Scrapbook Wonderland

Guilt-Free Scrapbooking: Part 5

by Alice. on 8 February, 2013

We are now on Part 5, the last segment of this series on becoming a guilt-free scrapbooker.

If you are just joining us now you’ll want to start at the beginning of this journey with Part 1.

In this post I’ll share PRACTICAL tips on how you can use the steps we’ve completed and implement some new ideas for scrapbooking without guilt.

Organizing Your Scrapbooks

Are you a chronological scrapbooker? Do you sort the pages you create into yearly scrapbooks, putting labels on the front like 2011, 2012, 2013? Are you ALREADY behind with this year’s scrapbook?

When I started scrapbooking I tried, and failed miserably, to scrapbook chronologically. I thought that was the ONLY way! I felt guilty ALL of the time! I never got enough done, and I didn’t know how I would EVER catch up!

I didn’t know how to live our life and capture our precious moments in the scrapbooks, WITHOUT GUILT! There were just so many things I wasn’t getting done! I didn’t scrapbook Christmas. I didn’t get around to scrapbooking my son’s birthday. I developed fantastic photos from our family vacation, but I COULN’T even start on those, because I NEVER finished the last trip from two years ago.

Thankfully I was introduced to a new way of thinking. I was introduced to a way to scrapbook the memories I wanted to, WHEN I wanted to. I was introduced to GUILT-FREE SCRAPBOOKING!

Here’s the secret. It’s so simple you’ll kick yourself for not thinking of it sooner. 😉

Don’t scrapbook chronologically.

I know that right now you’re thinking, “Yeah, right.” with a disgusted, sarcastic tone in your voice. Or, you are thinking, “How will my scrapbooks make any sense if they aren’t in order?”

It’s so easy!

There’s a way to organize your scrapbooks, that is not chronological! Try sorting them by category.

Family
Friends
Travel
Christmas
One book for each of the kids
My childhood

As soon as I sorted my scrapbooks like this, the guilt disappeared! Now, I wasn’t on a timeline. I wasn’t on a schedule, and I was NEVER behind! I can scrapbook whatever I want, whenever I want and I know that I can capture the special moments of our family and it WILL BE ENOUGH!

I know that I will ALWAYS have more memories to scrapbook. I also know that by not feeling guilty about what I haven’t done, I am allowing myself to appreciate the stuff I have accomplished.

I have the freedom to scrapbook my most current photos, the ones that inspire me right now. I have the freedom to scrapbook photos from 5, 10 or 20 years ago if that is the story I’d like to tell right now. I know that no matter what I choose to scrapbook it will have a home in an album where it makes sense.

You might be wondering how I came up with this GENIUS way of organizing my scrapbooks, and I will tell you this: I DIDN’T! I met an amazing lady named Stacy Julian who changed the way I scrapbook. I don’t use all of Stacy’s tips for scrapbooking, but her advice helped me find my own way of scrapbooking, to find a way that works for me. I adapt new ideas to make them fit my life. If you’d like to learn more of Stacy’s method for organizing albums AND sorting your photos you should read her book or take her workshop!

Photo Freedom eBook

Find the Fun!

Now we will talk tips on getting that list done, without the stress and guilt!

In Part 2 we talked about your scrapbooking personality. Are you a speedy White Rabbit, an artistic Cheshire Cat, a distracted Mad Hatter, or a perfectionist Queen of Hearts? Perhaps you have a combination of these personalities. Here’s some things to try that will help you step out of your ‘normal’ way of scrapbooking. Challenge yourself to try something new.

Tips to challenge your inner White Rabbit.

For the White Rabbit scrapper completing a page quickly isn’t your problem. Is your guilt coming from not telling the stories you want to share? Don’t let completing the page be the sole focus of your layouts, be sure that you are sharing your story. Try letting the journaling be the focus of your page, instead of the photo. Use a journaling prompt as the starting point your page, rather than a photo. You can get more info about this in my post about making connections in journaling HERE. You might also want to read Your Story Matters. This eBook gives you meaningful prompts to help you share your story in your scrapbook.
Click here to find out more about Your Story Matters.

Tips to challenge your inner Cheshire Cat.

