If you have been a Daily Digi reader or a Digi Show listener for very long, chances are you have heard me express my dislike for scrapping events. There are certain events, like vacations, that I LOVE scrapping, but most events go unnoticed in my albums. I told Katie awhile ago that I am not sure I’ve ever actually scrapped a Christmas since going digital (that doesn’t stop me from collecting Christmas kits though). Katie’s response was, “Well, you don’t like scrapping events, so that makes sense to me!”
When I started digital scrapbooking, I let go of the idea that I had to scrap everything. I also let go of the desire to scrap chronologically. Along with those two things went the guilt I had previously experienced as part of my hobby. Even though I scrap what I want, when I want; there are some things that my FAMILY wants me to scrap that I would prefer not to.
I have always longed for a way to scrap those events that I find uninspiring. A method that is simple, fast, doesn’t require me to make too many choices, but also allows for customization where I want it. Until recently, this method didn’t really exist; everything I tried fell short.
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What Project Life Is (and is not)
I didn’t really ‘get’ Project Life until I watched the following video on Becky Higgin’s site:
I had the misperception that Project Life was about creating a layout for every single day of a year. I also thought that I needed to take photos everyday in order to ‘do’ Project Life. After watching the video, it clicked for me and I was excited.
What Project Life is:
- a way to spend less time designing layouts
- you deciding your own pace (however many layouts per week, month, or year that works for YOU)
- being able to feel good about what you’ve done, no matter how much or how little that is
- bringing together your photos, your memories, and the people you love to tell your story
- not elaborate
- simple
- no guilt
- satisfaction
Getting Project Life to Go Digital
Instantly, I wanted a completely digital version that I could manipulate however I wanted. I thought about the different ways I would use the products (I LOVE divided page protectors and have had an affinity for them for years) and how I could incorporate them into my memory keeping. On January 3, 2010, I sent my first email to Becky Higgins, owner of the Project Life products, asking about a digital Project Life. This past summer I sent another email sharing my vision and asking (begging) for a digital version of Project Life.
I love that Becky doesn’t limit herself, her scrapping, or her products based on what she is most familiar with or what scrappers perceive she should do. I knew if anyone could quickly bring a ‘paper’ product to the digital market, it would be Becky. After a few more emails that included some gentle arm twisting and phone call with Becky, she was convinced. I encouraged Becky to contact Jessica and was thrilled to hear that she had signed on with JessicaSprague.com to distribute the digital version of Project Life.
How Project Life Would Work For Me
I got busy ordering my Project Life page protectors and other supplies that I wanted to try and waited for the digital launch of Project Life. I spent the following weeks thinking through all of the ways that I could use the Project Life products and how it would work. This is what I knew early on:
- Project Life for ME, would become a way to document events and bits of my life that I don’t get excited about scrapbooking, but still want to record.
- Project Life for me, would minimize my choices for these events (both in layout design and product) making it quick and simple.
- Project Life for me, would be digital except the memorabilia I wanted to include and anything else the rest of my family might include (they don’t get as excited about Photoshop as I do).
I also knew that I wanted it to be FAST. I knew that templates would not be enough for what I was looking for. I thought about layered quick pages, but even those wouldn’t work that well for me. I wanted to have the flexibility to select which products from which Project Life collection I was using, but I wanted it to be quick and simple. I decided to contact Wendyzine about creating some actions for me. Wendy did just that and more!
I told Wendy what I wanted and how I wanted things to look and she worked her magic! She is amazing!
All I do is click PLAY and the action scraps the layout for me, letting me choose the photos, journaling cards, papers, and embellishments. I was able to scrap 7 (SEVEN) layouts in just 1.5 hours!
These seven layouts are also layouts that I would not have enjoyed making without the Pocket Actions and Project Life digital products. These are layouts that never would have been created before these products entered my life! These are layouts that my kids looked at and sighed and smiled and reminisced about as they went through them.
My Workflow
These actions allow you to bounce around your harddrive opening different files to include on the layout, but it’s faster if everything for one layout, is in one folder. I used a method similar to Katie’s “Power Scrapping” method and created folders for a bunch of photos I wanted to scrap.
