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Interview with Becky Higgins

It is time now to introduce our special guest for this second. Yes. Ok, so I hear that becky is ready. Becky has been just so instrumental in the scrap booking industry. I I think I first fell in love with what she was doing with scrapbooking back when she was with creating keepsakes magazine. I loved her sketches column. I own many of her books that she's offered over the years and now her latest foray into designing products that help people get through scrapbooking is called project life, and I'm so excited to have her here to talk with us about in high becky. Hi, how's it going there already. Good. How are you really good, really excited for you today to be on creative live and for I'm for everybody there in the life city audience. I have to say hello to a couple of friends that you have in the audience were also in my creative life, boss. I believe they looked familiar to me. I don't know if they wear blue. Remember video girls. Thank you. You again. So fun. Yes, becky, we've been...

talking about kind of keeping this project manageable on making it meaningful. We're glad that you're here for this segment specifically because you know, sometimes people might be overwhelmed by that big twelve by twelve open space and what to do with it how to fill it up do I have to make one of these for every picture I have? How am I going to accomplish that? And you've designed a system to try to take that stress away for us. So could you tell us about project life and how you sum it up? I would be happy to thank you and I really appreciate the invitation to be a part of this. There are there are such a there's a plethora of options when it comes to scrap booking obviously and we all know this and understand it. And at the end of the day what we really care about is getting our pictures into an album or into some sort of format that we can enjoy that's what we all we all resonate with that we all feel that and especially knowing that a large part of your audience today are those you know, new moms or with new vague for those who are buying my baby is fifteen now where my baby is twenty seven but I still have these pictures and I still want to get it done and I really really appreciate t eight that and so and that is that is how project like came about meaning that I was in that same boat that's so many people feel and understand and live in which is being dressed just drowning and pictures and memories and stories, and just have you even bring it all together. And so I just kind of wanted to process it with that just because that is something that I relate teo and understand, and because of the overwhelming feeling that so many of us have project life was born five years ago and really what it is for those who don't understand what project life is, it is basically a it's posit scrapbooking system and the you know, the entry to that whole movement that happened in the industry was with project life when we brought this about five years ago. It's the ability to take your photographs and you are journaling, which could be written on like little on little three by four cars, or for my six foot just little like this, and you can write stories and journaling in captions on that, and so those in the pockets with the photos into pockets and that's literally all you have to d'oh, and why that's so exciting is that you kind of take the blending of what traditional scrapbooking nous, which is creative and decorative and artistic and all of that, and then you that's one end of the spectrum, and then take the other end of the memories of the memory keeping spectrum of what traditional photo albums are, which is, you pick up a a little, you know, album at the store, you stick your photos in the pockets and call it good project life really brings those worlds together to say, yeah, you can make it that easy. You could just put things in pockets, but don't forget about your stories and let's make this in the a format that makes sense that is easy and doable. And so that's a project life is, and that's why I wanted to bring it about is so that it was just that much easier for people. So, having said that, I think you asked kind of how this relates, tio baby's, first year, and we actually way actually brought about baby products that are specific to scrap booking baby's first year with project life awhile ago, we've had them out for long enough that they just became retired, which may seem like, really bad news, but I promise you, it's, not because aa lot of people watching may already know this narrative have it, they have already scrapbook with it, and I actually have a sample album right here with that, just to give you an idea of how it all works, but we are in the process right now of designing version shows, the next version of the baby project life products that will be coming out this spring spring two thousand fifteen so that's that's more probably more than you ever wanted to know what that is kind of the background on what logic place is that's great I love I love all that information I love how you said that it really combines, you know the old the old photo books and journaling and scrap booking and kind of putting it all together in a way that's manageable but still telling stories and still recording our memories so that's awesome. Yeah, yeah how are you? If you were going to go about creating a baby book for one of your children now, how would you go about setting up the project life system, doing it for a baby? Would you do it week to week? How it was originally designed you do a monthly recap, how do you think you would kind of conquer that? That awesome question and one that I think is the daunting question for a lot of new moms especially like how do I even manage this? And I actually don't have to answer that question hypothetically because I did it and I did it not that long ago, so our youngest is six so he's not a baby anymore but he's, you know we're not talking like I'm drowning in twenty thousand pictures yet but I did this for cruz album I took the project life system, which includes the album and the photo pocket pages which you know like the plastic sheets that are all divided which some of your audience members understand and some don't that's why I wanted to explain it and then the baby product which is a box of cars we have what's called a project life course kit and then the cork it has all of the cards to complete an entire twelve by twelve albums, so we're all about simplicity at its finest. And so so what I did to answer your question is I actually started from the beginning and for me it's really, really important to make sure that I touched on the baby's heritage and where they came from and this applies to however the baby came to your family on the traditional natural way or through adoption and otherwise and I say that only