The Cheshire Cat provides Alice with insight into the way Wonderland works. He sees things differently and challenges perception. I think of an artist as someone who sees things differently. As an artist it is easy to get caught up in making your scrapbooks beautiful and creative, often at the expense of plenty of time! If you’d like to speed up your creative process you might want to pick up a few techniques from the speediest scrapper I know, Lain Ehmann. Lain’s class, “Scrap Like the Wind!” teaches you 12 steps to faster pages.

To learn how to Scrap Like the Wind click here!

Tips to challenge your inner Mad Hatter.

Distraction and a lack of focus prevent the Mad Hatter from finishing his cup of tea. If you are a distracted scrapbooker there might be a few things holding you back. Is your scrap space disorganized? Do you find yourself cleaning and sorting instead of scrapping? Do you know that you purchased the perfect embellishment, but it will take you 2 hours just to find it? It’s time to break out from the chaos of your inner Mad Hatter and get that scrap space organized! You can find organizational ideas under the Organization tab at the top of the page. New tips are being posted regularly!

Tips to challenge your inner Queen of Hearts.

People might look at the Queen of Hearts in a negative way, they think of her as bossy and unkind. (She wants to chop off everyone’s head!) However, she is actually just a perfectionist gone wild. She wants everything to be PERFECT. The roses must be red. You must follow her rules when playing croquet, even if she changes her mind as to what those rules may be. I’m not suggesting that you are like that at all, but if your perfectionism holds you back from completing a layout I have some suggestions for you.

Watch this video with Stacy Julian.
Make a mini-album in an hour in the One and Done class by Laura Denison. If you MUST stick to a time limit (set a timer) you’ll force yourself to work through those perfectionist traits! Click here to Register for One and Done.

Guilt-Free Scrapbooking: Hooray!!

Over the last five days we have gone through many important steps on the way to becoming a guilt-free scrapper. Here’s a quick recap:

Defining your reason for scrapbooking
Figuring out your scrapbooker personality
Embracing your scrapbooking personality
Your scrapbooking goals
How to deal with so many photos
Reality check
Re-examine your expectations
Finding more time to scrapbook
Organizing your scrapbooks
Tips for challenging White Rabbit, Cheshire Cat, Mad Hatter and Queen of Hearts scrapbookers.

I hope that some of the ideas have made you think about how you scrapbook and why you have felt guilty. I hope you will try to embrace some new ways of thinking and perhaps gain a few tips from acknowledging your scrapbooking personality. I hope you’ll find ways to adapt some of this information to make it useful in your life. Remember to use your personality as a guide not to restrict you, but so that you can reach out and try new things, ideas and styles. Most of all, I hope the information I have shared has helped you to feel less guilt on your scrapbooking adventure!

Go forward, WITHOUT GUILT, and share your memories creatively in your scrapbooks!

P.S. Don’t forget to check back next week for time-saving scrapbooking ideas!

P.P.S. Don’t forget to subscribe to my email list. I don’t spam, but I will share more useful scrapbooking tips like you found here today! (Enter your email in the pink and blue box on the top right of the page!)

P.P.P.S. Leave me a comment telling me the best tip you’ve received for becoming a guilt-free scrapbooker.

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Guilt-Free Scrapbooking: Part 4

by Alice. on 7 February, 2013

Are you ready to discover simple changes to become a guilt-free scrapbooker?

If you are just popping in here now, start with Part 1. It is essential to go through the steps so you can scrapbook without guilt.

Re-examine your expectations.

Now we’ll consider how much time you actually have to scrapbook and some alternatives to help you achieve success with that list!

When you think of scrapbooking, what do you think of? I’m going to guess that the image that comes to mind is sitting down with your photos, some pretty paper, a trimmer, some scissors and a bunch of embellishments. (Or going through digi files if you’re a digi scrapper!)

Here’s an important tip: That’s only ONE part of scrapbooking!

Did you consider:

taking photos
uploading photos
printing photos
purchasing scrappy supplies
jotting down notes that you use for journaling, on your calendar, in a notebook, on your phone
reading scrapbook magazines and blogs for inspiration
getting ideas from Pinterest
thinking about a scrapbook page while you do other activities

All of these are PART of scrapbooking! I’ll bet you’ve probably heard your kids say something or do something and thought, “that has to go in my scrapbook!” Guess what? At that moment you are making the first step towards your scrapbook page! You just DECIDED what to scrapbook or you have the quote you need for your journaling.

