Project Life: Dear Lizzy 5th and Frolic

Updated on June 5, 2024

Disclosure: This post is part of a paid campaign with American Crafts, but all opinions are my own.

Today is the first post for Project Life week! I have to admit, I have been hesitant to try Project Life. I thought it looked interesting and fun, but I sort of felt like I would be cheating on my traditional scrapbooking. Also, I have been trying to downsize and minimize my crafting supplies. One way to do this is by not buying any new project supplies until I get more caught up on my the ones I already have.

However, when I was offered the opportunity to try out by American Crafts, I thought it is probably now or never! And now, I am sort of sad I waited so long to try it. It is so easy to create a scrapbook. You don’t need scissors, glue, or any special tools or skills. With my hectic life right now, this is perfect for me.

To get started, you will need an album, core kit, and photo pocket pages. You will also need your photos and a pen.

To start your album, you will add your photo pocket pages to your album. There are 60 pages per box of photo pocket pages. My box had two different layouts.

The extra tools I used for my pages were a paper trimmer for a photo, my date stamp, and a sticker.

The next thing I did was go through my core kit and look through all the cute cards! I received a new kit that was just released called the Dear Lizzy 5th and Frolic core kit. There are a lot of light colors – blues, pinks, greens and neutrals. The fun icons include houses, keys, cameras, trees, birds, and foxes. I plan on using this kit to create a family album. The mix of colors are perfect for pretty much any type of layout, although it does have more of a feminine feel to me.

To start your album, you may want to pull out the cards meant to create your first and last page. They are clearly marked on the back of the card for their placement. You simply add them to the pages in the slots shown and add anything to the cards you want.

Here you can see the page with just the front page cards inserted. You can add some words to create a title, a date, etc. to personalize the cards. Aren’t these cards cute?

was originally created by Becky Higgins to be a way to document a photo a day for the whole year. The setup is created for you to have a two page layout for each week that includes 7 photos from the week. I think this was the main reason why I never looked into it. I simply cannot keep up with a photo a day at this stage in my life (maybe someday!), even though I think that is an awesome idea!

But, what I have found is, is that you can really make this system work for you. If you are a beginning scrapbooker, it is easy to put pages together without much thought. If you use items from the same kit, they all coordinate and you really can’t go wrong. If you are like me, and more of an experienced traditional scrapbooker, you can mix in full 12 x 12 page layouts or even just add more embellishments to the cards.

I like that you can make it as simple or elaborate as you choose!

Now, I will show you a couple of layouts I made using the Dear Lizzy 5th and Frolic core kit. The first page I did was from the end of the season t-ball party we had at the beginning of summer.

We had a fun party at the park with a slip ‘n’ slide, pizza and a little award ceremony.

I love how fun the pages look! I did my journaling directly onto the cards. You can also print out your journaling onto card stock and glue it onto the cards if you wanted.

Note: I am not a huge fan of my hand writing, but I know from experience that you definitely want to document it somewhere. My mom passed away when I was only 8 and any items I have that she hand wrote are precious to me. So, even if you choose to print cards on the computer, be sure to at least include some of your own hand writing.

If I know I am going to be handwriting onto a card or directly onto a scrapbook page, I either try to lay it out on a piece of scrap paper or at least write out my thoughts ahead of time so I don’t make a mistake.

The only thing I added to the page was a scaled down version of a scanned copy of my son’s certificate he received.

The next layout is from one of our summer bucket list days. We made s’mores in the backyard.

I took a cue from the kid’s clothing to coordinate the cards I used. I choose cards that were primarily green and pinkish.

Again, I hand wrote my journaling. I used my date stamp for the date on the right page.

The only extra embellishment I used was an EK Success Jolee’s campfire sticker.

You can get the Dear Lizzy 5th and Frolic Core Kit from Michael’s. They have one of the largest selections of Project Life. Another new kit that was just released is called the Vintage Travel Core Kit. It features deep blues, reds and browns. The icons include trains, airplanes and maps. It would be perfect to do a vacation album!

I still plan to do traditional scrapbooks for my kid’s albums. Although, I may add in some Project Life pages, here and there. However, I never thought I would get around to making family albums for us to keep. (The kid’s albums will go to them when they are adults.) I finally feel like I might be able to get caught up on all the albums with Project Life!

So tell me. Have you tried Project Life? Do you love it? Let me know in the comments!