because the baby products that we have are very much applicable to baby meaning it does not matter how they became to your family, they still have a place they came from, whether it's, you know, your your own family through blood or through their adoptive journey or whatever so this is I don't even know if you guys will be able to see this very well, but just to give you a glimpse, okay, this is glimpse I can't very well it's much easier in a creative life studio I'll say that since you know the camera this way through my computers it was really important for me to touch on that so we have cars just exactly for that to be able to write the history of just touching on grandma and grandpa are great grandparent's and whatever and then from there I won't try to hold up my album with each one andi I there's actually there's actually cards to back it up tio how we found out we were pregnant how we announced the news andi all the things that mom and dad can record and I'm kind of flipping through my album just to see what else it goes through the cards actually have promised on them to encourage you to write about the details of all parts of that journey and so going back to your original question like how what I propose doing this the way that I did it was to break it down into really practical steps if I went through that period of time that that year that crew was born, you don't want me when she became pregnant and during that pregnancy and when he was born the first year all of that and I just without calculating too much or over planning or stressing over how it was going to be done or how many pictures per page or anything like that I just printed a bunch of pictures and I printed them all four by six. I wasn't worried about re sizing anything. I wasn't worried about cropping anything. It really was just a matter of let me print all the pictures I think are part of the story that I sat down with my cards and my pictures, and I just start sticking stuff in and that's the way this all worked out, and I'm a very I'm a chronologically minded person is I took it from the beginning, the heritage and then a little bit about your family, and then I went into the day that you were born, and then from there I I actually I actually did it in a way that makes it so that crews first year was going to show this to you the first year here, and so we lost you there just for a second. Becky's. Apologies for that run back about five seconds. Okay, well, then I will run back because, like shoji crews finished album like this, you guys see this. So I'm showing that, too, because I decided at the beginning of all this I was going to begin with the end in mind and I mentioned that's a steak the stephen covey principle right begin with the end in mind I knew that I wanted cruz entire first year of his life to fit into one album because I knew that if I didn't have this idea and in the back of my mind the whole time I french ten thousand pictures because they're all killed because he's so cute right that's how we feel about our babies and then I would, you know, four albums into it I would be taking up a lot of real estate on my shelf for his first year which does it you know it's not wrong there's no right or wrong anything in scrap booking it just a bit overkill for me personally and so so going back to the system, what I did is I printed the pictures and I have the cards and crimea start putting stuff together and I knew that because I wanted to keep it all condense toe one album once I got through the history and a little bit of family history and this is the day you were born that for the meat of the album the first year of cruz life when layout per month and it's manageable and it's doable now I say this from a standpoint of going back and catching up so when you're actually, you know, raising your baby and they're little and you really are taking one hundred pictures a day and you want to do more like I said there's no right or wrong to this process, but I shows specifically to make sure that it was manageable and I knew that I could narrow down and pick eight or ten photos for months that really demonstrated his hugeness and his milestones and really the essence of just him growing up. So that's that's what I did and I and I did it to the point of when I was in creative live, my class is called scott looking with project life and it's still there in the library, I'm sure, but I went through these details of I have a really organized the information and the process and the stuff, and when I talked about the process, I made batch process person, which means I did all of my photo browsing and printing at one time and then at another time I would sit down and split everything into pockets now that's where I've left off. So you know, so when you look at cruz album, so I said he's six years old, so you know, I'm just his behind is the rest of everybody else, but now his album looks like this, which you're going to see a lot of pages most the pages do not have journaling on the cards and guess but that's okay it's okay with me because I'm not going to remember something better last month and I would this month he's six years old it's all still blurry up here and yet these promise on the journaling cards really helped me to remember what kind of stuff to write about so the next part and actually the final part of my batch process is going through and just sitting down and writing down all the little details so I'm a big fan of that processing it helps me to keep it all organized and manageable well that's that's awesome thank you for all that information and how you set it up and I loved how you talked about you know, baby story we kind of talking about it we're scrapbooking baby story from the beginning but really it starts before babies born because there's information about his family and his heritage and things like that but now you you've come out with something that will make this even more manageable so if you can't sit down at a table and scrapbook with paper and pen and photos what else can you do becky what else could you possibly tio I'm so excited about this I can't even tell you welcome teo the prize like life there's an app for project life now which is really awesome and probably not very viewable on this screen but this allows you it gives you the ability now in the palm of your hand to literally scrapbook, and I have to point something out straight away and that is this does not have to be just the photos that are sitting in your camera roll from last month this we have made it so that you can actually connect it with something like dropbox that a lot of people have, and if you don't, you should know about it and you could pull pictures from wherever. And so if you've got pictures from your baby was maybe born ten years ago, you can on your computer, go find all of those pictures throwem in dropbox, and then when you get