Hey, it's Autumn here again. This week we are going to talk about ways to jumpstart your scrapbooking. We all stop scrapbooking for a time here and there for one reason or another—the craziness of the holiday season is a usual suspect. For me, I stopped doing more than the bare minimum last April, when I got pregnant with my new litte one.
She’s gorgeous now (right?) but last April she was just making me sick and tired and generally apathetic. I gave up as much as I could. I gave up making dinner as often as possible, I gave up putting the laundry away (I washed it, I just never put it away in people’s drawers) and for the most part, I gave up scrapbooking. All the way until September, when I was happily finishing up my second trimester, feeling pretty good, and realizing that in a few months (read: now) time would be slim on the ground once again. I looked back on the last six months and realized I’d missed recording a good chunk of stories that I wanted in my scrapbooks. So I decided it was time for a jumpstart. I decided to focus on making three or four layouts in a short period of time (maybe a week) as a way to get back into the swing of things. Each day this week I’ll give you a few tips for making the jump back into scrapping.
Today you have three assignments: 1) make a list, 2) look through old layouts, 3) find some new product.
Make a list
Start a list of possible scrapbook pages. Jot down any phrases from the last few months that make you think of a story you want to remember. Add any big events that must be included in your scrapbooks, and try to think of at least one personality type page for each of your children. Keep listing until you feel like you’ve captured the essence of the past few months. Then take a look at your list and pick three of four layout ideas that really appeal to you. These will make up your “jumpstart” layouts.
Look through old layouts
One of the best ways to get excited about scrapbooking again is to spend a little time looking through old layouts. You’ll read the journaling and see the pictures and remember why you like doing this in the first place. Pull a couple of your very favorite old layouts out of your binder and put them on your desk where you’ll see them a lot this week. Here are the ones I chose:
Find some new product
Another way to get excited about scrapbooking is to get your hands on some new products. This might mean going to the store, or digi-site hopping, but it could just as easily mean you look through your stash and find some papers and embellishments you’ve already purchased but haven’t used yet. I didn’t spend any money on new supplies for my jumpstart, but I did find a few papers I hadn’t cut into yet, and a couple of digital supplies I hadn’t tried out. Pull that new product out and put it next to your favorite older layouts.
Tomorrow we'll talk journaling, on Wednesday we'll work on choosing photos, and on Friday and Saturday I'll give examples of ways to get three or four layouts all done at once. By the end of the week your scrapbook jumpstart could be complete!
