As part of our Simple Tip Saturday series, we’re inviting fresh voices into the mix. Today we’re hearing from Simple Scrapper team member Jan Sowder with her simple tip.
What is one way you simplify scrapbooking?
I love doing little albums like Days of December or travel, and bigger projects like a week at a glance for the year. One way that I simplify this process is to create many of the pages ahead of time. I start on my December Daily pages about a month in advance and basically create quick pages for myself so that all I have to do when December rolls around is add in my photo/photos and journaling for the day. I do the same with other albums, starting them before the actual time they are needed. Whenever I have a few minutes of down time, or find myself just mindlessly surfing the web or doing nothing, I will grab some supplies and scrap a page for an upcoming day or week. That way I have them on hand and ready to go when the time comes. I can always tweak them a bit if I need to.
What problem does it solve for you?
This is a huge time savor for me. Working full time and having a busy young one at home, I sometimes suffer from severe lack of time and have gotten behind on many projects to the point of giving up.
Why do you think it works so well?
I have found that if I have the pages ready to go, I am much less likely to get behind and much more likely to complete a project. It also seems far less daunting. And, if I have a few days where life gets crazy, it’s fairly easy to get caught back up again.
How can others get started with it?
If you are thinking about taking on a daily, weekly, travel or other project, start thinking about it in advance. If you find yourself with a little spare time here and there, work on a quick page for yourself. I would think this would work well for most any event you plan to scrap, but it does really make taking on the bigger projects much simpler.
I like this idea – sortof a “pages in stages” concept, expanded. Using it for a thematic approach makes it very doable, too. Thanks for sharing.
Cheers~
Thanks for the input. I like the idea of doing small projects intermingled with the larger ones. I think it helps spark creativity, plus it lets you relax a bit between the really large projects. I do that too, sometimes, just to get my mind back on track or when I get stumped as to how to proceed, either with what direction I want something to go, or if my pages start looking the same and I need to spark that creativity.
I don’t usually do pages in advance, because when I have tried, they don’t go with the story I was going to tell or the mood, etc… But I will think about doing some things ahead of time…like what theme I’m going to use for the next Dec. Daily album, just as a for instance, and if there are some things I can do early to get ready. Thanks!