In Lightroom, I selected a few photos that I knew I wanted on one layout and exported them (you can see in the settings below, I’m sending them to my “In Progress” folder:
I did this for eight different layouts (the eighth layout was inspiring to me and I decided I wanted to spend more time on it, so I didn’t scrap it using this method):
Then, I went through Wendy’s page designs and selected which layout design I would use for each layout. I copied the preview of that design into the folder so I would remember when it came time to run the action. I also selected the digital Project Life products I wanted to use on the layouts and copied/pasted them into the folders:
Scrap It Actions: Pocket Pages
Then, it was time to push Play and let the actions work their magic! Actions can be intimidating to use, but they are super easy. If you want to learn more about installing them and running them, see our action category in our tutorials section of the site. You can see how these Pocket Pages actions work below:
These actions have been uploaded to The Digi Game Monthly and Annual members download area as a free bonus. There are seven different layouts styles in the action set and a video tutorial:
The actions are super fast, super easy, and give me the options of using whatever supplies I want (you can use Project Life, like I did or other supplies).
Putting It In An Album
One of the big things I wanted to be able to do with Project Life was to add the papers, programs, and other bits of life that I don’t usually keep. I hate scanning more than I hate cleaning toilets, so real ephemera from our lives rarely goes digital.
You can see below, I have a 12×12 completely digital layout that I created using the Pocket Pages actions and Project Life Clementine (digital version). I slipped that in a 12×12 page protector. On the opposite page, I used a Design A divided page protector and put some of my daughters cards from cast members, a program, etc in them.
Here’s the opposite side of that divided page protector and accompanying 12×12:
Summing It Up
I have only been working with Project Life this month so far (December), so I still have some things that I am undecided on that I will work out as I spend more time on it. Right now all of these layouts are in their own binder, but I think I might incorporate them into my regular albums. There are a few other questions I’ve been asked about how I will do things and I can’t answer all of them yet. I am the type of person that plans things as much as I can then jumps in and figures the rest out as I go. I had originally thought I would wait and post about my system when I got everything worked out and knew what exactly would or would not work for me. After talking about it on The Digi Show though, we had several listeners comment that they wanted to know before the new year started. I will be doing a follow-up post in a month or two to share more details of what worked and what didn’t.
So far, I really like that have I a way to scrap these layouts that is simple, quick, and doesn’t require too much thinking or decision making on my part. I also am really enjoying saving the bits of our lives that I can add to the divided page protectors. My kids have had fun looking at the album as well.
Will This Work For YOU?
I am passionate about memory keeping! It is my belief that everyone should have a way that they enjoy documenting their lives. Am I saying that you need to jump in on Project Life, no. If this is something that you think you will enjoy and will help you accomplish some of your memory keeping goals, then, go for it! If the thought of it stresses you out, then don’t feel like you need to do it! If your heart doesn’t sing when you are scrapping then maybe it’s time to find a different melody. If Project Life is a song that sounds like something your heart would enjoy, then give it a go! It has solved some issues for me and made it so my heart sings when I am scrapping events!
Share This Using…
I’m excited about Project Life, too! I’m using it for the very reasons you mentioned, with the exception that I decided not to go with the digital format. I’ve always printed my pages and slipped them into my postbound albums. I am trying a binder instead and am planning on mingling the project life protectors with my regular digital layouts. I really think it’s going to work well for me!
Is this the year that I will finally figure out to install and use actions on Photoshop? I might just have to jump in and do it!
Thank you for reading my comment on the podcast (back in November) when I was so curious about your plans for PL. Turns out that I was on the right track. I like what you are doing with it because you are not limiting yourself. You’ll still do the awesome, artsy pages.
My main problem is that the 12×12 binders are so thick, and I would prefer to make the digital pages and then have them printed into a Blurb book or something like that. However, then we would miss all the ephemera of our daily lives, and like you, prefer not to scan everything. Hmmm…I am still thinking, but I have ordered and downloaded some of the kits from JS and I now have the templates. Next order of the day is to figure out the Actions. Thank you so much for including them in the monthly digi game, by the way. I have no excuse now!!