Knowing that all of these steps are part of scrapbooking will allow you to consciously think about creating your scrapbook projects. When you are looking at scrapbook magazines, flag pages with ideas you plan to use. When you purchase supplies, think about which items will go together on your page. When you print photos, think about how you might design your page and how many photos you’ll need. NOW when you are able to spend time in your scrapbook room you’ll be ready to roll, ideas already formulated, with products and photos chosen!

Now that you think about it, I’ll bet you scrapbook more than you realized. Giving yourself credit for the scrapbooking steps you are already doing is the first step to feeling better about your scrapbooking.

Find More Time.

There’s never enough time in a day, and since we can’t make more time, we have to find ways to create time in our day for the activities we love. Here’s a couple of simple ways to make more time for scrapbooking:

Involve your family in the scrapbooking process. Kids can help add journaling and remind you to take photos.
Keep scrapbooking supplies handy. Carry a notebook in your purse. Download a scrapbooking app on your phone. Write a quick note on the calendar.
Establish a scrapbooking routine. Scrapbook first thing in the morning, or after you put the kids to bed at night.

Read the blog post: 10 Easy Ways to Fit More Scrapbooking into Your Busy Life

In Part 5 we get down to SPECIFIC ways to challenge the way you scrapbook and turn you into a guilt-free scrapbooker!

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Guilt-Free Scrapbooking: Part 3

by Alice. on 6 February, 2013

Ready to continue your journey to becoming a guilt-free scrapper? In part 3 of 5 we will look at your scrapbooking goals.

If you are just starting now, pop back to start with Part 1.

What do you want to accomplish?

In this step we create a list. This list will be all of the things you’d like to scrapbook. Include the projects you have started and list ALL of the projects you want to do, including any continuing projects you already add to on a regular basis.

Your list might look something like this:

Hawaii trip album
Nephew’s baby book
Finish incomplete pages
Add to family album
Complete Christmas pages
Start album for my childhood
Create pages for my upcoming class

Now look at your list again and using the number you came up with from the exercise from Consider Your Style determine how long each of these projects will take. Oooh! Does this scare you a little? I have solutions … so play along!

Hawaii trip album: 40 pages x 2.5 hours = 100 hours
Nephew’s baby book: 40 pages x 2.5 hours = 100 hours
Finish incomplete pages: 15 pages x 2.5 hours = 37.5 hours
Add to family album: 4 pages per month x 2.5 hours = 120 hours
Complete Christmas pages: 10 pages x 2.5 hours = 25 hours
Start album for my childhood: 10 pages x 2.5 hours = 25 hours
Create pages for my upcoming class: 10 pages x 2.5 hours = 25 hours

Total up the number of hours: 432.5 hours

Now for fun we will divide that by 365 (number of days in a year): 1.18 hours or over 70 minutes I would need to scrapbook EVERY DAY this year just to complete my list!

Wow!

At this point you might be thinking … “I thought I was supposed to be feeling LESS guilty!” Before we can solve this problem let’s talk about one more thing making us feel guilty.

So Many Photos!

Okay, not everyone has 30,000 photos on their computer, but I bet many of you do. Some probably have more! Photos are in integral part of our scrapbooks, and a humongous source of guilt. We have so many photos we can NEVER scrapbook them ALL.

And that’s ok!

Let’s go back to your reasons for scrapbooking. Here’s mine again:

to document my life
to remember the little things
to share my perspective
to have an artistic outlet
to spend time with my family without being with my family
to preserve my photos in a meaningful but creative way

Nowhere on this list can you find:

scrapbook every single photo

I’m pretty sure it wasn’t on your list either! When I keep my goal in mind I don’t get overwhelmed with the number of photos I could scrapbook. I can focus on the stories I want to tell, and find photos that go with those stories.

Reality Check.

The point of this was to give you a wake up call! It is NOT possible to do that much scrapbooking if you continue to scrapbook in your regular way. Something MUST change!

In Part 4 of this series we discover SIMPLE changes that will banish the guilt!

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Guilt-Free Scrapbooking: Part 2

by Alice. on 5 February, 2013

Ready to become a guilt-free scrapbooker? In this lesson we are going to consider your scrapbooking style.

If you missed Part 1 click HERE.

