SYW159 – Best Day Ever?

Jennifer Wilson 0:00

Kind of a joke, how many best day evers can we have? And there were so many really genuine comments saying, this was the best day ever. So that just really felt affirming for our choices of prioritizing having a Finishing Day during each creative journey. Welcome to Scrapbook Your Way, the show that explores the breadth of ways to be a Memory Keeper today. I'm your host, Jennifer Wilson, owner of Simple Scrapper and author of The New Rules of Scrapbooking. This is episode 159. In this episode, I'm joined by Kim Edsen to reflect on the past month and explore what's new for March. This is our monthly peek behind the scenes at Simple Scrapper.

Jennifer Wilson 0:44

Hey Kim, how's it going?

Kim Edsen 0:46

It's going. We're kind of in like the winter doldrums here where, you know, it's just kind of overcast and dreary. But I am reading a book called The Power of Fun I'm almost finished with it. By author, Catherine Price. And she talks a lot about how this kind of goes along with a Refresh Retreat last month, which was all about like being playful. And so it's kind of this idea of introducing more fun into your life and kind of identifying what is fun for you. And so I have been making the effort to kind of plan some of these things. Like this weekend, there's a new shop locally that is called Pots and Shots. So it is a plant store that is also like a cocktail lounge, which is like all sorts of fun to me. So my husband I are talking about going and then it seems in the it's in the evenings and we're tired and it's cold, and then we don't go. So I created accountability for us. And we are going with another couple. And so I mean clearly, we're picking them up. So we are going this time. So I'm looking forward to that. And then you know like some point you got to make your own fun. So I am doing my best to do so. We've done some puzzles and just kind of puttering around. Like I said we're in the depths of winter here. Not a lot of snow but cold and windy. Which honestly, I think it's worse. So...

Jennifer Wilson 2:09

It is we are about to get an ice storm that might be snow might be more ice. They have, we're doing early dismissal from school.

Kim Edsen 2:17

Oh, wow.

Jennifer Wilson 2:18

No idea what's happening tomorrow. So, but yeah, it's super like dreary and gross. And I just want to like stay inside with my space heater.

Kim Edsen 2:27

Yeah, I keep thinking like, right, and one month, it'll be March 17. And two months, it'll be like, pretty soon before we know it everything will be green and then bloom. And so just I think it comes down to that whole hygee thing too, right. Like you said, you've got your inside with your space heater, like find ways to enjoy this time, like light a candle and get a blanket cozy up on the couch. So that's my plan. How about you, what's going on, other than impending ice storm?

Jennifer Wilson 2:53

Yeah, well and on that note, I actually just placed an Old Navy order. Because I'm like, you know what I'm gonna have to wear like, real pants again soon. Like, this pandemic looks like we might be going out a little bit more, and it's gonna be spring. And so let's like have some, some real pants to suppliment to the active wear that I've been wearing for the past two years.

Kim Edsen 3:17

Nice, nice.

Jennifer Wilson 3:19

And then also, my friend recommended this thing called the London Writer's Salon. And it sounds like super fancy. But it's this free daily Zoom accountability for people who want to work on writing anything at all. And I've attended one so far. And it was so it's delightful and inspiring. I was able to and there were hundreds and hundreds of people there. And you know, most of them didn't have their cameras on but at least like the first page or two of people did. And it was just so, there's so much just silent camaraderie and seeing everyone sitting there working and like oh my gosh, people look so smart. And you know, they look successful. I just felt like I was in good company.

Kim Edsen 4:05

Interesting. So is this like co-working?

Jennifer Wilson 4:08

It really is. And so they have like a very tiny, brief introduction. The chat box is because there's so many people the chat box is like zooming by. And yeah, it's it's one hour of accountability. And that, you know, they also have a paid membership and everything on top of that. But they do this every single weekday and they have four times a day to like meet time zones around the country, around the world really. And yeah, it's just it's super cool. I just added to my schedule a couple times a week, as I said, I only attended one so far. But I realized that so much of what I do involves writing. And but I don't always like mark out the time to really get it focused effort. I'm just kind of doing it when I get to that task and I don't always like feeling the zone. I'm not priming the environment. I'm not like prepping to know, okay, I'm gonna sit down and I'm literally gonna, like focus on this writing piece right now whether it's social media content, emails, blog posts, things like that. So I'm just excited to have another, you know, accountability piece in my week.

