fun project life projects - by megan hufton

We just love our Creative Team and all that they offer on a monthly basis. As part of my job I get to work with these women on a weekly basis. They all have so many talents and so many fantastic ideas! Megan Hufton, former 2017 Creative Team member, is sharing some projects she did using Project Life®.

Hey everyone, it's Megan, former Project Life App Creative Team Member. I use the Project Life App every week to document my family's day-to-day activities and big events. I have also used it to create baby books and school albums for my two boys. It's no secret that I love Project Life and the convenience and simplicity it offers me. This love is what inspired me recently to look for ways I could use it outside of scrapbooking/preserving our memories.

I wanted to share two projects with you that I created for my son recently. He is 6 years old and LOVES to look at my Project Life albums! He loves finding photos of himself and loved ones and pointing them out to me. This inspired me to make him his own album for Christmas this year.

Now, what makes this album different than his school album, is that this album is HIS. I created it with a much different style than I do our regular albums and it does not sit with our family albums on the bookshelf in the living room. This is a bright and colorful album that my son can do anything he wants with. He can take it for car rides, take it to the park, and even fall asleep with it if he wants (all things he has tried to do with my albums before!). It stays in his room with all of his other story books.

This album includes photos of everyone and everything that he loves. It includes family members, school teachers, favorite toys, favorite places, etc. It also has photos in it of him participating in different activities, like brushing his teeth, swimming, reading books, etc. With him being in kindergarten, he is also learning how to read in school and learning to identify "sight words." I tried to incorporate that idea into the journaling by including sentences to describe what was happening in every photo. I placed a dot under every word because that is how he is learning to follow along in school.

The album was a huge hit with him!

The second project I made was an ABC book using the Project Life App. I know you can buy all kinds of different ABC books from animals to trucks to food. But what I love most about this ABC book is that you can personalize it! You can choose which items you want to match up with each letter based on what your child likes and will recognize. You also can include photos of your child interacting with the item.

So, as an example, for the letter A, I chose to match it with apple. Now, I know what you are thinking. I could find a million ABC books that would match A and apple. But what those books would lack is a matching photo of my son eating an apple because they happen to be his favorite food. These personalized photos are what make this kind of ABC book so special and what keeps my son so engaged with it.

For this album I chose to go with a 6x8 size and stuck with Design 6x8B and 6x8C, depending on how many photos I wanted to include. I wanted to use background colors that were bright and bold, so I picked the color palette from the Slate Kit (one of my favorites!).

These are just two examples to show you how you can use Project Life for projects and gifts outside of traditional scrapbooks. My son loves having these personalized books to look at and they were very simple to put together! I hope you feel inspired to find other ways that Project Life may help you create personalized gifts for your loved ones!