How to Save $$$ on Project Life

Happy Tuesday!

If you know me, two things I'm passionate about are Project Life and saving money. I've regularly posted on these two topics. (The two most popular? Project Life Obsessing and Grocery Grumbling: How We Only Spend $60 a Week On Groceries.)

What is Project Life? It is a product line created by Becky Higgins which is aimed at taking the guess work out of layout design. Her product line offers up a variety of coordinating albums, journaling cards and photo pocket pages. Ultimately, Project Life is a method of scrapbooking using pocket pages to lay out a page without glue or fancy embellishments. It's specifically focused on recording memories through journaling instead of spending all your time jazzing up your page with glitter, stickers and rub-ons.

To be completely honest, the name-brand PL (Project Life) items are expensive. I thought it was pricey a year ago when I started and I still feel that way. You need three key items to complete a Project Life album: Core Kit + 12x12 Binder Album + Pocket Pages Pack. Each of these items are $30 a pop. That's $90 for the basics! No dividers, embellishments, envelopes. Heck! You have to still shell out the money for a year's worth of pictures to go in the thing.

After completing one full year album and getting half way through my second, I've learned a few tricks and tips to make Project Life better fit my budget. I have also tried off-brand products and were not satisfied with them. You can still get the quality PL products for the off-brand price!

Collect PL items throughout the year. I buy the items I need for the next year's album a little at a time throughout the year. Though few and far between, you will see Project Life products go on sale. For example, I keep an eye on the Michaels circular every week to see if they mark PL down. Last week, Michaels had all PL products 50% off.

I scored my album and core kit for next year for $30. These beauties are now hiding in the basement with the Christmas stuff to be wrapped and put under the tree. It's my Christmas present to myself every year. 

The morale of the story? Keep your eyes open for sales on PL all year long. Jump on a good deal and stick it away for the next year or use it now. Patience!

Follow Becky Higgins on Instagram or her blog. How do you know when these items are on sale? When I first started Project Life a year and a half ago, you could only buy PL products through Amazon. Now, you can find PL products at most major craft stores. Lucky for us, right?!

If PL goes on sale on Amazon or on the Becky Higgins website, you'll be the first to know via her blog or Instagram. (You can find her blog here. Her Instagram is here.) She's really good about hyping sales and giving the occasional heads up on future mark downs.

Besides getting a leg up on sales, there are free printables that coordinate with the core kits and of course, some great inspiration for your album. 

Put those Hobby Lobby/Michaels coupons to use.

The best part of PL coming to major craft stores? You can use those generic 40% off any regular priced items to add to your collection. I use these coupons to get the coordinating dividers or speciality card packs like my December Daily album for example.

Utilize freebies by other PL enthusiasts. A quick search on Pinterest will give you a slew of Project Life free printables made by fellow scrappers. I like to use these in my pages to mark a special day like a birthday or a day trip. If you'd like a short cut to some good freebies or need a place to start browsing, be sure to check out my Project Life board here.

Bonus Tip. As I said before, you've got to buy prints of your pictures to fill your album! Buying prints can get pricey too especially over the course of a year. I've tried every printer from Walmart to Snapfish in my years of scrapbooking. Who I personally recommend and use? GrooveBook!

For $2.99 a month, I get 100 4x6 pictures in a book. The pictures are perforated so you can easily pull out the pictures you'd like to go in your scrapbook.

You have to download their free app, follow the sign up instructions and upload your pictures. I take almost ALL of my PL pictures with my iPhone so this works wonderfully for me.

Would you like to try it out for free? Use the coupon code WINSLETT5 to get your first Groovebook FREE.

Disclaimer: I was not compensated by neither Project Life nor GrooveBook for any part of this post. I just love these products - plain and simple. All opinions in this post are strictly my own. I hope they help you in your Project Life endeavors!

What are some ways you cut your PL costs?

Happy scrapping!
Miranda