Project Life | Week Seventeen
Welcome to Project Life | Week Seventeen.
This week I ended up with two 8.5x11 inserts due to the major news of Osama bin Laden's death.
Let's start at the beginning:
The beginning of the week included a new recipe from our local paper, a book tag, a trip to the eye doctor, and some creative work for an upcoming project.
I scanned Simon's Reading Record and included the journaling from this post.
The back side includes an email I sent to his teacher and his lunch menu from April (just folded in half and slipped inside the page protector).
The second insert includes the front page of the paper from Monday morning (I know it's "this week" but it made sense to me to put it together with when we first heard the news - no right or wrong).
The back side includes the printed text of President Obama's speech. You can access that here.
I added a paperclip at the top of the page protector to keep it inside - the bulk of the paper seems to make it want to jump out of the page protector.
I also took a photo of the TV while the President was speaking.
Want to read more about scrapbooking world events? Loved this post that Noell did over at Paperclipping: Five Prompts For Scrapbooking Major World Events.
We saw Wicked on Saturday night and it was awesome.
I made my first pancakes ever (Chris usually makes them and he was away).
Simon and Chris played frisbee golf.
And the one thing I didn't include is how I worked in the yard most of the day on Sunday. I think I'll do a layout about that.
One thing you might notice above are a couple little tabs I added to two of the photos. For these I just hand-wrote a little title on the back of one of the journaling cards, cut with scissors, and stapled onto the photo.
Project Life is a product created by Becky Higgins. It can be anything you want it to be. The album kit (similar to the one I’m using) is available for purchase through Amazon. If you live outside the US check Becky’s site for more information on sources. View all my posts about Project Life here.
That's a great tip on creating a tab! Like!
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I'm curious, did you every take penmanship classes or workshops or is your handwriting just naturally awesome? Maybe this has been brought up before and I jsut missed it.
Hi Michelle - no classes. I did practice making letters a lot when I was a kid and in high school. There are many things I can't do or are not good at - this is one of the things that's my gift :).
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*sigh* i'm starting to regret not doing PL as there's SO much going on in the world right now. i know that i can still start but there's so much that i've already missed. a bit of my "OCD"-ness that i really need to get over as i know that scrapbooking isn't about perfection but documentation.
i noticed that you didn't mention wills & kate's wedding. did i miss it or did you decide not to include it?
hope you have a great week!
Hi Keri,
Since I was following what Ali published every week with her PL since january, I was really regretting not doing it either. So last week, I finally decided to order mine. I received my box yesterday and I'm so excited to begin documenting my little family's life, even if I'll be starting my PL in may instead of january. As Ali always say, «PL can be anything you want it to be». So mine will be from may to december... and it will surely not be perfect. :-)
Marie
To be honest I forgot about the royal wedding by the end of the weekend. I might add-in a little something about that.
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Hi Ali -
I'm struggling with this concept this week. I want to capture reactions, feelings, etc. But I also want my 5 year old to think of this as an album he can read as he likes. I think the concept of killing for any reason is not something we want to promote.
Hi, Claire - I hesitated for a moment too but then decided to put it in because it is, regardless of any feelings or opinions about it, HUGE news. And my kids won't always be so little so I decided to include a long journaling block about my personal reactions and feelings about it. Like a conversation I'd like to have with the boys when they're older ... just in case I'm not here to do it or it doesn't come up until after I'm gone :) My boys can't read but if you're concerned about the headline and images, how about tucking something in there and then a paper over it that says "Breaking News" and years down the road it'll still be there but you don't have to see it every time you flip through - if that makes sense?
I appreciate your perspective. thanks.
I'm looking at it from a purely historical point of view - that it is a part of the stories of our lives.
And maybe that is what you want to say to him in this album this week - maybe that's your message :). It's a great opportunity to teach...
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I was a bit surprised that the killing of Bin Laden is so prominent in the album. It seems odd, what with being mixed in with pancake-making and frisbee-ing.
I live in Christchurch New Zealand, and despite the tragedy of the aftershock earthquake on the 22nd February, I still included it in my PL album. It is a significant part of lives, changing the city we live in forever, the way we live day to day, and the things we are able to do. I agree with Ali - life is good and bad.
I included news paper front pages about Fukushima, the tornados in the south and Osama Bin Laden in our album. Those "things" are part of our life, too as much as our son's soccer team winning the district tournament or our daughter's card to her teacher that said she didn't want to leave first grade because she loves it sooo much but she wants to learn to do multiplication and that's why she will have to go to 2nd and 3rd grade ...
I look at it from a purely historical perspective - it's a piece of all our lives for better or worse. Life is a little bit of all those things - the good, the bad, the mundane, the horrible, the wonderful.
I guess that is why Life is surprising and why we need to document it
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I notice that you, Becky Higgins and several others sometimes include photos of the actual TV screens. Whenever I try to do this with my point and shoot camera, the bottom half of the photo is always dark. Any suggestions for taking this type of photo?
Thanks so much for the tips! I will try both!
are you referring to the scanlines that show up? here are some links that have helped me ...
http://www.ehow.com/how_4873620_photograph-tv-screen.html
http://www.ehow.com/how_7678574_photograph-television-screen.html
hope this helps. sometimes i find it easier to screen-capture things on the computer rather than the TV.
