Scrapbook Saturday or How Could I Possible Get All This Done?

I recently found a whole Saturday to get away with my scrapbooking supplies loaded in my car and head over to my local Archivers for a 12-hour scrap marathon. The despair that comes from walking by the half-finished scrapbook page day after day in my work room became too much for me to handle, so I was forced to take action. It wasn't difficult to convince a couple of friends that this day just had to happen. (So sorry to K. who really paid the price for her scrapbooking obsession and ended up in the emergency room instead the scrapping room. It is a fear that many of us have - outsiders shaking their heads unable to understand how any one person could possibly have that many "craft supplies" in their car. Even though the car was damaged, her supplies were recovered without loss.)

Unpacking my scaled-downed supply pile was great motiviation. I was able to jump right in and start working on my prepped pages. I had spent the last few months selecting pictures, matching papers, ordering the left and right pages, and finding sketches, and now I was going to actually get down to business. It was fantastic!

It was such a great  day. I was able to put together all of my Christmas pictures. I have my new commitment to completing the journaling, and it was a motivator to try my handwriting a little more. I never did break out the Cricut. The lack of electrical outlets in the workroom made it more of a hassle than I needed. Instead, I was able to make use of my letter and sticker stash. Except for the glitter white letters for the "Snow Fun" layout that I had to buy while I was there. Sometimes you just have to give in to the call of the store.

I seemed to have lots of two-page layouts, but it was probably because the holidays seem to generate so many pictures. I did complete a page that is unusual for me: a one-page layout with only one photo - nothing more fun that the Thanksgiving centerpiece.  Besides, there tends to be no really interesting pictures at Thanksgiving in our family - mostly of food.

Thanks to all you who have been visiting - I hope you have been enjoying my layouts and projects. 

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Isn't It Supposed To Be Christmas In July? or I Am SO Far Ahead This Year

[Let's Take a Sleigh Ride, 2009]

It used to be that when the July scrapping weekend would roll around, I would be prepped and ready to go with my Halloween and Christmas pictures. Powering through the weekend, cranking out layout after layout of fall leaves and pumpkins followed by green and red overload, I felt so accomplished when I was done and finally looking at January pictures.


[Winter Slide 2008, sketch from PageMaps]

As a pathologically chronological scrapbooker, I measure my level of accomplishment by how far behind I am from the pictures I took TODAY. My standard is six months. It's normal for me to be working on my Fourth of July pictures in January. There are some hiccups that throw me off my game like the year I took so many Christmas pictures I had to make a separate album. That's right - 27 12x12 pages chronicling the endless holiday season of 2005. But check out my sweetie girl in "All Tangled Up in Christmas" and tell me you wouldn't feel compelled to snap a couple of extra photos.


[All Tangled Up in Christmas 2005]

There was also the year I rebelled and did all of my fall and Halloween layouts out of order because I read a magazine article that gave me permission to "scrap what I liked." It was a little disconcerting to scrap out of sequence so I avoid it whenever possible. Yeah, I have issues.

This year was shaping up to fall right along the six month timeline when I was revisiting my summer pictures this winter. Then yesterday as I was finishing up the last of my pre-prepped pages (photos and papers matched up and stored together in a plastic page protector-I know, I already admitted I have issues), that the next stack of pictures I needed to work on sorting were for Easter.

I checked again. That couldn't be true.


[Christmas Morning 2008]


[Ice, Ice, Baby 2009, sketch from Sketches R Us]

I tried to figure out what could have happened. How could I have missed months of photos? Careful review of my pictures (digital and printed), my calendar, and my memory made it clear that I had completely covered fall and winter. First was the realization that I only had four layouts for Christmas. I really cut back on the picture-taking (could be that my camera was being troublesome).


[Hey, Santa 2008, sketch from Cherie's Sketches]

After I got a new camera from Santa, I picked up the pace a little, but the wicked-cold days of Minnesota winter offered fewer photo-ops, and I ended up with just these highlights from January and February.

March was easy, since it was only my vacation pictures (OK, there were 187 of them, but I put them in a mini-album rather than my big album.) I will save that scrapping adventure for next time.

That brings me to where I am now - it's only June and I am starting on my April stash. That's closing the gap to only two months. Hey, it's not really bragging if it's true.


[Cake, Candles & Party Hats 2008]
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Not Every Page Can Be a Masterpiece or OMG, My Eyes!

Just avert your eyes if the ugliness becomes too much to bear.


[People at My Party 07: The pictures weren't horrible, but I had a layout in my mind that never came out. The patterned paper was the final blow.]

Sometimes pages don't turn out quite like I imagined them. That's OK, my books are filled with lots of pages that would never win a contest or garner comments in the online galleries. They are still good pages that I am proud to have share our stories.

No this post is about those other pages. These are the ones that make it into the book, but cause an involuntary flinch every time they are revealed by the turn page. These are the ugly pages. I made them. They are mine. While I do own up to them, I also admit they are disasters. There can be lots of reasons for it. But it's usually one of two things: a good idea that just never came to be or bad stuff that left little to work with.

Layout Disasters: There are those moments when I am inspired by some awesome technique or layout, and feel like I should definitely give it at try. This often requires a shopping trip for some new tool or special supply (that I convince myself is worth the money because I will use it often). Once I have the new purchase, I start putting it all together. I agonize over the measurements, or the placement, or the construction. Most of the time I can see the disaster looming early on. Yet, once invested, I don't look back. I finish it up, get it in the book, and try to salvage what scrapbooking dignity I still have left.



[Ready for the Water 08: Scraplifted this one. Trust me, this random collection of odd embellishments was stunning on the one in the magazine.]


[Pisces Girls 07: 52 Sketches #26. This sketch and the pages others submitted were adorable. For some reason I picked the ugliest combination of papers possible and never quite recovered.]

Awful Pictures: Then there are the times when I look at the pictures or the papers and try to find some spark of inspiration. It's tough when you look at photos and realize none of them are that great. None deserve to be a focus. I try to find some way to organize them and hold onto the story. I have taken the coward's way out and filed the pictures away forever.


[Cookie Time: This paper was incredibly cute until I decided it needed to be saturated in pink and red. I committed to the stickers, and then realized too late they weren't doing a thing for me.]


[Another Birthday 08: The paper was beautiful and glittery. The pictures were less than mediocre, but everyone was so sweet to celebrate my birthday like this, that I wanted make sure I captured it in the scrapbook. To make it worse, the titles and journaling are impossible to read.]

Either way, when I see these finished pages, I reassure myself that not every page can be (or has to be) a masterpiece. Telling my family's stories isn't a contest; the scrapbook is supposed to capture the memories, not showcase the techniques. While today they may be cringe-worthy, thirty years from now people will want to see the faces and revel in the memories. Guess that means every page, even the ugly ones, are part of the bigger story of my family and part of the story of my scrapbooking journey. Read More...