Forum Topic - Project 365 ~ *Ideas and Inspiration**

Happy New Year my *SUITE* friends!!  It's the start of a new year and the PERFECT time to take on a new project, right???  NO!  NO! NO! We're tired and worn out from the busy holiday season!  The LAST thing we want to do is commit to a new project!  But... we DO want to renew our commitment to creating and preserving our family's story, right?  We want to be able to remember the special events and the simple every day moments that will happen in the days to come.  When things settle down a bit we will be SO glad we started at the beginning, right?  I know it's hard to even think about a BIG project, but if we break it down into tiny little bites, it's really not too scary.  So... all we need to do TODAY is commit to the idea.  The details are really the easy part.  There are ways to do this and not to let it overwhelm us.  If we stick together, encourage each other, cheer each other on - by the end of the year, we WILL have taken the journey successfully and helped our friends get there too.

So... today - I will share some ideas... some resources... some thoughts to help you get STARTED - we only have to do one day's part today.  It will just take 5 minutes or less today... I promise.  So, what do you say... can you commit 5 minutes?  I know some of you have little babies, some of you have grandchildren, and some of you - like me - have INCREDIBLY busy teenagers.  But our common thread is that we are HERE together and we all WANT to make the memories we are creating into life long memories that we can preserve and share with those we love.

So... c'mon - let's do it together!  WE CAN AND WE WILL WORK TOGETHER TO GET IT DONE! So... here we go!!

Project 365 - Day 1

Take ONE picture.  Today - THAT'S IT - you're DONE.

Ideas:

• It can be the "aftermath" of the Christmas tree...
• It can be your living room all put back together (of which I would be SO jealous!)
• It can be your favorite Christmas gift
• It can be your new baby asleep in front of the tree
• It can be your CAT or DOG asleep under the tree
• It can be your husband sacked out after an afternoon of football games
• It can be something that represents A NEW START to you
• It can be an empty champagne bottle and a sink full of dirty dishes from a fun party last night
• It can be one last picture of your kids in front of the tree
• It can be an empty Christmas stocking
• It can be a fresh snowfall
• It can be the scale if you are starting a new diet
• It can be a pack of cigarettes with a BIG RED CIRCLE embellishment over it if you are QUITTING
• It can be ANYTHING you like

You don't have to decide what the WHOLE project will be or turn into by December 31... you just have to take ONE picture.  That's it.  Take it with your point and shoot, take it with your phone... drag out the "big camera" and the tripod and get the lighting perfect.  Do it however you want... just DO IT!

I even found a couple of websites that will help with daily photo inspiration for you if you need it.  I found one that is available through Twitter (and believe me - I HATE TWITTER) but I will get one text in the morning each day and one reminder in the evening with a photo idea for that day.  You can use it or tuck it away for later, but it is just a little tiny reminder to me to take a photo that day.  If you have a cell phone, you can even have that one Tweet forwarded to your phone.  (search for DAILYSHOOT on Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/dailyshoot) and you can "follow" them too.  You can also Google different other sites that will do similar photo prompts or ideas.  We can share ideas with each other here too!  I will post some to Facebook for you too.  I think if I know you are all depending on me to help, it will help me stay on track too - and Lord KNOWS I am the worst at staying on track... so I need you too!

Here is the site I found the idea I posted the other day and it has some great layout ideas, but these are easily recreated in your My Memories Suite software, so you can do this with what you already have!

http://www.oscraps.com/shop/product.php?productid=26059&cat=366&page=1

I just LOVE the IDEA - and that is all I needed for today - a good idea... a place to start.  This is the type of project that may go through several transformations during the course of this year.  But today I just need to COMMIT TO START and TAKE ONE LITTLE PHOTO.  That's it - then we're done for today.  Now, of course you can set up your template album (this is what my basic page looked like: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=259750&id=54853441440) but yours can look any way you want.  YOU DECIDE.  I am going to try to put these photo templates together for you and upload them to the Design Shop so you can have them.  I'll keep you posted.

So... let's see who's up for it???  YOU CAN DO IT - I CAN DO IT - WE CAN DO IT TOGETHER!

So, HAPPY NEW YEAR... HAPPY NEW YOU... HAPPY NEW PROJECT!

Blessings and Love!

Lisa J.