If you’ve read any of my recent entries about Project Life and December Daily, you’ll know that I’ve struggled a little with my own style lately. I’ve overthought, overcomplicated and have been overinspired. Over the weekend my friend Essie posted her Project Life Manifesto on her blog. After reading hers, which I suggest you do too, and finding myself nodding along at various points, I thought I would benefit from doing the same.

When I began project life I was drawn to the simplicity of it among other things. I’d been a traditional scrapper and had long since thrown that hobby in because it was too time consuming, expensive, and to be honest, it was getting a little silly. Scrapbooking magazines showed 12×12 layouts with one photo and a whole lot of embellishment, chalks became popular, there was yarn on everything.. it was overwhelming and I lost interest. Enter Project Life. I started in August last year with one core kit and whipped up some digi cards for things like song and instagram of the week. In my first spread I used my own handwriting and it was a hodge podge of things that really made the week mine. The second week was similar…but then I lost my way. Two weeks of looking at ‘inspiration’ on the web was all it took for me to lose sight of my own style that I was just beginning to cultivate, and aim for something more uniform and pretty. I moved to mainly digi hybrid, typed all my journaling and was so focussed on it looking perfect that I lost the parts of journaling that I was so desperate to remember; the things I liked that week, the nice things friends did, funny things Elijah said. I also started to acquire more and more cards; full kits, mini kits, theme kits, plus embellishment  because well, that’s what all the other project lifers are doing right?

So after completely overthinking this for months, here is my manifesto.

Ren’s 2014 Project Life Manifesto

1. Don’t justify

I’m quite apologetic and will find myself apologising for my work when I share it. I’m not going to do that anymore. It’s my album, my life, and it simply doesn’t matter if others don’t like it.

2. Remember the details

To do this I need to be more diligent with writing things down so I haven’t forgotten when I complete the layout. Things like quotes from Elijah are perfect examples of what needs to go back in. I have a journal for the purpose of making notes of my week, but I’ve been slack with it. I’m going to move it next to the bed and jot a few notes in it each night.

3. Embrace my handwriting

Yes, the time has come to embrace it. Some weeks, like now as I’m 7 weeks behind, I just want to print out photos, add some journaling and be done. The easiest way to do this is to just embrace my handwriting. I love typed journal cards, but it really is time consuming and I’d like to spend less time on my PC this year and more time out living a life worthy of recording.

4. Admire the style of others, but keep to your own.

I find it’s very easy to get swept up in trends in any craft and when your version isn’t a good as the original it’s quite disheartening. There’s lots of styles out there that I really love, but unless they really reflect my own style, I’ll just admire them from afar and accept that it’s ok if I don’t have the trendiest layout on the block, I am doing this for me after all. I also need to acknowledge that it’s ok if I change my style as I go. I’ve found it hard to get going this year as I’ve been trying to create a bit of a formula to follow each week, but the self imposed formula has already proved a little stifling.

5. Stop buying supplies.

Acquiring lots of product falls into two categories for me; 1. keeping up with trends and 2. procrastination. Neither is particularly useful when it comes to keeping up to date with weekly spreads. I love tiny alpha stickers, and am a sucker for pretty paper, but I really do not need anymore BH cards at this stage!