A Year In Our Ordinary Life

I really enjoyed my Project 365 albums that I did in 2009,2010 and 2011, but I found it affected my photo taking and my scrapbooking in ways I’m not sure I did like.

When I was doing my P365, I found when I took photos, I was more focused on getting that one shot that represented the day and I lost sight of the bigger picture. (No pun intended!) I used to take my photos with a scrapbook page in mind. But with the P365, I was just taking a handful which didn’t leave me with enough to choose from for regular layout. I know my scrapbooking is going to change as my children get older. It’s going to move from event based pages to pages that are more about our life and what happens on a day to day basis. Pages that let them know how much they mean to me. I don’t want to lose that in the flurry of 365 pages. Instead of doing complete layouts I was focused on putting together the 365 pages without writing down the details that accompanied those photos. I love the 365 format but that one single sentence isn’t enough to adequately convey the details of our life.

I did the P365 album for 3 years in a row and now it’s time to change it up. Instead I’m doing an album called A Year in Our Ordinary Life. I downloaded the template as a bonus when I purchased Computer Tricks for Scrapbookers. (A great publication, by the way!) Each month of the year will have a dedicated double page layout with 15 photos that most accurately portray our month. I’ve completed January through May so far.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do for 2013. The idea of the Project Life album certainly appeals to me but I have heard that it is a lot of work. But I'll figure that out when I get through 2012!!!

I'm Back

Hello . . . hello . . . hello . . .

Is there anybody out there? . . . out there . . . out there . . .

It’s been a long time since I contributed to this blog. Over 6 months since I’ve posted anything at all and close to a year since I did anything regular. I will admit that I have missed it. I stopped because I wasn’t really sure anyone was reading it. Was it missed? Did anyone miss hearing about the minutia of my daily life? My rants and my musings? I’m not sure.

I have to admit comments were important to me and the lack of comments played a large role in my absence. A part of me needs that feedback that yes, what I’m writing is worthy of someone else reading. What I’m writing is actually being read by someone other than me. But what I realized lately was that I do the same thing with the blogs I read. I read them religiously every single time the author posts and I thoroughly enjoy them but I don’t comment. Why is that? I know as a blogger getting that positive reinforcement is important but I don’t do that myself.

I was reading a friends blog recently (and I don’t think I commented – my sincere apologies – you know who you are) who was also contemplated giving up her blog. This particular friend has a large following and I’m sure they read it regularly but they don’t comment. She came to the eventual conclusion that that was okay with her. She didn’t necessarily blog for other people. She, like me, is a scrapbooker and if nothing else, the blog posts become journaling for future pages. I think that’s a great way of looking at it. I read another blog of a woman I don’t know who has actually given up blogging specifically because of a lack of comments. Her blog was a bit different from mine. She posted scrapbook page layouts for others to use. She had a design team who would do pages based on her sketches and those would be posted too. I loved her sketches and her design team’s layouts but I never commented. I will miss her blog tremendously and am left wishing I had left her some love. Perhaps if more people had we’d still have her incredible talent to spur our scrapbooking projects and creativity.

So, I guess what I’m saying here is that I’m back. You certainly don’t need to comment but I’d love it if you did. I’m going to make a conscious effort to comment on the blogs I read regularly so that they don’t disappear. For me though, this isn’t as much about who reads it anymore but more about journaling about what is important to me. Sharing what makes me laugh. Recording what occasions, thoughts or events I don’t want to forget that may become a scrapbook page one day.