Kim Edsen 5:18

Yeah, that sounds really interesting. I'm not, I've never heard of that.

Jennifer Wilson 5:21

Yeah, I hadn't either. So it's, it's super cool.

Kim Edsen 5:23

And you're right. It does sound very posh. Like, because it's the writer's salon. Yeah.

Jennifer Wilson 5:29

Well, and yeah, and the hosts are all British. And so you know, you get the little fun accent there too. And yeah.

Kim Edsen 5:38

Cool, fun.

Jennifer Wilson 5:39

So yeah, what's exciting you right now inside of scrapbooking?

Kim Edsen 5:43

I ordered my 2021 December Daily yesterday, and it's already been shipped it is in route to me, I ordered through Mpix. They had some sales going on with like free shipping. So I did a quick proofreading of that and made a just, you know, added a period and fixed up apostrophe. And so it's, it's nice, like once you create it, and then you're kind of away from it for a while, and then to come back and see it. And so I'm really excited to see that in person and my hands, man.

Jennifer Wilson 6:14

Yeah. Now, just based on your experience so far, obviously, you don't have it in your hands. But would you use the same approach again, for December?

Kim Edsen 6:22

Yes, I was. So I ended up doing a Cathy Zielske. Well, she does like the 30 Days of Thankful. She had several different templates available. And now she's close up that side of her shop. So I don't know if they'll ever be available again. But that's what I ended up using. So basically, I just had a repeated prompt, it was a photo. And then it's today I'm thankful for. And I wrote something that I was thankful for. So literally and then pattern paper. So it was a photo, some pattern paper bits, the prompt for writing. And then she had incorporated different day. Like Word Art type things that were just was consistent throughout the whole album. So I actually started it. Well, I think like even like, right at like Christmas time, but I had already you know, I've been taking photos and notes and kind of had an idea of what I wanted to document. But But yes, I haven't seen it yet. But I really enjoyed the process. And I felt like that was a nice lens to use. And approaching because I've done so many December Daily is that it was just kind of a different take on it. And yeah, I enjoyed it a lot. But and honestly, I don't want to like say easy, but it came together very well because I was just basically repeating this formula. So it wasn't necessarily a lot of like mental effort to focus on design or anything. It was like words and photos. And then pattern papers like my my first love when it comes to scrapbooking supplies. Like I just love patterned paper. So it was fun to play with that.

Jennifer Wilson 6:22

Yes, no I, like this year for my photo book for my annual book. I'm trying to use like a repeating design for each month. And so right now, I think I have 10 pages per month. So that's you know, that's only about half the book. And either might be some variation within that. But I'm trying to like at least have this foundation. So I know, you know what kind of photos I need to be taking, what type of stories that I need to be thinking about. So I have kind of a rough photo story plan for each month. And then you know, everything else just can fit in, in between. So I'm really excited about that, too.

Kim Edsen 8:35

Yeah, I would say one thing I would have done differently if I'd started earlier in the process is the photo spots and the templates were better suited toward horizontal images. And I had a lot of vertical images. And I made them work. But yeah, that would have been a good insight to have had earlier in the month. But like I said, it all worked out. And I'm excited to see the finished product.

Jennifer Wilson 8:58

So, so fun. Yeah, yeah, my finished book from last year arrived just recently. And it was you know, so it's 240 pages. It's over an inch thick. It's amazing. And, and honestly, when I got it, I was like I don't know how I'm ever going to actually do real scrapbooking again, and I will. But I'm just it was just such one of the most gratifying projects that I've ever done to just see a year's worth of work printed in this giant book. And yeah, it almost was like Is this is this too big? Like, you know, it's it's quite hefty, but I just I appreciate it so much. I remember a long time ago, probably a decade ago when Elise Cripe had done a really chunky hard cover photo book and I was like, oh, I want to do that. I want like a big chunky photo book. And that's been my dream ever since. And I finally have you know my own chunky one.

Kim Edsen 9:56

What size did you order your book?

Jennifer Wilson 9:59

It is 8 by 10.

Kim Edsen 10:00

Okay.

Jennifer Wilson 10:01

I love the size. It's good. It's not too small, but also not too big. You know, I thought about should I go up to 12 by 12. But it's just almost a little unwieldy. And even though you know, 12 by 12, exact is not really that big. I just got this nice happy medium.

Kim Edsen 10:21

Yeah, because when you're doing 12, by 12, with the three ring binders, there's a lot of real estate there. That is not actually your...