Woa! Seriously floored…I’m a newbie digi-scrapper (been doing traditional for years). I’ve used actions in PSE for photo editing…but I NEVER knew they existed for digi scrapping. I’m going to be mulling this one over for a while…looks pretty spectacular
Thanks for sharing.
I’m so happy that i found this post! I was trying to figure out if I wanted to a digital version or the regular way as I wanted to be able to include bits & pieces of paper stuff. Now I see I can do both! Thanks so much!
I have to say this is the first time where I saw a real use for PL in my life. I always saw it as a year-long extension of something like Week In the Life, where you’re documenting just the tiny details like what’s in your fridge this week. I never really thought about it as a way to capture events (which I haven’t scrapped much since converting to LOM). I see now that it could be used to scrapbook details, moments, milestones and events — all in the same album and format. It could be a really easy way to scrap the stuff i’m not really doing much with anymore, including all that memorabilia from the year that I just filed.
Right now I just have too many other projects going on to start this but I do finally see how this might fit into my life someday. Thanks for that.
Yay! I just made a facebook fanpage for fellow project lifers to share ideas, layouts and stuff. Please join! Tell others too!
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Project-Lifers/303710426340518#!/pages/Project-Lifers/303710426340518
Thank you so much Steph and Wendy. I have been looking at the digi PL and wondering how I could get it to fit into my life. This is a wonderful gift (thank you again Wendy), now I just have to decide on which digi kit to buy.
Can you purchase the action files without having a paid subscription to thedailydigi? If so, can you let me know where? Thank you!!!
Thanks to you Steph and Wendy for the great gift. This post really made me start thinking about giving PL a shot. I even tried out the actions already in PSCS5. AWESOME! Here come the big but…(LOL) I went over to BH blog just to read more about the project itself and she posted about Shutterfly now carrying two of the brands of PL. So my question is what is the difference? I know the literal answer, but if I can just go to Shutterfly and upload my photos and the rest is all there, why would I want to spend all that time in PS and working with actions, etc? I’m truly not trying to be a downer, sometimes I do too much research, get confused and just don’t do anything…Hopefully you can shed some light on this.
Merry Christmas and thanks so much!
I think the biggest difference is really what the end goal is. If you always print with Shutterfly, then that certainly would be quicker and easier. If you don’t print photobooks and want instead to print out pages and keep separate pocket pages for memorabilia, then the actions might be a better option. For me, even if I did print with Shutterfly, I want to own the final product so to speak. I want to have the JPG and PSDs on my computer so I can do anything I want to with them, whether that is printing in a Shutterfly album this year or uploading to a photo frame or flicker the next. I like control, so I would always choose the option that isn’t proprietary. But, it’s all about what works FOR YOU. If that’s Shutterfly, go for it!
Steph and Wendy!!! OMW There is no words to express the gratitude for this awesome gift! I am so excited to start this out. I received my Project Life goodies and actually did my first week and although my goal is simplicity there was still too much time and effort involved. This action will literally make my life so much easier and achieve my goal of making it simpler and less of a hassle. Thank you also for the inspirational post and for getting Becky Higgins to move over to Digital! You guys are just the best!
This is awesome! Thanks, Steph, for the cool video and present. I am a paper Project Lifer, but this is verrrry tempting to do it digi. How are you printing the journaling cards?
I am so bummed that I can’t get my hands on the PL goodies here in Europe
I trully love the idea, but the digital version doesn’t speak to me as much as the paper version. There might be a chance that Amazon co-uk will carry the products but not before the beginning of Februari. I can’ t really understand that and I fear the shipping costs. I trully wish Becky would re-think her selling stragegy because all living outside the US can’t participate in the PL version they want to.
Steph, thanks so much for this post! I actually haven’t read past the first paragraph yet… I’m bookmarking it becuase I desperately needed to go to bed like an hour ago… but I will read it!
I was literally just thinking to myself, “I don’t understand what Project Life is.” And, voila! Here you are with this post! 