Consider your scrapbooking personality

What kind of scrapbooker are you? I’m not asking if you are a paper scrapper, or a digital one, or if you prefer clean lines or distressed papers. This is all about how you scrapbook, your scrapbooking personality.

Scrapbooker #1. The Speedster aka The White Rabbit

Are you the kind of scrapper that creates an amazing page in half an hour? You are like the White Rabbit, you have a destination in mind and you want to get there as quickly as possible. You don’t sweat the small stuff, you have a story to tell and photos to get on the page! Occasionally you might wonder if you are really sharing the story of your life to it’s full potential.

Scrapbooker #2. The Artist aka The Cheshire Cat

When you create a scrapbook page is your intent to scrapbook in a way that adds artistic insight to your page? Are you good at connecting the art to the intent of the page? The Cheshire Cat was the only character who really ‘listened’ to Alice, in Alice in Wonderland. If adding beautiful details, perfect embellishments and artistic techniques are important to the way you scrapbook, and you love to add the latest and greatest creative techniques this could be you.

Scrapbooker #3. The Distracted aka The Mad Hatter

Do you obsess over everything for so long it takes forever, even if afterwards it’s hard to explain why? The Mad Hatter wants to accomplish something, but before he can even have a cup of tea he moves on to the next activity, never focusing on the task at hand. If you find yourself looking at your scrapbooking supplies more than you actually scrapbook, or starting another project before you finish the one in front of you, this might be you.

Scrapbooker #4. The Perfectionist aka The Queen of Hearts

Do you worry about making it just right? Are you so busy making sure all the roses are red that you have a hard time getting things finished? Your focus and intent on perfection makes you like the Queen of Hearts. The Queen was so focused on having things done her way (perfectly) that nothing else mattered. If your need to search your stash for the ‘perfect’ embellishment takes precedence over getting the layout finished, or costs you hours in time, this is you.

Embrace Your Personality

There’s nothing wrong with any of these 4 scrapbookers! Embracing your scrapbooking personality will help you achieve success and feel less guilty!

Estimate the length of time it takes you to create a layout. Not your fastest one, not the slowest one, just an average time. Put this number onto the paper you started yesterday with the reason you scrapbook.

Your time might look like this:

2.5 hours

If you are a White Rabbit you are looking at 2.5 hours and thinking, “How could anything take that long? If you are the Mad Hatter, Cheshire Cat, or the Queen of Hearts you’re probably thinking… only 2.5 hours? Most important is acknowledging your average time to complete a layout. We will use this number tomorrow, so don’t lose your paper!

What if you are unhappy with the type of scrapbooker you are? Just because you normally scrapbook one way, doesn’t mean you must always scrapbook that way! If you are unhappy, find ways to reach outside of your comfort zone, to challenge yourself to scrapbook in a new way. You might find you have a hidden White Rabbit, or Cheshire Cat in you after all! Try a class that challenges your ‘norm’!

**EDIT!! Sorry you missed this class! Don’t worry, I have more suggestions for you in Part 5!

There’s a fun FREE class this month at Layout a Day featuring stitching on scrapbook layouts. Learn how to stitch without wrecking your machine. Learn what kinds of needles and threads to use. Get tips that will inspire your inner Cheshire Cat!

Click here for Part 3 of Guilt-Free Scrapbooking!

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Guilt-Free Scrapbooking: Part 1

by Alice. on 4 February, 2013

When you think of your scrapbooks do you feel guilty? Do you feel that you never get enough done?

Let’s change how you LOOK at scrapbooking today! Let’s get rid of your guilt!

Over the next 5 posts we are going to examine the way we look at scrapbooking. We will find ways to take the guilt OUT of scrapbooking, so you can have FUN scrapbooking meaningful memories. Let’s get started!

Define your purpose.

Why do you scrapbook? What is your purpose for scrapbooking? Here’s a few of my reasons to get you thinking:

to document my life
to remember the little things
to share my perspective
to have an artistic outlet
to spend time with my family without being with my family
to preserve my photos in a meaningful but creative way

I’m sure you have your own reasons why you scrapbook. Pull out a sheet of paper and write down the reasons you scrapbook. This may be a long list, or it could be short. You are welcome to use some or all of my ideas to get you started! (Don’t lose this paper! We will need to refer back to this paper over the next 5 posts.)

Knowing why you scrapbook is the first step in guilt-free scrapbooking. Click here for Part 2!

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