Traditional vs. Project Life and Why I Do Both

Lately, I have been spending the majority of my crafty time working on design team projects and creating process videos or preparing for my son's birthday party. When I stopped to reflect last night, I realized that the vast majority of these projects have all been traditional layouts. I was sitting in my craft room and pushing around a series of photos that were of my son on a recent field trip. The lighting was terrible, the photos were taken by another parent and sent to me, and editing only helped just so much (you know you have those photos!)

As I sat here unhappy with the options and ideas floating in my head, I thought about project life and how I haven't done so many of those layouts lately. Now I am not a traditional project lifer in the sense of creating weekly spreads or even monthly ones. The majority of my layouts are still theme or event based even though I do take and include a lot of everyday shots and important stories.  So, I switched up and decided to give it a shot with these photos. As I started to play around with a traditional design A format, the ideas started to flow and the embellishments worked so much better. I found myself reaching for stamps and labels and pulling out some of my favorite products. For these photos and my style and the feelings I wanted to portray in this layout, project life was the answer. The layout turned out so much better than I had hoped and I had renewed love for these types of projects too!

*The bottom card is blank for journaling because I want to have my son write the majority of the journaling for this page and then I will add a few thoughts of my own afterwards. I think that it is essential to have him involved in his memory keeping especially for those events that I don't get to attend with him.

That all made me think....I am not a scrapbooker who stays in one closed box. I like to experiment with different layouts, different styles, and even different formats. There is no reason I can't combine projects and products and make them my own. Sometimes a traditional layout works best for me and I love what I can create on those pages. But...sometimes a project life layout works even better for me and that's okay too! I mix and match and ignore the rules and I love that freedom. I hope that each of us as crafters can remember that we don't have to get stuck in a box of "our style" or "our format." I like to play and try new things and change my style sometimes and you can too!