My 2011 and 2012 mini books with monthly reviews - why I document life

Thank you, A, for your recipe on my last post. I drooled this morning when I read it - can't wait to give it a bash this weekend.

Then, I'm so excited since  at least two other people are trying out lots of new recipes this year. If there are a couple more, we can do a linky once a month or something???

Speaking of which, this Saturday is our photography challenge. Our theme is faces :)

But for now, I want to talk about mini books.

I've kept a mini book for the last two years. The first year, 2011, I received a little photo album with 24 sleeves from a friend.

Remember the Keep Calm trend? I loved it so much then - I also got a lovely red pencil from her which my son threw into the heater...

Immediately I decided to do a photo and a month-in-review card for 12 months.

Done.

Here is a little sample of my book. I'm not showing you everything because, well, I tell you almost everything and I want just a few things private :)

The photo I chose is from that month but one that shows what the month was generally about - e.g. Jan shows a pizza = lots of eating out for me and D (at that point my kids didn't eat pizza!) on holiday.

Oct 2011 was the month of doctors, hospitals and gall bladders for me. Lots of you were around at that time.

I actually tossed those pj's - they had such bad memories for me of 3 am emergency room visits, emergency surgeries, etc.

Here's an interesting (to me) fact which a work friend reminded me about. That 3 am visit was on Friday 7th Oct. On Sat 8th at 9 am we were in Newtown having our beautiful pics taken by Jeanette! I think I was running on adrenaline because I don't think I look bad at all. Julia said in those comments I looked thin (BFF!) :)

Kendra looking at my hospital and her hospital pics

The Dec pic is of Kendra in the hospital and on the back I put another pic of Nanny V and Connor  = Kendra at the doc means those two were together a lot.

And then last year's book.

beautifully imperfect :)

I went bigger last year - pic of month, journalling and then, because this was my "thing" for the year, I wanted pics of me with them every month.

I will show you all those pics in another post because you can see the improvement in me being more comfortable in front of the camera.

I read a Brene book in Jan last year so I have a personally autographed sticker :), and then my Jan pages

Dec pics with us in them

Connor looking through the Dec pic

My kids love looking through my little books.

Someone said to me today "who even looks at printed photos these days?" and of course, I made a lunch appt with her for Thursday so I can brainwash her to print her pics.

I said all that to say this: I am not a scrapbooker but just the process of writing down the monthly highlights has been so good for me, to quickly recap the year.

Remember in 2011 when I wrote my good, bad and ugly about 2011, I started off writing that it was a terrible year. It was.... BUT when I started writing down the good stuff too, there was a TON that I'd forgotten. I ended off that post and that year grateful for all the good things that happened.

I really want to strongly encourage you (!) to do a monthly review (just the highlights package) in a little book. I've made year in review books for some of you - if you haven't used them yet, now would be a great time because they're small and un-intimidating :)

I never plan to stop doing a version of these and I mentioned before that I've been drawn to Project Life. I've seen millions rave about it and some say that it's too sterile and plain and whatnot. That's exactly what I like.

However, for someone so unfussy like me, this weekly layout thing is overkill. Honestly, from one week to the next I sometimes don't even get a chance to menu plan (which takes 5 - 10 minutes); where will I get 4 hours to do a weekly layout?

I'm a big believer in setting yourself up for success so I've decided to do "my version" of Project Life.

A monthly version, of course. I can certainly carve out my 30 minutes like I used to do with my monthly reviews to do my PL little version.

I also like the period of a month. A week is too much like navel-gazing for me - I would become obsessed with the details (like I need more attention to detail!) so a month is just enough of a big picture view without losing a lot of detail.

Does that make sense?

I used journalling cards I downloaded for free on Monika Wright's blog. I can't find them quickly - they may not be free downloads anymore but have a squiz.

This is the Turquoise Edition of Project Life. I've been using all these lovely cards in a million (non-Project Life) ways.

Coming up...

how I've been using my cards
how I organise them
what I'll be using for an album

Will you be documenting your life in some way this year? How?
Have I convinced anyone out there to try doing a mini book?