Have you caught the Project Life bug yet? In the first post of this series, I reviewed the Project Life concept and talked about divided page protectors/templates. Today I’ll cover journaling cards. At their most simple, these little cards provide a place to record the memory associated with a corresponding photo, or serve as the perfect spot to tell a photoless story. The idea is to intersperse them in your page protector templates along with photos to document your life, whether you do that daily, weekly, monthly, non-chronologically, or thematically. It’s all good.

Journaling Cards

They can be a plain white rectangle, but since when do we scrapbookers settle for plain white anything?! Colorful, patterned, embellished and decorated journal cards are so much more fun. Many kits now come with a selection of coordinating journaling cards, or you can purchase separate card packs in the popular 3×4, 4×6, and even some square formats.

If you’re just getting started with a digital Project Life, I suggest picking up a good-sized set or two of coordinated journal cards, enough to give you some variety but still help you quickly put together a cohesive album. Look for a Project Life, Project 365, Everyday, or similar section at your favorite digital scrapbook store for a wide array of options.

Coordinated Sets

This first set is a full, retro-style collection with title cards, an alpha, stamps, journal cards, filler cards, and more. The main collection is free, with additional add-ons available for purchase.

If you’re looking for a digital version of Becky Higgins’ Official Project Life, AC Digitals now offers every core and mini kit for digital download. You get the same patterns, papers, and designs as the actual paper kits, with the benefit of Photoshop’s “undo” button!

Amy Jaz Designs at The Lilypad released an Everyday Essentials mega pack of journal cards to coordinate with January’s BYOC (Build Your Own Collab) products. She plans to release a pack of cards every month to match each BYOC, so if you plan to incorporate other scrap supplies into your Project Life, these sets will give you the perfect foundation to mix in other, matching products. These monthly releases also provide a fresh color palette every month, which might work well if you hesitate to commit to a single color palette for the whole year.

Gina Miller, also at The Lilypad, designed a series of products last year with beautiful, bright colors. The Bliss Project includes several sets of journal and filler cards, embellishments, papers, and journalers with photo spots.

For another monthly card set option, check out Splendid Fiins at Jessica Sprague. Her January set is full of cool blues and greens, and she’ll be releasing a new set each month. Splendid Fiins’ shop is packed with journaling cards for every occasion.

One Story Down designers recently put out a large selection of Project Life-style products that all work together beautifully. Pick and choose which packs you need to create a complete collection. I especially liked the Through the Year sets by JM Designs – she has filler cards in both 3×4 and 4×6 (vertical and horizontal), journal cards, calendar cards, paper packs, and more.

One more collection for you – Zoe Pearn at Sweet Shoppe Designs has a fun “everyday” style that includes 40 journaling cards, papers, a whopping 35 alphas, and tags – everything you need for a full album.

Basics and Neutrals

Colorfully coordinated collections are fun (and alliterative!), but sometimes you just need a calm, neutral card to jot down a few notes, provide a place for eyes to rest among colorful pictures, or double as a date element. These sets are perfect basics to have on hand no matter what system or collection you’re using.

Do It Yourself

This last category is for, well, the do-it-yourselfers out there. Use any favorite kit or paper pack to create your own custom journal cards with these templates. I’ve also included Wendyzine’s Scrap It: Pocket Pages action for those who love shortcuts. Her action works with any Project Life-size products to quickly scrap seven different styles of pocket pages.

I hope I haven’t overwhelmed you with choices! Take the weekend to soak it all in, and on Monday I’ll be back to talk about photos and the actual memory-keeping process of Project Life. How do you keep track of ideas, funny things that happen, and other stuff you want to include? What exactly do you include in Project Life versus “regular” scrapping? Of course, these answers will differ for every scrapper and every life situation, but I’ll share a few tips from my own experience and ideas I’ve gleaned from other Project Life scrappers.

While you’re shopping this weekend, please feel free to share your favorite journal card packs here! I’d love to see what you’re using!

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