Hi Robyn - not sure why that would happen. Are you using the flash? That could be part of it -
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Thank you for the inspiration! I'm doing Project Life, and now I am considering a way to record my 8-year-old's questions about what happened Sunday night. He was the first to hear about it in our family because on Monday morning, he went downstairs and turned on NPR for me. "Thank you, sweetie." I hadn't had my coffee yet, so I was both dazed and confused. But once we heard the story, Malcolms questions came rapidly..all day long. Your long journaling notecard will definatley work for this one.
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I have totally copied that cutting the tabs thing from you when I first noticed it several weeks ago now. I love it, and thanks for thinking of it! :) I am really happy with how it looks in the book. Seeing you work on something new creative gets me excited to see what it is, but when I first saw that photo, I thought maybe you and your husband went to some cool Japanese place to eat or something! Ha!
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I *LOVE* that you've included frisbee golf, Wicked, pancakes AND the death of Bin Laden in this week. This is life. We don't get to pick and choose only the pretty events to include in our everydays. . .and I think you've done an AWESOME job -keeping it real. :) I plan to do the same.
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I'm enjoying all the bits and pieces of life, but have decided to make it only for each calendar month. Otherwise I find myself keeping too much. These scrapbooks are all about what WE want to say and what we keep. If you want news of historical interest, that's your business. No one has to do the same. Good for you!
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i purposely went out to buy a paper with the bin laden headline to include in my PL for this week. it is history. it is a significant event for our country even though it is horrible and hard. it will be mixed in amoungst a group family photo shoot, a mother's tea with my 5 year old and my 2 year old potty training. it's real. it's life.
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Love that you included the Bin Laden piece. I actually just picked up a newspaper yesterday to include in mine. I like the idea of adding Obama's speech, but I think I might substitute my 9/11 story and my FB status update with the responses from friends.
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I was wondering if you would share your tv pic of Obama's news speech on flickr? I tried taking a photo for my pic of the day....but since I have an older tv screen I wasn't able to get a good photo....with or without a flash.....I should have ran in to the other room to take a pic but I was glued to the tv and didn't want to miss anything....would you mind sharing or would that be too weird....
thanks....
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You do amazing work Ali....and you are 1/3 through the year!!!! Congrats.
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I also have taken photos of things on the television, glad I am not the only one!!! This week I also took one of the Royal Wedding to include. Like the idea of the tabs on the photos, great idea!!
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Ali, this week is truly real life and what we are all going thru right now. I too bought a paper just to have the article in my PL just as I bought one for the royal wedding photos too. They are both very important and different feelings but they need to be in my album. I want my kids to look back at this whole year and get all the info good, bad, sad, happy, tragic whatever. I want this for me too so I can go back and see it and talk about it when they are older too. One thing for those of you who might not want it right in the pages is to add a manilla folder to the back of the album and put certain things that your little ones shouldn't read about yet and that way it's still there for later on.
Ali, way to go on making pancakes. My husband does them every Sunday for us and I've never made them before either. So happy to see Simons reading card in here and all these cool projects your working on, hope we see them soon. I had my art work in my weeks photos also. Thanks for sharing with us, lovely as always.
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Hey Ali--great job on the pancakes! If you want "Mommy's" pancakes to be a little different from "Daddy's" maybe next time try this recipe: cinnamon roll pancakes from recipegirl.com. I just found this recipe yesterday on Pinterest - love pinning!! - and they look yummy!
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Oh! I like the idea of cutting a journaling card to make a little tab! I might "scraplift" that idea.
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I didn't make pancakes for the first time until my husband went away for work too!
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So glad to see someone else take photos of the television. I have also taken shots of what is on my computer at the time.
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I haven't started a PL album, but I am doing my version for our weekends (Weekend Adventures). I got the idea from a quote you posted by Diane Ackerman about living the width of life as well as the length. But now I'm thinking about starting one because I am so excited to see the new Polaroid printer (GL10) that is coming soon. I don't know what it is about those polaroid prints that I love so much, maybe they just take me back in time...but won't this be great for the project life albums?
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I am currently making a SCRAPBOOK ON THE ROAD project after i bought your class and was totally inspired! I am loving putting in all my bits and pieces I collected from my trip and would love to do the same in a PROJECT LIFE kind of way... your album looks amazing... will have to make one next year, hopefully we can buy Project Life in Australia by then!! p.s. HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON is... AWE-SUM!!
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Yes, I remembered Will and Kate and forgot about Bin Laden - so when I saw your post I went off to photograph the newspaper. These are significant events in our lives. I love mixing the big things with the little. I love how your mish-mash always looks so great! :)
Hi,
I just wondered if you could give me any tips please on how to take pix of a newspaper? I think that's a brilliant idea:)
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Ali, did you change your blog background to gray? It used to be white, now it shows as gray on mine. Which is fine, but your signature color of pumpkin/orange is very very hard to read in text against the gray background. And some of the text is in a lighter sort of gray (EX: dates text on comments) which is pretty much impossible to see. Just wasn't sure if this was a choice you made or if some setting is off. I'm figuring you WANT people to be able to read the text of your posts? (black text shows up ok)
Hi Michelle - no changes have been made that I know of - looks the same here. Any one else having this issue? Do you feel like it changed from yesterday or a couple days ago?
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Ali I check your blog every wednesday morning when i wake up.
I too too a pic of President Obama on TV for my 365 but no newspaper clippings. Ihave loads of the royal wedding too.
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