Staying at home has had its advantages. During the first month of this year’s 100 Day Project, I’ve worked steadily and enthusiastically on bringing all my stories and photos of my RAF days into one place.
By Day 3 however, it was obvious that I was going to have to change tack. Project Life pocket-pages weren’t going to work, as I simply don’t have anywhere near enough photos from the early years to make the pages look in any way interesting. Plan A was ditched, and Plan B was born.
I’m now using an oversized A5 kraft multi-journal (I buy mine from the Store of Utter Gorgeousness) and beginning to fill up the pages is making me weirdly happy. 🙂 I’ve decorated the front cover – nothing fancy – patterned paper and a large RAF roundel (which I’ve softened by adding a doily).
Rather than simply churn out what I can remember randomly, I’m using most of the prompts from The History Project (part of last year’s 100 Day Project) to jog my memory. I’m also using a notebook for rough drafts. That way, what actually ends up in the journal will have some sort of structure and, perhaps most importantly, make sense.
I’m using washi tape and a roundel along the edges of the right-hand pages. I’ve a stack of RAF roundels in varying sizes and my ageing Cricut machine has come into its own with the mass production of small circles.
I began with a Timeline, because all good stories being with Once Upon a Time … and because I wanted to include an interactive scrapbooky element.
I’ve added a few tags here and there – stitching around the edge and a roundel on each tag affords a degree of uniformity to the overall design.
As I move through the years and the postings, more photos will appear. This is down to the fact that I have a box of negatives dating from roughly 1988 to 1995 and, more specifically, I have a negative scanner. The quality of the scanned images isn’t that great, but that’s more down to me not having kept the negatives in better conditions than the quality of the scanner.
If you’re interested, I’m using a scanner similar to this one.
As tomorrow is a Bank Holiday here in the UK (commemorating 75 years since VE Day), the next scheduled post will appear on Monday, 11 May.
This West London Life 
This is going to be such an interesting and nostalgic project and I like the way you are planning to bring it all together. Even if those negative generated photos aren’t as crisp as we are used to, they will still be priceless additions to this time capsule of your life before TBC.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hours have disappeared as I’ve run negatives through the scanner … I look at some of the images and think, “Who on earth is that?!”
LikeLike
What a fabulous project. It’s good to record our own life experiences, not just those of our offspring.
LikeLiked by 1 person
What a fabulous & creative start to a very (I am sure) meaningful project. I am sure working with those negatives will jog so many more memories. Your timeline will act like a index of what’s to come.
LikeLike
Thanks for sharing the scanner information. Brilliant!
LikeLiked by 1 person
You’re welcome!
LikeLike
Oh my, this is coming along wonderfully! I think this format looks so awesome & am glad you are getting these stories recorded!
I recently got my Cricut going again, too! (It had to have a new power cord, but at least now I can cut some titles, etc.)
LikeLiked by 1 person
I am loving every minute of this project – I should have done it years ago!
My Circut has developed a faulty on/off switch, but The Brainy One appears to have the knack of getting it to work, thankfully. I’m not sure they make them any more? Mine is a Mark 1 version.
LikeLike