into the project life after you just pull them in from dropbox, same thing if you're going back and doing hair fish stuff and you're scanning pictures in from one hundred years ago, same thing for rome and dropbox and pulled him into the out from drop box and I could go on and on and on and on about the app is another big shift for scrap booking because of it on simplicity and it's, intuitiveness and there's a reason why people are really, really, really excited we only launched it about a month and a half ago and we're getting testimonials left and right and every day from people who are saying I'm actually stopped looking again and I'm doing it in my car while I wait in the pick up line at for carful or I'm waiting at the doctor's office for half an hour. What else can I d'oh and so it's really helping to bring people back into scrap booking? But bottom line project life is available and physical format. Some people will always want to print their photos and stick them in the pockets, which is awesome that's great it's available in digital format for those who love tio, manipulate and do more and have more freedom and flexibility and they love photoshopping, they understand photoshopped, you know, additional project life. Now we have project life on the app and in the physical format you guys with them with a studio calico, we've partnered with you guys and everybody understands that project lights of studio calico's came together to say let's make project life available and the format of fun pieces and parts that all coordinates together, just like studio calico does so well in the form of monthly kits, and so we've made it we've made it so that no matter what your preferences are in terms of your approach to scrap booking, project like makes it available. Right, it's all it's on the whole spectrum, whether you want to go super simple and just get it done and document those moments. Or if you want to get really creative on each mean, some people I was saying kind of treat each card is a mini layout and get really detailed. But it's it's really available for anyone to do according to their own style in preference that's, right? And I would say if there's one thing saying that I could leave with their audience, that is, I like my plea for you to understand. I understand you understand how overwhelming it is not just to scrapbook but tibia, a new mom, you know, of a baby and all the things that we have that air going on in our lives. Scrapbooking does not have to be complicated. And that is exactly why I created project life if I can simplify it and bring it down to a level of simplicity that makes it doable for me. I know that that can work for you as well and that's, why project was started and that's why the ap became the next step in that evolution is because we need to keep it as seven for beauty as possible. Nice to see you back on creative love you're looking so well it's great to see thank you really lovely to have you back we've got some questions for you people are really excited about the ap s o that's coming in what one question came in what's one of your favorite features in the apple where do you start one of my favorite features of the app is this is actually really cool and something that people probably don't know by the way the ap is to ninety nine two dollars ninety nine cents very cheap and so we provide in the ap a whole bunch of collections of project life so it's actually really it's very inexpensive and you can get it today right now the search project lies in the app store and then when you get it and you start playing around something that people may not realize is if you get and I would demonstrate this if we could it's just too hard to hold it up that on day for you to be able to see it but when you go in there and you start a page let's say you just decide that you're going to use design a which is four by six is across the top and then three by force to the middle and then for my sixes again let's say I'm in there I'm popping in my pictures of my cards and I'm like you know what? I'm going to change this layout, actually because I've got a vertical picture I want to throw in here, you just can slide through all that for page layout and when you click on a different page layout, itjust auto populates those pictures and those cards into all the right spots for that different layout, you don't like it, you can either undo or you can switch it to another layout it's so smart and so intuitive and so seamless and how it functions have confessed that app developer ever work on this with us. So very quote, it's working because cape around just centers I know she's saying, I totally did a project life page on my phone today while I was waiting in line so clearly was okay, let's, just take it one last question. Is there going to be a tool toe? Add text on top of photos in the project life app. We're getting awesome suggestions like this this's something that we've gone back and forth about quite a bit, so I'm not going to give a definitive answer here on created wide at this point, but I will let you know that it's definitely high on our list is very it's a very possible. Addition to the aft with an update coming up but again no promises but we do love and appreciate the feedback that we get from our users. The thing that we want to keep in mind is that this off is designed to keep things ultimately simple, so you literally with one hand can create these pages just like the woman said just while she's waiting in line or while you're sitting with your kid on the couch or whatever to make it easy. So we want to be really careful not to add so many thousand whistles that it becomes what digital project life is, which is that's where you should be able to manipulate more and have more creative freedom but the way we want to keep it simple so I didn't give you a straight answer on that one and I realized that you didn't you this has been an absolute pleasure it's so great to see you looking so well thank you so much for coming back to created by where can people find you online? They keep asking becky higgins, dot com and the whole website and the shop is getting a complete makeover that will be live in the next couple of weeks and it looks phenomenal in the whole shocking experience will be completely new and yeah and then on social media twitter, facebook, instagram they're searching for becky higgins llc becky, this has been an absolute pleasure. Thanks so much for joining us again. We have to see you back here, a creative like, very, very soon. Thank you, right, that was great, so glad she's able to chat with us. You guys have a better appreciation now for the whole idea of project life and how it's, how it's supposed to work on. I love that, she suggested, for a baby book doing ah, a page for each month, because that's, exactly what we're doing today is that she and I are on the same wavelength there.