Project 365? What a load of ...

I hate, loathe, detest and despise Project 365/52/12. For the uninitiated, Project 365 is the thing where you take a photo every day of the year, no matter how boring this will be for the poor soul expected to look at it, and put it in a daily/weekly/whatever scrapbook page/album. For Project 52 you take photos once a week, and so on.

 Did I mention I hate this sort of thing? Here's why:  

It's Marketing

It's designed to get you to spend money on more kits once you've finished buying all the Christmas and Winter stuff you don't need. There's a brief flurry of "New Start/New You/Resolutions" junk every January but that runs out of steam. Incidentally, I hate that stuff too. It says to scrapbookers, "You and/or your life is a big failure. What are you going to do about it?" How rude.

It's too soon for most stores to start selling Valentines junk. I'm not keen on that either. In the UK you send cards to your romantic other, not to your children and friends - which would be considered a bit weird - and hubby and I gave that up long ago.

So what are they going to sell? Ooh, I know, a whole book of stuff designed for a year (and therefore expensive...). Templates for putting seven photos on a page, like you couldn't work that out for yourself. A whole load of little bits that say "Monday, Tuesday ... January ... February. Puhleeeze!! Are we five years old?? 

It's Manipulative

Last year the biggest B word-y scrapbooker on the planet started a Facebook group for Project Whatever peeps. The woman is a control freak and lost no time in pushing people around and - big surprise - flogging her friend's "here are your bits of Wednesdays in case you can't spell it" kit. It was supposed to be "supportive". Ha! It was a vehicle for the playground bully. I was the first one out of the door. I will not be amused if anyone adds me to any of these groups this year. I much preferred it when you invited friends to Facebook groups rather than added them against their will.

So you've failed already at the "create a new you" stage on January 1st. Now you're going to fail to take photos every day, fail to put them in a layout, fail to impress your new buddies unless you use the right bits of kit and then you're going to fail to do all the other important things you should be doing while you're wasting time pratting around with this silly project. Which leads me to ....

It's horribly smug

The "I married my best friend and we have 10 kids" brigade love Project 365. They can flaunt their family, big house and SAHM lifestyle every day to those who have to work three jobs, those who have nothing, those who have lost someone. Vile.

It's a colossal waste of time

Life is too short to be taking photos because someone says you have to. Yes, that might be fun for one challenge project. It's always good to leave your comfort zone for a while to see what you can create. But every day? Every week? Surely you have better things to do. I know plenty of people who haven't backed up their computers in months, haven't unzipped hundreds of kits, haven't written in their blogs etc etc to say nothing of real life constraints on their time. Scrapbooking is a hobby meant to be enjoyed, it shouldn't turn into a job you have to do. That destroys creativity.

Be brave. Say "No, I'm not doing that!" There will be albums on Digi Scrapping Tips for those who would like to show use their Project 365 pages and we have daily and weekly challenges for those who would inspiration without doing it. No selling you anything!

There's a poll on this topic on Digi Scrapping Tips. Come along and give your views (or comments are welcome here). There would be a witty layout to go with this post but - hello - I'm busy doing more important stuff.

One Photo - Two Different Pages

.. and a question to be answered. Why on earth is she using that photo showing the fat belly ???

D'oh.... DH didn't warn me to hold it in!

I used it "as is" on this first page. The kit is Getaway by Rosey Posey. I used a stacked paper background so can't take credit for the cluster bottom right. I added a couple of bits! The frame over the photos is from Lindsay Jane's Another Day In Paradise. I like wonky frames that don't fit the photo.



For the second page I added a frost effect to the photo in Picmonkey and adjusted it so it created quite a wide matte effect. Then I used Rosey Posey's Island kit and, again, used a stacked paper background. I think I prefer this one. The first one wasn't wasted though as I used it with another photo. It's very easy to right click and duplicate a page in MyMemories so I often make several versions.

So the world didn't end on 21st December...

But the Facebook jokes were amusing. I love Grumpy Cat and this was one of his best. Isn't that just exactly what you'd expect him to say? Kit is mostly FayETTE designs' Reality Bytes:


I liked the Doctor Who joke too. Background (I reduced the opacity) is from a set by Helena Monteiro


CLICK HERE for an extra large zoomable version to see what he's saying.

How Not To Sleep....

I'm at that age where everything wears out. So to delay the awful inevitablity of double knee replacement I had a clever surgeon do arthroscopy and cartilage repair on both knees. This is what happened the first night after the surgery (click HERE for a larger version if you can't read the text). Kit is mostly Sweet Slumber by Colie's Corner:



There's a larger project going on - well, of course there is, we have to scrap EVERYTHING - and I'll show you the other pages when they're finished but I couldn't resist making a 12/12/12 page. Kit is Booboos and Bandaids by A-manda Creations:



OK, one more since this ridiculous showering routine is such a big part of my life at the moment (currently with one knee bandaged and less dressings but it still means no enjoying the shower for ages). There will shortly be a roots crisis since that takes a lot of time in the shower. Kit is Bubbly by KStudio: