What I’m Working On

I‘m enjoying the snuggly days of winter, making plans for the year and being mindful about my time and my memory keeping process. Now that I really understand what I’m doing when it comes to divided page protectors and regular layouts, I feel an enormous clarity about scrapbooking. Looking forward to sharing more of that with you.

Project Life + Library of Memories for 2013

I wasn’t planning on talking about 2013 quite yet (I only have one photo!), but this bare bones stage really helps you see how this process works and how I’m building the album. I’m subscribing to the Studio Calico kit, because I enjoy the variety of card designs. I also scoop up every set that Liz of Paislee Press releases.

The title page is mostly from the Studio Calico January kit. I washi-taped a tiny tag to a sheet of printer paper to get our names on it. The star paperclip is from Freckled Fawn.

This year’s dividers are a near-replica of the ones in my daughter’s baby album, but with different washi tape on the tabs. I love these.

All About Us is always my largest category, so it’s no surprise this page already has the most on it. On the first page of each category, I’m using one of Elise’s quote cards.

You can see the Library of Memories divider in action best in this last section, Places. My thought process for this album is straightforward: for every photo, anecdote or piece of memorabilia I ask myself what the story is really about. In being story-focused over event-focused, the narrative of the album becomes richer and more connected.

I love this process, but I can’t quite call it Project Life because it is so different than what others do. To me, this is simply scrapbooking today.

8.5×11 Kit Challenge

As part of my head-first dive into paper scrapbooking, I also subscribed to the Studio Calico card kit. Now, I’m not a card maker – at all. But, I love the scaled patterns on 6×6 papers and the simpler embellishments. I also love scrapbooking 8.5×11 pages. I thought this would be the perfect fit.

On one hand, the kit really has helped me make more pages – I really get a thrill out of seeing how far I can stretch it. I love getting an exclusive 6×6 pad with papers from different manufacturers. But, and this is a big but, the card-focused sentiment stamps and seemingly endless supply of ribbon really don’t do much for me.

The Studio Calico card kit really isn’t the perfect fit for 8.5×11 layouts.

While I decide whether to continue my subscription beyond the six month commitment, I’ve been considering alternatives. One idea is to give myself the same $25 budget and pull together my own kit from scrapbook.com  – the only major online retailer that I found to carry 8.5×11 colored cardstock in single sheets. I see it as sort of a challenge to stick to a budget and then really use the supplies as I would a club kit.

I already took the first step and my kit arrived yesterday. My total was $24.44 + shipping. I am so excited to start working with it.

There are six sheets of cardstock here; do you think I can make six layouts with this kit? 

I’ll let you know next month how I did and you can see all the layouts I made! If you want to take this challenge with me, here’s a list of what is in my “kit”:

Other things I’m working on…

• Ruminating on big ideas for new classes and kits
• Assembling my creative journal for 30 Days of Lists
• Finishing the next lesson for Focus, on faster scrapbooking
• Contemplating gratitude and the meaning of enough
• Creating micro kits before starting a page
• Getting ready for a big week of shop announcements