Making Project Life Work For Me

I got caught up on Project Life this past weekend and finished my pages yesterday. Woo!

If you aren't familiar with Project Life, CLICK HERE.

Here's what works for me:

Printing my photos at home! I used this video tutorial to learn how to print two photos onto one page. I have this little printer and I *love* it.
Studio Calico Project Life Kit. This is the big one for me. If I spend money on a subscription, I have to use it. If it arrives in the mail, I'm SUPER excited to get home and use it. Each month is different so my book doesn't look like all one theme which I really like. It's also gotten me to try to use the filler cards more- they are just cute! And I like the journal cards, it's hard for me to not use a million photos. Photos are awesome but if I just did them...it would be way smarter to just have an album printed at the end of the year! This way I can add more "real life" stuff to my book with out relying on photos to tell a story.
Smaller size. I use a Snap! Binder I bought in December at Michael's on mega clearance. Sadly they don't have any left and mine is now full! I'm debating buying a different binder type for May but I want it small. 12x12 is super overwhelming!
Printing photos every other day (because I use one sheet of photo paper for two photos). I tried once a week, once per month and once every two weeks. Every other day works for me, especially now that I'm using more journal/filler cards. I can share my thoughts super fast. I have a phone timer set on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays to remind me. Once a month was SUPER tedious for me, I couldn't remember half of what I'd done or the dates. Which brings me too...
I don't date my cards. I have a first of the month card and an end of the month re-cap card. The re-cap card I talk about stuff that happened, books I read, food I loved. The first of the month card I usually write things I want to try or events happening. I don't date my cards because sometimes there just isn't ANYTHING to share or maybe one day was so neat that I have 4 photos.
If I'm not sure what to add somewhere or I've tucked away a movie stub somewhere special (aka now I can't find it) I'll add a little sticky note with what is supposed to go there.

What didn't work for me:

Using a core kit. I bought the 5th and Frolic (I think that's what it's called?!) kit from Michaels. I used a 50% off + 10% off total purchase coupon in December which was awesome but by mid February, I was sick of using the same papers over.and over. And I was barely into the project! That was when I was *super* glad I joined Studio Calico, it freshened things up and made it less cookie cutter-y! Also, the S.C. paper is much better quality and more sturdy.
The Becky Higgin's corner rounder. It hates the photo printer paper and kept chomping my paper. Super sad because part of my album has rounded corners, part doesn't.

What I want to try in the future:

Adding text over photos in photoshop!
Making more layers of stuff on my cards. Right now they are pretty simple, sometimes I add a sticker, sequins or washi but I want to add more cute layers.
Make one page one photo!
More paper ephemera. Add more receipts, little tokens from events, etc.

Who's projects I admire & finding inspiring:

In reality my Project Life kind of looks like a 14 year old with a brand new glue stick made it, I think I'm ok with that. I practically use up every little sequin or sparkle that comes in each monthly kit. My layouts aren't fancy, they are fast and get the point across. I'd *love* to have a book like the ladies I linked too but...they are legit scrapbookers! I'm not so much or even remotely at that skill level! YET!!! BUT I am glad that I've kept up to date and my book is totally me. I like that I took so many photos when I was working on Follow Your Arrow because it documented the whole thing! I like printing silly things like cat memes. I like printing book covers and including them. I like jotting down daily thoughts- even though my penmanship is awful. I realllllly like knowing that at the end of the year I will have documented all of 2014!

How about you? Are you doing Project Life this year? How's it going?