my project life...

i have been stalking blogs and pinterest for the past couple months, looking for anything and everything related to project life. i became enamored with the idea of it. with the look of it. with the ease of it. with the fact that, at the end of the year, i will have my first complete scrapbook album. ever. (i'm really, really good at making pages and keeping them in stack and boxes. none of them have made their way into an album yet. oops.)

i told my hubby that the only thing i wanted from him for christmas were the core kit (clementine edition) and page protectors so that i could become less of a stalker and more of a follower. i reeeeally wanted to jump on this bandwagon.

and, being the fabulous hubby he is, i got just what i'd asked for.

tuesday was my last day of christmas break. the girls were in school and the hubby had to work. i had a blissfully quiet house to myself for one. whole. day.

so, i gathered anything and everything i thought i might want to use in my project life, and started organizing.

apparently, sophie has a new position in quality control and felt the need to inspect my container.

here is what i finally ended up with. i found this big wooden breakfast tray at the thrift store for $3. score! (never mind i bought it like 6 months ago...i just knew it would be perfect for something eventually.)

i picked out some of my favorite divided containers (one's wooden, one's cellulite, and one's a quilted hankie box) and a few milk glass pieces to hold all of my project life eye candy.

some close-ups of the tray.

top left: twine, project life core kit journaling cards, extra journaling cards, and paper embellishments

top right: i found these vintage plastic trays at the thrift store. i have no idea what they were made for, but they hold my washi tape perfectly! the tiny milk glass container holds some of my hand-cut labels that i used to sell on etsy.

bottom left: additional cards, labels, stickers, and larger journaling cards from the core kit

bottom right: tags, embellishments, and fun mini gift bags found on etsy

in addition to the tray, i have a basket (remember sophie the inspector above?) that holds bigger supplies. my album, page protectors, 12x12 paper, and more journaling cards. (i took all of my journaling card 12x12 papers from october afternoon, crate paper, etc, and cut them all apart to fit into baseball card pages. now i can flip through quickly and see front and back designs.)

the second pick shows a different view of the label and border stickers in the front. they are all stored in a wire basket that i can pull out and keep near my work area. i also threw in a few old ledger papers, receipt books, etc.

sooo...what did i do with all of this? i am a social scrapper. i don't do well if i'm not around other people. i even have a scrap room in the basement, but, because it doesn't have any windows and no one ever wants to come down there with me, i (sadly) don't use it often.

i'm also a visual person. if it's out of sight, it's definitely out of mind. organizing my supplies visually (the way i did above) would be a waste of time if i stored everything in my scrap room.

so, i bit the bullet and decided that the tray and basket will "live" in the living room. i see it every day, and it's a reminder to me to keep tabs with my journaling. (that's something else the hubby picked up for me for christmas. an inexpensive planner that i keep in my purse. if we're out and about, i can jot down notes. but i mostly just record daily events each evening after the girls are in bed.) best of all, because all of my project life goodness is portable, i can move it if we have company, or just plop it on the living room floor when i want to create a layout.

just like i did when i created my title page.

please note, that is our first "family photo" in like 4 years.

it's also one of the very rare sightings of me.

i'm pretty much never in pictures...it's always just assumed or alleged that i was at an event or gathering.

i'm like bigfoot.

so, if you can't tell, i'm totally excited about this. i've been collecting bits and pieces (and keeping them in a small accordion-file-coupon-holder-thing-a-ma-jig) and taking pictures of the little things we see and do every day. things that i usually ignore or take for granted. i think this will be a fantastic keepsake. not just a beautifully, painstakingly done album that highlights mostly major events and holidays.

it will be an album that actually showcases US...