When I say ‘simple’, this first set wasn’t actually as simple as I’d hoped in the long run! Although I really loved making them and how they turned out, I found them quite time consuming to make. I used mini rubber stamps to stamp the text and cut out numbers from scrapbook paper for each card, which looks lovely but took time. I used to make them month by month, and often found myself making them last minute to be able to take the monthly milestone picture! So when Littlest One arrived, I knew that I wanted to make a set for him too, but they needed to be a bit easier to make so that I could try to make more of them in advance. I looked through my paper supplies and realised that Project Life baby milestone cards would be the answer – the cards are lovely quality with cute designs, but there is still scope to personalise them. Yay! 

In this tutorial, I’m making the 4 month card because I had made the first 3 already without taking any photos! I have just included the cards for monthly milestones here, but there are some suggestions for other cards to include at the end of the post. Do let me know any other ideas you have in the comments!

Materials

12 Project Life cards – I’ve used the 4×6″ cards 

Coloured papers in a variety of colours

White paper

Double-sided tape (or glue if you prefer)

Fine pen

Scissors

Craft knife and cutting mat

Number templates (click to download)

Step 1

Choose which Project Life cards you would like to use for each month and match a coloured paper for the numbers. I decided to use a contrasting colour for the numbers on each card, but you can coordinate however you like – you could use the same colour for the numbers on all of the cards, for example.

step 2

Cut out the number templates and trace around them onto the coloured paper with a pencil. Carefully cut them out, using the craft knife for any tricky bits in the middle of the numbers.

step 3

Take the white paper and a fine pen and write the words ‘Today I am’. Cut out a rectangle around the words – I did this freehand but you could measure it if you prefer. Repeat with the words ‘months old’. Position the number(s) and text on the Project Life card and then stick in place with double-sided tape or glue.

step 4

Repeat with the remaining numbers and cards that you have chosen. 

I’m so pleased with how these cards turned out – they were much simpler than my first attempt! And this time around I’ve made the cards ahead of time which is great.

Additional Project Life baby milestone cards ideas

These milestone cards can be personalised to fit your baby, and because the cards are ready-printed, you can make them so easily and quickly as your baby learns new things! Here are a few more ideas:

Today I…

Smiled for the first time

Learnt how to roll over

Sat up on my own

Slept in my own room for the first time

Got my first tooth

Ate some solid food

Started crawling 

Took my first steps

Said my first word

I really love that these cards can be made and personalised to suit your baby. It’s a lovely way to document their progress and to make something that is really personal to them and to you. You could use the reverse of the cards to make notes about what they love to do on the back, just as a special way to keep a record of the little milestones and everyday things too.

Show me your project life baby milestone cards!

If you make these cards for your little one, I would absolutely LOVE to see them! You can tag me @hellohoorayblog on Instagram, or find me on Facebook or Twitter if you prefer.

If you want to find out more about Project Life, see my posts from the archives about getting started and Project Life storage too. You can also visit the Project Life website for an overview of available products.

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Although I usually do my scrapbooking month by month, it was really nice to cover a longer period of time. I was a bit worried that I would forget lots of things, but having all my photos in iPhoto has helped with that – it even tells me what date I did things! So I had a browse and chose a few events each month to document. Weren’t the colours beautiful in Autumn?

One thing I have done differently this time is that I have printed out my own photos. Yay! I got a new printer when I got my new computermabob and I love it – can’t imagine how we didn’t have one for so long now! I did have a scout about for a 3×4″ blank template on the internet, as this would have been super helpful for sizing, but I couldn’t find one (let me know if you know where I can find one!). So instead I just printed out a trial photo to test the size. 6.4 x 6.4cm is the perfect size to fit these cards – I just put all my photos into a word document and then printed them out on some everyday photo paper, leaving a bit of room to cut out. I managed to fit 8 photos this size onto an A4 page.

I think that home printing will be so much easier, although I will get some printed from Inkifi every now and again! I experimented with a larger size photo for the 6 x 4″ cards, and 8 x 8cm works well for these.

It was fun to put together my December pages, and I used the Merry and Bright kit for the month, along with some cards that I made from the primaries cardstock pack. The colour combinations of this pack work so well together, and it makes for a set of fun and bright pages!

So that marks the end of 2014 in my Project Life album! I decided that I would use the final page cards from the Strawberry and Blush kits to mark the end of the year in my album – the quotes seemed to work well here. I am going to make a 2015 title page, but I’ll share that with you another day (once I’ve actually finished it!).

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Sorry for the not-so-good photo – it was really difficult to get a good one! The box is 21 litres (not that I could really picture what size that would be from the photo online) and it came with two inserts. Each insert has 12 compartments, which is fine for the 3 x 4 cards, but the 4 x 6 ones don’t fit. I went and had a look at the manufacturer’s website and found that I could buy an insert with 6 larger compartments, so I ordered one and it came really quickly – yay!

