The Seven Projects I Will Be Working On This Year
Like a lot of people, I am feeling pretty ambitious with all the new year energy.
I have been getting myself set up over the last few months to start a handful of projects so I am going to break down each for you here. Anyone working along with me? I am hoping that sharing my projects and the progress I am making will actually help me stay motivated to “finish” them up. Technically speaking they don’t really have an end point but I will share how I am setting a foundation for my scrapbooks soon.
Each of these projects already hold a special place in my heart so I plan to fill them with memories that I can cherish forever. I am splitting them up so that I can come back to them in manageable pieces both as a scrapbooker/journaler and eventual reader. I want to make sure that things are easy to add in and update. I also want to be able to put my scrapbooks out on the coffee table and not feel like I need to walk someone else through it as they flip the pages. Time will only tell how this all turns out, maybe I’ll do an update on this post at the end of the year 😉
Past Travels
Years ago I used to travel quite a bit. I left town at least once a month and left the state/country about every quarter. I have SO many pictures. Most of them are not good but they hold many incredible adventures. I’ve got a couple boxes of tickets, postcards, brochures, and other clippings from my travels and have finally decided how I want to showcase them.
I cleared one box for all of my travels through school and those are just for me. The rest are from when my husband and I were dating all the way through to 2020 when we cancelled every plan we had. I am going to chronicle them all loosely in order of occurrence in one of these beauties from Citrus Twist and then add to it if and when we really start traveling again.
I am going to try and keep the album pretty broad so that I can just keep adding to it as we go on new trips. I will post about it as I work, as well.
Travel Album Foundation Pages
My Content Planner
The Neapolitan Journal from Archer & Olive was an impulse purchase that I simply could not justify. I loved that it wasn’t all white pages but honestly didn’t have a clue what to do with it. I decided to use it as a content creation journal so that I could give myself the opportunity to get comfortable with both black and Kraft pages. So far it’s working!
Since the page colors alternate I have just enough time to get into a groove before the pages switch colors again. I have been loving this. I get to be creative and try new styles while I keep all of my references for LBH close-by. (I still use Notion for the bulk of my project planning but little items like font lists and image size dimensions are more useful when I can keep them right in front of me.)
Click here for 10% off an A&O journal (referral link)
My Recipe Journal
If you’ve seen this post or the video on this post you’ve already been introduced to my family recipe journal. I basically set this up to hold all of the recipes that the whole house loves. I also try to keep it legible so that the kids can use it if they choose to cook here and there.
I picked this one from Paperchase because I wanted a spiral binding but I think once all the pages are filled, I might have it re-bound. I want to put in thicker heading pages at the start of each new section (breakfasts, drinks, desserts, etc.) that also has a small table of contents. But I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.
Recipe Journaling Update (Cookies)
Two Baby Albums
I built my daughter a baby book her first year. I was so proud to have finished it so quickly, and I do love flipping through the memories.
The more I look at it though, I don’t think it will be as sustainable as I had hoped. There’s dimensional elements in it and it’s kind of tough for her to look through because it’s so bulky. I’m not sure I would even feel comfortable handing it over to her years from now. I wanted to create something simpler and more streamlined that I can give to her one day when she’s much older, so I am starting a baby journal for her. Lucky girl.
My son’s is actually the first baby journal I will be working on though, because the journal I want for Isla is sold out, and I am waiting on it to be restocked. So far, he’s got the basics: our pregnancy and his birth, the story behind his name, a little family tree, stuff like that. Since I already have a full scrapbook for my girl (and lots of notes on her first year in my old bujo, I should have no problem building her a copy later on).
Two Seasonal Scrapbooks
The last two projects I have started setting up are my holiday albums. I have one for the fall season and one for the winter.
The fall scrapbook will hold memories from the autumn activities we do (think, apple picking and hay rides), our Halloween costumes, and the celebrations for Thanksgiving.
Halloween & Fall Album Foundation Pages
The winter album picks up where the fall one leaves off, so any memories from Christmas and New Year’s celebrations.
Every Christmas I found that my family was starting to take the same photos. We don’t really snap pictures of gifts being opened or our dinners because we kind of already know what that looks like and it does not vary much at all (outside of everyone looking a year older). Plus, we kind of all prefer to be more present in those moments, so phones are usually not nearby.
I do love to decorate the house for the holidays, so I usually snap pictures of that, and decorating the tree. We all get matching pajamas so there’s always a group photo in those. Otherwise, I really only take pictures of something out of the ordinary for our Christmases. This past Christmas we met The Grinch on the beach and snapped a picture with him, and last year we visited the Coca Cola Factory. All the rest of that “general stuff” won't make it into this book.
I think it’ll be a lot of fun to see what we did each year and look back at all the quirkier parts of the season.
Fingers crossed I can make solid progress in each project this year!
What journals and scrapbooks are you working on in 2022?
