Juliet at 11 + some answers.

 

I like to collect things to see if they'll present a bigger picture at some point (and if they don't, I'm a fan of tossing the whole lot in the recycling bin).  With Juliet, most of her seasonal pages include a ticket stub or two -- that girl attends more plays than most adults I know.  After creating the Fall page I showed last week, I decided to save up the theatre stubs from plays she saw with her dad or me for a whole year; the site of all those tickets tells the real story of our "play dates."

 

I'm not a big fan of using a whole scrapbook page to showcase the first time my kid ironed his own shirt, but I do like to include one page just for Christmas.  Somehow in the rush of the holidays, I never seem to get that one gorgeous photo I'm longing for, so I content myself with using what I do have and then moving on.  The little Christmas tag on this page is actually a mini-book with (brief!) memories of our holiday written inside.

Again, not one of my favorite schemes -- too many patterns in my little bin.  This is what I get when I go to Archiver's without any preconceived idea of what I want to do.  You'd think that would work well for me, but it just doesn't.  What does work for me?  Scraplifting.  There are a few scrapbookers out there whose work I really like, and then I might randomly see a page that will inspire me...I like having a starting point and then adding my own style to it.  (I invent nothing, I rediscover; remember?)  When I'm starting a scheme, I'll often sketch out some page ideas that can be used later.  I also jot down what my intentions are as far as how I'll do the titles (chipboard letters?  stitching? my own writing? rubber stamps?).

To answer Chel's questions from yesterday, I usually work on these albums only 3 or 4 times a year -- usually a weekend after the holidays, a weekend or free day in the summer, and another day after school starts.  I plan ahead before I'm going to work on them by getting my photos and memorabilia ready.  (And the ingredients for each scheme are kept in a large zipper pouch, so I'm never digging for that part.)

I tend to order photos ahead of time -- some for my family album, some for the kids album.  I always end up with a few leftovers, and sometimes I have to reorder a photo in a larger size.  The waste is still minimal, and this is the system that works for me. 

For the bits & pieces, I have a drawer in the kitchen where I stash everything -- cards the kids made, ticket stubs, notes I've written on scraps of paper, whatever I think I might use in our albums.  I go through this drawer a few times a year & divide up the stuff.  I used to have a hard time throwing these little mementos away if I didn't use them, but I am getting better at that!  (Mostly I got sick of moving the stuff around from place to place within my not-very-large studio area.  Letting go feels great.)

I don't spend a lot of time on each page.  First, I have parameters -- these are the tools I have to choose from (the paper, colors, embellishments).  Second, I have notes I've taken -- truly, scribbles -- with things I want to be sure to include.  I keep our calendar nearby in case I need more ideas.  Third, I have my photos ready.  My goal is to tell the story, not to dwell on it, and then get back to the amazing life I have right now, creating more memories.

Comments

[chel]

Thank you for indulging me. Now I'm totally committed to start scrapbooking again since you always make it seem so do-able. I need to stop focusing on one-event scrapping. It's just so hard because I take too many photos and I feel like every one I *don't* use is some sort of personal offense to the person in the photo (usually my daughter) even if there are 500 photos of the same exact event, same moment, already on the page. So I use none, and don't scrapbook. I tried just selecting one and just printing one photo, but then I spend hours over agonizing on the one photo. I need to stop being so obsessive! :)