Downsizing... and loving it!

Okay, let me explain!
There I was, using my Project Life album, taking lots of pictures, documenting everything and thoroughly enjoying myself.
Then things started to get difficult.

  • The size of the album became too big for me.  It takes up a lot of room on my desk and it's quite heavy to lug around.
  • A light came on in my head.  I actually lost sleep over this!  I realised, by looking back at my previous journal, that I am primarily a journaler and use pictures to help tell my story, not the other way around.  The thing with 12 x 12 is that it's great if you've got kids and they're doing different things every day for you to take photographs of.  My problem is that I spend a lot of time at work (including weekends) my children are all grown up and gone and I only get to see the grandchildren once every six weeks, so there aren't lots of things to photograph.  BUT that doesn't mean I don't like my life and I still want to document what goes on.
  • So I started looking around at alternatives and at first I thought a Smash book might be the way forward, but after a few weeks of trawling Pinterest, I realised that wasn't quite what I wanted to do either.
  • So a plan gradually began to form, by taking the best bits from each style of life documentation.
  1. I wanted something smaller than 12 x 12, something I could keep open on my desk all the time.
  2. I love the pocket journaling idea, just not so many on one page.
  3. I wanted it to be in a clip file so I could re-arrange things as often as I needed to.  And I do this a lot as it turns out.
  4. So my first 6x8 file was born.  I know you're going to think this is mad, but once my mind was made up I actually slept properly for the first time in a week!
So in September we went on holiday for a week, and when we got back I started on my new baby clip file (about £3, from W H Smiths!)

Here are the first couple of pages:



I decided to make use of my Project Life Blush papers, so I cut them to 6x8 and slotted them into the page protectors (very cheap in Staples, no expense spared here!)  I thoroughly enjoyed doing mini spreads.



Is it a bit sad that I felt like crying with happiness once I'd worked out how I wanted to do it?!  Finally finding the size I wanted and being able to write in it to my heart's content have made me unbelievably happy!
More to come soon, I'm sure
Jane x

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