So now that I had the inserts that I needed, I could get organising! I must admit that I LOVE to organise stuff – and I would be far more organised if I had a place to keep all my stuff in one place and easily accessible for crafting. Can you tell that I dream of having a craft room a lot?! Anyway, I started with the larger cards and realised that I needed to put some bits of sturdy card in the bottom of each one to prevent bending. I just cut up some card that was in the back of my Project Life paper packs to do this.

Next, I made some little dividers to separate each kind of card and kit in my box – I needed to do this because there aren’t enough compartments for all the kits I have now! So I used a 4 x 6 card as a guide, and made some little dividers with some spare white card I had.

The dividers have a tab in a slightly different place so that I can see what I’m looking for more easily, and I wrote the kit and card type on each one.

The 3 x 4 cards fit really well in the insert with 12 compartments – I didn’t bother making any dividers for them because a kit fits in three compartments, which is handy! So left to right, I have Blush, Kiwi, Strawberry and Honey.

It’s great being able to flick through all my cards more easily now! One thing that doesn’t fit in this box is my paper, so I got one of the scrapbooking boxes too. It has made my scrapbooking so much easier now that I have everything in one place – well, two boxes, but that’s manageable!

I also want to tell you about a really useful site that I found, where you can find out about all the Project Life kits and see what’s in each one. Check out Miss Magoo Scraps for the complete list of kits – it’s really useful if you’re wanting to get started or mix up your cards with some new ones! That’s how I realised that Kiwi and Honey would match Blush and Strawberry really nicely. You might also want to check out my Pinterest board if you’re looking for some inspiration! How do you store your Project Life kits? Has anyone gone digital with the app? I’d love to know what you think of it!

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You can read all about how I put together the title pages and getting started here, but I wanted to show you how I’m using the 12 x 12 paper and pockets for monthly dividers. I stuck one of the small journaling cards on each page and wrote the month on it – I like that I can find my way around the months easily this way! There are cards stuck on the other side too, which I’m using to write down all the things I’m looking forward to about the month ahead.

The first pages that I created were all about our first wedding anniversary (you can read about that here!). One of my favourite things about Project Life is that I’m printing out photos again – with everything in digital format, it’s so lovely to be able to flick through the pages to look at them. Another thing that I love is that this process is like writing a journal and compiling a photo album in one. I used to write a diary when I was much younger, but that sort of fell by the wayside as life got busier. Doing it this way means that I can write shorter snippets about things we’ve done, and it doesn’t feel like a chore!

As I spent a lot of time during August working on my new website, I decided to make some pages about it – I used some 2 x 2 inch photos that I got printed through Inkifi. I really love these little photos, and I’ll be reviewing them soon, so look out for that…

As you may have guessed, I like my pages colourful! These pages are all about my trip to the Northern Quilt Show with Mum:

And with the next divider, I’m ready for September!

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Project Life is a pocket scrapbooking system, and this is one of the things that originally attracted me to it (other than the pretty colours and patterns!). I think this will be good for doing little bits at a time – something that I can pick up and do a little of, and I can put a few post its in as reminders of what needs to go where. I like having the option of the different size cards on a page too, and the pockets come in lots of different layouts. I decided to get a box of different pockets to mix and match, and I also got the Blush pink chevron album (pink AND chevrons – what’s not to love?!).

I must admit that if there’s a choice of a set of something, I don’t usually like mixing it up with another set – but I really couldn’t decide between the Blush and Strawberry core kits and thought that they would compliment each other really well! I got one of them on offer from Hobbycraft, so decided to get the other one too – I shouldn’t need to buy any for a long time!

So here are my first pages – I’ve mixed up the Blush and Strawberry cards and I think it looks fab! Can’t wait to get making more pages, and I’ll add a few bits on these ones too

There are so many different things that you can buy for Project Life, and I’m not going to lie, it can get a bit pricey. This was probably the main reason I put off doing it for so long! But the materials are such good quality, and by shopping around and getting a good deal you can get it a little cheaper. One of the best things I’ve bought is the round corner punch (see photo below). You could easily use this to make some of your own cards – print or stamp your own for a totally unique scrapbook. I’ll definitely be adding a few of my own into mine!

Despite my initial doubts about the cost, I am so pleased that I’m starting my Project Life scrapbook. Shop around and buy little bits at a time to build up your stash, and this will spread the cost. For UK people, check out Hobbycraft for supplies. I’m an even bigger fan of Craftie Charlie and Papermaze though – support independent businesses!

I’ll be sharing my pages as I go, but would love to see yours if you already do this – leave a comment on the post with a link to any blog posts you’ve done!

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