Jennifer Wilson 10:30

Yeah, that's more like 15 by 17.

Kim Edsen 10:32

Yeah, they're big. Um, okay, so I have a couple questions about this process, did you upload as you went? Because that's one thing that I found, when I ordered my 2020 book was that I was getting, like, I tried to lay it all out kind of storyboard style. And then I would forget, like, oh, this was a double. And I didn't account for that, and whatever. So one thing I was doing at the end of last year, after I went through that experience, was kind of trying to upload to my developer as I went. And then I could always rearrange there. But that and then also having better naming conventions, like, because I do those monthly favorites, I would try to maybe I have an idea of like, okay, I'm going to slot this towards, like, the front of my book, so and then. So depending on like, if it was a specific month, so I went with, I would like title, like, oh, one, blah, blah, blah, oh, three, if it's March. And then there are ones that could could really fit anywhere, then I would maybe tag those as like, you know, 13 and then I could just put them wherever. So did you upload as you go? Or how did that process go? Cuz I found that to be kind of frustrating on my end, when I went to actually doing it.

Jennifer Wilson 11:39

I did none of that. And that's...

Kim Edsen 11:42

Okay.

Jennifer Wilson 11:42

Like, there were there were no files involved. Because I did it everything in Lightroom.

Kim Edsen 11:46

You did everything in Lightroom, that's right. Oh, that's right, I forgot that.

Jennifer Wilson 11:48

I was able to see the book, as is like, adjust it every single page, move things around. And just, you know, see it as it's gonna look, you know, page by page. And then at the very end, I press a button, and it sends it to Blurb and it's in my Blurb account. And then I just waited until there was a coupon code. And had to wait about a little more than a week. And then I ordered it. And that was it.

Kim Edsen 12:17

So forgot about the Lightroom part. And since yours is almost like a year version kind of Project Life. So that's maybe different than what I'd have these two like random one off stories about my husband's like childhood love of numbers, and then figure out okay, where's that gonna go? Like?

Jennifer Wilson 12:33

Yeah, so that was I just, I really appreciated that there was no exporting of photos or pages. And even if I needed to like, cuz sometimes you'll put something together and like a photo looks off. It doesn't like jive with the other photos for some reason.

Kim Edsen 12:49

Yeah.

Jennifer Wilson 12:49

And then traditionally, you would go and re edit the photo, re export it, add it back to the thing, whatever software you're using. But in Lightroom, I don't need to do that. I just go edit the photo. And then it's changed in the book.

Kim Edsen 13:00

Yeah, that is super helpful. Like if I had single page layouts, and I never really cared about that, when I was doing paper or hybrid scrapbooking it was just put it in whatever order. But I did want to be somewhat cognizant of like, these really don't look good across from each other. So like, what else can I put in there? And you're right, then I'd have to like go switch out. I will say. So I ordered this photobook from Mpix. And I don't remember this, I feel like they've switched up their interface a little bit. I didn't, when I worked with just trying to build it in Mpix, for an older option, I did not care for their interface. But if I'm just bringing in layouts I've already created. It's super slick. And now they and I don't remember this being the case before but you can just upload directly into your book. You don't necessarily have to, like I can like drag and drop onto the book as opposed to having to like upload all of my pages and then bring them in and then layer them like up. So I found that super a user friendly. Yeah.

Jennifer Wilson 13:58

Yeah.

Kim Edsen 13:58

Okay. One last question. And then we will move beyond our very extended introduction part here. Um, did you find it hard to keep up your momentum? I know we talked a lot about the accountability Wednesday crops and things. Because like you said, since you, your 240 page book, and you have to wait to really like see it in your hands after the fact was that difficult at all?

