For those who do BOTH Project Life and a travelers notebook

I am curious too... I don't do either so the process is interesting to me...

I am just starting my Traveler's Notebook because I wanted to just try it. But that, exactly, was my difficulty starting it. What to put in it. I do PL and have for years so I have a good rhythm there that I didn't want to change. Then I saw on a website that they were doing a 52 favorites challenge. One favorite memory each week recorded. So, I am doing that in my TN. The nice part is that I can journal a bit more if I want than I can in my PL. I am a wordy journaler and sometimes I wish I had more space in PL. So, this is my answer. Pick one story a week that is a favorite that I want to say more about.

I don't do exactly that, but I do project life weekly and also keep a personal 6x8 album. Sometimes photos overlap between both albums, but usually they are different. Generally I just have a different mindset for each album which guides what I include:

Project life: Documents our entire family's week from a very factual perspective--what did we do, what are we watching/eating/reading now, photos of everyday life this week, etc. My main focus in project life is getting our week documented--when selecting photos/stories to tell my thought is always "does this reflect our week? does this show what life is like right now? what were the biggest parts of our week?" This album also goes into our living room on our shelf, so I am aware that anyone might pick it up and review it--family, extended family, friends, etc., so I don't document anything that I wouldn't be willing to share with that audience.
Personal album: Documents my life from a personal perspective--not so much what I did (that's in project life), but how am I feeling right now? What are my goals? Am I accomplishing them? What is inspiring me? What is difficult? In this album I focus more on how things look--picking photos based on style and feeling rather than how much of a story they tell.  I also focus on deeper stores--I don't worry so much about sharing this album because I keep it in my scrapbook room so I am willing to journal more, although sometimes I just let the tone of the pages speak for themselves and enjoy making the album pretty without worrying about documenting everything that happened.  I also focus on including inspiration in this album so I will clip things from magazines, print stuff off pinterest, write out quotes, etc.

That being said, sometimes I do end up with the same photo in both when it overlaps each album's perspective, but I don't mind because it's usually only a couple photos per month and the overall spreads end up super different and the stories that go along with those photos are different as well. For example, I took a selfie in a dressing room in the mirror a couple of weeks ago that I particularly loved (which is rare that I love photos of myself, I think they had really great lighting in there!). I put it in my project life album and added quick journaling about how we went shopping and all the stores we went to. Then I included it in my personal album and wrote about how I can see myself aging, but am still happy with what I see in the mirror.

I know it's not a travelers notebook, but my personal album very well could be in one. I just haven't really gotten into them because I'm worried about them holding up over time and bulkier embellishments making it difficult to close/lay flat. I do really like the way the look though and have considered doing one to document a trip, but I think I would have to take it apart and preplan every page so I could print things/add patterned paper, etc.

This is an interesting question and I've never considered it very carefully, even though I do both. I don't scrapbook for the storytelling element (it's just crafty fun and making pretty things to me) so I just do whatever I feel like. Thinking about it now, I guess the subconscious delineation is that PL by month has stuff we did and the TN is stuff I like. So a birthday would go in PL and a photo of a new houseplant or a birthday gift in the abstract is TN. PL adds more context. OTOH, I used a TN as a monthly mini album in December, so it was a mix of both.

Why is this one not posting?


OK: Here is the link. Sorry for misusing your post.
Monthly insert as Project Life style memory keeping.

OMG, thank you so much freeatlast - reading this makes me so happy!