I plan on sharing a few posts before the end of the year about how the Seafoam kit came to life. It's tricky to try and remember all this stuff and it's a bit nerve-wracking to share details of my good and bad decisions, but someday, surely, I'll find this interesting and the hope is that you enjoy hearing about the process now.
When Becky called back in February, she mentioned how important it was that I had a lot of time early on to think about the kit and play around with color and designs. I love that, especially now, when I look back, because some of my early ideas were crap and really needed those months to be flushed out.
But immediately after that phone call, before I had even sat down to brainstorm, I knew four things:
I wanted this kit to be simple. I'm a simple girl. My clothing style is simple. My home decor is simple. My documentation style is simple. Anything else, flourishes, creatures, distressing, cutesy, floral, themey or rainbows of color would be outside my "zone" and not wouldn't feel right.
I wanted to really use this kit. I already knew from two months of Project Life spreads that I wasn't a big "kit user." If I was going to do this, I was passionate about creating something that I would be able to incorporate into my own album each week. I think the kits are fantastic because they simplify this process. Especially now, 45 weeks into the year, I see great value in working from a kit; it keeps you going when the creative energy starts to run thin. At this point, the less paper I have to cut, corners I have to round and stuff I have to buy, the better. I can't wait to start fresh in 2013 and although I will definitely be working additional stuff in, I know I'll be more kit focused from the start this time.
I wanted this kit to be something that my girlfriends - who are totally awesome and take tons of photos, but have never considered scrapbooking before - would be interested in using. I hoped that the kit would be able to reach a different market of people who considered memory-keeping too cutesy or over-whelming. I wanted it to feel modern but not complicated. It had to be something that would work with anyone's photos and not pull focus from them.
I was (and still am) obsessed with the phrase "THIS IS WHAT LIFE LOOKS LIKE." I used a similar phrase years ago when I sold my first summer minibook kit. The covers said "This is what Summer Looks Like" and the idea was that you'd fill book rings with photos and stuff from your summer. I couldn't get the idea out of my head back then and I couldn't get it out this past year as I worked on Seafoam. Project Life, before anything else, is a visual representation of every day life, and I can't think of a better phrase that states that.
So that, for better or worse, was the start. I had a goal. A bigger, but less complex goal than "design a kit" and that goal was to make something versatile and inspiring that you and I would want to use and Becky would love. No pressure. :)
...in the next installment, picking (and re-picking and crying a bit over) a color scheme!
