Project Life Inspired Album

A couple weeks ago I learned about Project Life on A Beautiful Mess. I really liked the idea of a scrapbook style album that was still quick and easy to assemble. After using the same simple style of chronicling our living, growing family scrapbook for 2 years, I was ready to do something a bit more visually striking.

The one problem is that Project Life products can get expensive. I was looking at spending $80-$100 for the album, sleeves, and pre-cut papers. So I started thinking about how I could do something similar for the fraction of the cost.
Well I already had another binder album like our first family scrapbook. I buy them on Amazon for only $13 and I love how they look and feel like a real 12x12 scrapbook but hold 8.5x11 size page protectors. So I decided to see if I could find some assorted page protectors to fit that would make up my template pages. I was able to get these designed for coupon binders at only $17 for 50 sleeves.
I ended up using some of the tons of scrapbook paper that I already have on hand - cutting each to the size I need.
All in all, I ended up with a very cute album that is still easy to update but looks oh so pretty for only $30.67. And it only took me an afternoon to log 6 months of photos!