorse products.  :)  But if you're interested in learning more about it you can see more here.   But I think it's a great project even without the "kit."

It fits perfectly in with my theme of "simplifying" this year.

PS.  On a side note:  we're all healthy again!!  And thankfully, Matthew and I never got it.  The kids are enjoying the day off for MLK and then back to school tomorrow!

Oh, and I never thanked you for your comments/emails/calls regarding the lamp.  I so appreciated the honest feedback.  I'm looking into a bigger lamp shade, and right now the lamp is in our bedroom....I'm not ready to give up yet.  :)  I'll let you know when it finds a permanent home ~ I'm determined to find a way to make it work in the living room!