All I can do is echo everyone’s sentiments. What a great, great gift Steph and Wendy…thank you so much! I’ve been tossing around the Project Life Idea, but wasn’t sure how I’d make it work for me. This is inspirational…! I especially liked reading the your post Steph – hearing how the idea has evolved for you. I am definitely in the camp of “there’s no wrong way to do it”, but it is neat to hear how other people do things – to help me develop my own techniques. Thank you again – Merry Christmas to me!
A post full of awesomeness!!!
I’m doing PL hybridly. While I’m mostly a digiscrapper, I love the feel of paper products. I purchased both the paper turquoise core kit and the digital elements. I weave them together to make my pages. (I use the pocket page protectors.) I LOVE this way of scrapping. Since I don’t have kids to focus on, it has become a written/visual journal of sorts for me.
Thank you, thank you, thank you SOOOO much for sharing this! I’ve been wanting to do Project Life and have been trying to come up with a way that would work for me. I’ve been wanting to do it digitally too, and this post is such a big help! And thank you so much for the actions, this is all so generous of you (and Wendy) and I appreciate it so very much! Merry Christmas to you and your families!
What a very generous gift from the Daily Digi, Steph and Wendy for sure!!! You both are so inspiring and make me think that i really can do this digi thing. You and Wendy must have planned release the same day because i got her newsletter in e-mail then opened my Daily file and there you were talking about it. Thank you sooo much.
So YOU were the one who inspired PL’s move to digi!! I had preordered the Cobalt kit before I discovered the wonderful world of digi, and promptly returned it when the digital edition was announced. I’m so excited to start on my PL next year!
I’d never even heard of Project Life before I started listening to The Digi Show. And as I’m not an everyday moments storyteller — I’m working on showing how we are growing and changing, not preserving memories or stories — I didn’t think this was a project that would apply to me.
However, now that I have read over today’s post, suddenly I realize this is exactly the kind of thing that I need to do! I would not spend the time on a paper/printed version of this project, but to do it digitally AND with handy scripts and templates, I don’t think I can resist it. I’m all excited about it now too!
Thanks so much for putting this all together! I can’t wait to take time over the holidays to shop and plan for the new year.
thanks so much, Steph and Wendy! Merry Christmas
What a fabulous gift for members! I’m not a Project Life participant (I do Cathy Zielske’s The Monthly every year and love it), but I love the pocket page look for certain layouts, and this will be such a great action set to have.
I also really appreciate your work flow. Digi power scrapping is so quick and easy the way I’ve learned to organize it from you, using Wendy’s actions makes it even quicker and easier. Great for those events with lots of photos that you want in your albums but aren’t inspired to labor over the page for.
Great post! I am obsessed with PL as well and I believe that Santa will be bringing me my starter pack any day now. I will be doing a paper/hybrid version and I can’t wait to get started. This is going to be awesome.
Wow! I have had the same concerns as you…I’ve watched other people to their week in Project Life, but I haven’t felt that I could commit to having enough to tell or show, or that I might just fall behind and give up. Going along at my own pace and to have a PLAN makes me feel like this is do-able. I’ve bought the page protectors and the pocket pages to do it, now I AM going to give it a shot! Thanks Steph and Wendy. I look forward to your follow up post.
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and efforts early! I love listening toThe Digi Show and subscribed to The Digi Files several months ago. Lots to do and learn, but loving every moment of it. Cannot wait to put these ideas to use. Do you think Wendy Zine will make an action pack to create Peppermint’s Shadows? Thank you Steph and your team for all that you do!
I’m set to start the paper Project Life in January. I’ve been just about 100% digital for two years, but I’ve missed writing on paper, saving bits and pieces, and dealing with those bits and pieces. Also, I have so much I could scrapbook, some stories are being tucked away into notebooks, or ephemera thrown into a box, that may never see the light of day. Project Life will help change this. I’m excited to be able to print a couple of photos, hand write some things and include the ephemera. This project should be able to capture some of the events that are simply being quickly written into my tattered notebook and not scrapbooked.
Exactly! It sounds like it will be a perfect fit for you!
Cool. This might be just the sort of thing to keep me scrapping happily along. Will the tutorial and links to purchase show up here or on a different blog? (Apologies if they’re in this post. It was really long, and once I got the general idea of what the product was, I skipped the rest.)
