If you want to count posts of some custom post type, you can try out the WordPress function wp_count_posts()
In your case the custom post type is 'projects' so you might try this:
$count_projects = wp_count_posts( 'projects' );
$published_projects = $count_projects->publish;
$total = $published_projects + 11; // include your additional projects
You can read more about this function in the Codex here.