Project Life without Pockets

Project Life is about capturing your every day life one photo per day.  All through the year, I've been taking photos trying for one a day.  I've captured them on traditional scrapbook layouts.  The Project Life system most attributed to Becky Higgins utilizes pocket style page protectors to hold photos, journaling cards and embellishment.

I wanted to give the concept a try without investing in a different style of page protector.  So I created 3 pages. This two page layout covers much of the month of July in 3"x4" photos as they might be tucked into pockets.  In my case, I just glued them to regular cardstock.  In the absence of a kit or journaling cards, I used pattern paper from the Lakeside 6x6 Paper pad by Pebbles to fill in my other spaces.

All the embellishment is contained within each paper or photo just as though they were tucked into pockets.

The third page below is similar except the embellishment goes diagonally along the page not confined to the photo or paper areas.

I much prefer the 3rd page.

Here is a video on how I did these pages:


And the sketch for the 3rd page:

The concept of Project Life is great.  If you've never taken 'a photo a day' I encourage you to give it a try.  There are days you forget or are just too busy but you will more than make up for it on other days.  You capture things you might ordinarily overlook and better yet, you get them into your scrapbook pages so you have that time capsule of everyday life for years down the road.

I'm sure if I'd used a kit and had the pocketed page protectors, my pages would have looked better to me.  However, this gave me a taste of applying the style and it isn't me.  My eye gets sort of lost on the two page layout trying to take it all in.  And you know I'm not shy about using all the real estate on my page!

I think the concept of Project Life, the kits and divided page protectors have simplified and speeded up scrapbooking for many people.  It has brought people into the hobby and brought people back to it.  That is a wonderful thing.  More memories are being captured which is a very good thing for sure.

So for me, this was an interesting experiment.  I know like traditional pages.  Everybody has their favorite format.  So whether we make mini books, traditional 12x12 pages, digital pages, Project Life pocketed pages, art journal or whatever, the important thing is that we are all capturing our lives.