Wendy’s tutorial will be on her blog (linked above). You can purchase the actions from the image link above or by being Digi Game member (linked above).
This is awesome! I’m fairly certain that the Project Life box and gift certificates for the digital Project Life are waiting for me under the Christmas tree and your gift truly completes the package. I am so excited to get started. Thank you TDD and Wendy!!
I’m an amateur, low-key scrapper, and I like this idea. Two questions: can it be used in PSE and can it be used by someone without mad PSE skills?
Yes, and yes! Everything works in PSE and has been tested in versions 6-10. It likely works in 5, except maybe the journaling action. And, really, it is very simple to use. The hardest part is probably installing the actions. I will be getting the product description up on my blog later today and when I do, I’ll include the tutorial that comes with the download so you can watch the how-to video which I think will be very helpful.
Thanks everyone for the kind comments and have a wonderful holiday! Best wishes with your 2012 projects too!
Thanks Wendy. I am also a very, very (did I say very)new digi scrapper I will keep an eye on your blog to see what ‘actions’ are all about. I read the link above and I still didn’t understand.
Actions are just a set of precorded steps in Photoshop that are automated. When the action is installed, you can click play and it will go through those steps in the order they were recorded. I hope that helps!
I’m a digi-scrapper who loves the paper version of Project Life – love being able to put photos and journaling in the album pages no matter where I am (watching TV, on vacation, etc.). I also don’t get a photo taken every day, but I love that I can record the simple, everyday moments of our lives. It never occurred to me to do a hybrid-type of album! I thought of the digital version as a book I’d work on throughout the year to be printed at year’s end, but I really like the idea of having an “in progress” album to look at during the year. I’ve already gotten my Cobalt core kit and binder, but now I may get the digital version to use your method! Thanks so much for the inspiration!!
I am a traditional scrapbooker, moving to hybrid, who loves the concept of Project Life (I own both the box and digital kits). Thanks so much for sharing your vision of Project Life. You have really put a plan to my thoughts on scrapbooking. I so appreciate you sharing your organization method and for inspiring Wendy for some actions. I was just using the templates provided with the Project Life collection and thought “ya know this could be easier”. Anyway… Happy Holidays!! I am off to get my hands on Wendy’s actions.
Oh MY! Thanks so much – TDD has done it again. This makes a lot of sense to me. Thanks Wendy and thanks Steph for getting it up before the first of the year. Now I can think about how this works for me. Thank you! Merry Christmas!
Thanks for the great article. I am still debating on whether I will be making the plunge on Project Life, but Wendy’s awesome gift of actions makes it all the more appealing. Her actions rock and already make my digi scrapping easier. Thanks so much for this action set, Wendy!
I’m so excited about this post! My mom is getting me a Project Life kit for Christmas. I’m looking forward to trying it this year – if it goes well, maybe I’ll try digital next year. Or perhaps a hybrid version?! I’m blown away by the actions – thank you for such a generous gift!
Love it. Excited to see the actions. Still not committing to project life but I may do a few pages this way to record everyday life. Thanks for sharing. I may order a few of the page protectors to add to my albums especially for road trips they may be useful.
Is today Christmas morning?!?!? It sure feels like it! What an amazing bonus, Steph! Thank you to you and to Wendy for this amazing product. I can tell scrapping speed and efficiency are going to be my buzzwords for 2012! Happy Holidays.
Wow! What an amazing post and gift! Thanks to you and Wendy! Like Becky above says !!!
Thank you!
Thank you Steph for sharing! I had been curious how you were going to do this! Have not jumped into this project myself but I am getting more and more interested
Also, the actions from Wendyzine are a great surprise!!!! Thank you both!!!! (excessive use of !!! I know but I think this is pretty cool!!!)
This is awesome. I already have the physical version of PL in Amber. I am liking the digital version even more. Thank you Steph for this awesome way to use it, not to mention fast.
WOW!! I bought the digital project life Turquoise and tinkered with it a little bit, but this will make it so much fun and so easy. Thank you for inspiring Becky Higgins. I really like your post. It just makes sense.