Originally published on October 24th, 2013

With the birth of my third child, I realized that my previous method of scrapbooking was not going to work.  Mainly it took too much time and thought.  I would also let it go for months and then have to do a marathon session to catch up.  I'm sure events and commentary were lost in the process.  To be fair, I started scrapping in 2007.  I went back to scrapbook the twins' lives from their birth in 2003.  I also went back and scrapbooked my entire life in an attempt to decrease the boxes of random memorabilia and photographs.  It worked well, but I won't be able to keep up with four different albums at one time.

I started seeing more and more bloggers using the Project Life method.  I did a bit of research.  I thought about it.  And I finally decided that this method would work better for our new life.  Although I do have a few modifications to fit our life.  The twins' individual albums will stay the same.  As I don't see them everyday, it makes sense to focus on events rather than a weekly time table.  The family album and baby Arthur's album are transitioning to Project Life.  My goal is to create a spread a week or at the very least biweekly. I want to focus on meaningful moments and journaling our lives.  I love the idea of small events.  I love the idea of flexibility with PL.

In preparation, I bought a few kits to get me started.  I picked up the Baby Edition for Arthur's album (gender neutral edition full of grays and yellows), the Seafoam Edition for the family album, a mini Holiday Kit for both, and the Sunshine Edition (designed by A Beautiful Mess) for the family album.  I wasn't planning on buying that many kits, but the Holiday mini kit seemed like a good investment, plus I snapped it up for 40% at Michaels.  The Sunshine kit was just released and I love their designs too much to pass it up.  This means that I am stocked with paper inserts for probably a few years (at least a year for each album).  I also bought a Seafoam and a Baby designer paper pack to cut at my discretion.  This seems like a lot of supplies, but I keep reminding myself that this is almost all I need to create interesting scrapbooks.  I won't be randomly picking up stickers, paper, and embellishments.  I plan on using scraps and already bought supplies to doctor some of the inserts.  Some will go in as is.  It's all about customization, but I do love a clean look without lots of embellishments or layering.

So, I am officially embarking on the Project Life adventure this month.  I plan on starting the weekly spreads now that the baby has arrived. To prep, I have created a few transition/introduction pages to start the albums.  I made a nice introduction page for the family album with journaling about the transitions and my theme for the album: Change and Growth.  I journaled a bit about why we are changing scrapbooks and our family.  I added pictures of our current (before baby) family and some facts about them.  For Arthur's album, I used the same idea with different papers and inserts.

I then added in a page highlighting all my ultrasound pictures to document that part of the journey.  I duplicated that page in Arthur's album just with different designer paper.

The next pages highlight the nursery and baby shower thrown by my crafting friends.  I also inserted a few of the handmade cards I received from friends.

Overall, I am really happy with the flexibiloty of the PL system.  I can make spreads that fit our events or weeks.  But I also have a limited supply of inserts and page dividers.  It forces me to make decisions instead of getting lost in the possibilities.  Slowly, it is coming together.  I can't wait to start highlighting our weekly adventures.  I plan on sharing them on the blog on a monthly basis.  Look for them soon...

Supplies used:

• PL Seafoam edition kit
• PL Seafoam designer paper
• PL Sunshine edition kit
• PL Baby edition kit
• PL Baby designer paper
• American Crafts D-ring binder (black and lime green)
• Corner rounder
• Date stamp
• Random baby stickers from stash
• Black marker