Project Stash...

Have you heard of Project Life?  It is the memory keeping brainchild of scrapbooker extraordinaire Becky Higgins.  She has gone back to a simpler, more straightforward type of scrapbooking for preserving everyday life.


I love the concept of simplifying the process of memory keeping.  I also love making the more artsy pages, so I've also started an art journal to play around in to get those artsy juices flowing.  The only thing holding me back from getting the Project Life system was--I've got to admit--my frugal nature.  I have all of these supplies jumbling up my shelves and drawers, and I couldn't see plunking down any more money to start from scratch with this album.  It was tempting, but then I had an epiphany--

What if I make my own kit out of the supplies I already have?

So I dug around and came up with some stuff that I thought would work.  I already had a 3-ring 12x12 album and some various sized photo sleeves, which I hadn't even tried using yet, and some kits and other sets of paper to start my 2012 out with.  I grabbed some alphabet stickers, rub-ons, scissors, and a tape runner.  Here's what the title page ended up as:

You can see that I'm being very optimistic!  I've got big plans for 2012, whether it likes it or not!

These Photo Sleeves for Ring Albums by We R Memory Keepers are the perfect "page" protectors to mix and match to make the album so versatile.  I started out with 12x12 pages with 6-4x6 pockets in horizontal and vertical directions, and a package of sleeves with a 6x12 pocket on top and 3 vertical 4x6 pockets on the bottom.

This is also a great way to use up the scraps of the gorgeous papers that I can't bear to toss.  I've gathered some of the things together that I know I want to use and just stashed them in the pockets so I've got it all together when I sit down to create.

I mixed in some regular 12x12 pages, and next time I'll show you an "envelope" page to stash the memorabilia that I don't necessarily want on a page but I want to keep with the album.

One of my favorite, favorite, favorite things right now is Simple Stories.  I adore everything that they have!  These papers are from their Happy Days collection, and I got it from my local scrapbook store.  We have two birthdays coming up on the next few weeks, and just celebrated another, so I got these last year to document some of those.

I'm so excited to feel like I am actually on the ball about something!  And it hardly took any time at all!

Since I'm not jumping onto the Project Life bandwagon, I guess I'll call mine "Project Stash"?  We'll see.  ;-)

I'm linking up here: 
Three Mango Seeds