Jennifer Wilson 14:23

Not really, I think there's certainly a couple times where I would maybe get a week or two behind and I would just jump back in. Really, because it's really just 20 pages less than 20 pages a month. And a lot of them were just like a full page photos with maybe a tiny caption. It just it always felt it always felt very doable. And even now I haven't finished January yet, but I don't feel worried about it. I feel like I have a good system for like curating my photo library. And I just feel like it's gonna get done. And obviously it's you know, it's mid February now. And I finished it, I finished it mid January, I think. And so it's like it just I don't know, like, no, the answer's no, I didn't. Like it just I used, I leaned on the accountability in the community so much. Just like talking about it, making it a priority, making it that anchor project, as we talked about on a couple episodes, it was always kind of the most important thing, because I knew I wanted to finish it. And sure, there's other things I haven't, there's still like two stories in my October Daily pages that I want to finish. My December Daily has like three to nine more stories, like there's a really quick finish. And then there's like a longer finish if I want to tell them more. But really getting this photo book done was my number one priority. And so I made it a priority, especially in January. And that's probably why I'm more behind on this year is because I spent January, like wrapping things up and making sure that everything was all in place. You know, I did several, like I exported the whole thing is a PDF, and I had two people read through the whole thing and then read through it again myself and made all the edits. So yeah, it was it's very rewarding. And the weekly ish, you know, attention to it made all the difference, even though it was mostly just one hour a week.

Kim Edsen 16:33

It sounds like a lot, like you said, like the accountability and just the fact that you had a system in place. And then the ease of finding a system that worked well for you. Like you said, You weren't like exporting and importing all that just kind of would slow your momentum. So yes, no, so exciting. Photo book day is a great day.

Jennifer Wilson 16:52

Yeah, it was delightful. And I had some weird shipping issues it like, came to town and then went to Missouri and came back. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, it's gonna be totally mangled when it gets here. But it wasn't it was like beautifully packaged looked great. So yeah, I'm just super happy overall with the whole thing.

Kim Edsen 17:13

Good! That's exciting.

Jennifer Wilson 17:14

Yeah. And there'll be there'll be more coming. I will film a video tour and, and provide more instruction on this. It's just, I would say that part isn't a priority for me right now. Obviously, the podcast is number one, always. So that's what takes a lot of my time and attention. Because every week is a big part.

Kim Edsen 17:36

Yep, week comes around real fast.

Jennifer Wilson 17:41

Yeah. And so actually, when this episode goes up, I think it'll be two episodes going up the same day, because a little bit of a schedule crunch. And like the best choice is to go ahead and edit two for for one month. So we'll see if that happens. But that's the plan at the moment.

Kim Edsen 17:59

Very good.

Jennifer Wilson 18:01

So Kim, switching gears to storytelling, what's on your memory keeping Bucket List right now?

Kim Edsen 18:07

So I had several stories kind of floating around in my head that have come up one really. I always had like, right, my partner's grandparents, and food, I think were my three. So I had a parent story and a grandparent story, but I'm going with a personal story this week. And it is something because I think it's the one that's like kind of tugging at my heartstrings the most and not to like beat a dead horse here. But the Soundtracks book that we read for our book club. I, it occurred to me that I had kind of a negative soundtrack around the idea that I can't do hard things. And it was coming up a lot and related to like launching this photo management business. And this idea of like, well, that sounds really hard or like managing social media that I no idea like, that sounds really hard. Um, but then it was kind of the whole Jon Acuff idea of gathering evidence. I'm like, I've done a lot of hard things, right. Like, I'm like, raising kids is hard and graduating with honors from pharmacy school is hard, and like, all I saw, I was kind of gathering the evidence. And thanks to the Thursday three project from our you, Kristen, I have a photo of myself with the Soundtracks book. So occurred to me like wow, that it's all kind of falling into place. I have a photo I can use. I have a storyline that's kind of meaningful and something that I want to journal about. So that's gonna be my Bucket List story this week.

Jennifer Wilson 19:45

I love that. I think that's such an important realization and that sometimes are Bucket List Stories aren't these big, overarching stories from the past or one that like connect through time. They're like, they're right now stories. Like this is a this is a big part of of who I am, maybe how I've struggled and how I'm overcoming those struggles in order to grow. And so I just love that idea.

Kim Edsen 20:10

Yeah, so we'll see if I get that put together. But what are you just dying to tell this week?

Jennifer Wilson 20:17

I've been excited a little bit about the Begin Story Kit. And really, in general, my priority this year is working through My Story Kit stash just because I have so much of it. I have two stories that I want to tell. One is like more Bucket List and one is like it's important, but maybe, you know, we have to debate whether or not it qualifies as Bucket List. And that one is really just the story of how we've totally fallen in love with these cats. And maybe the bigger picture story of okay, these are the cats we've had over our lifetimes with myself and my husband. And I think just kind of like a big picture cat story would be fun to do.

Kim Edsen 20:57

Yeah. Do you remember all the layouts I did about chickens? I mean, they were we got chickens. I did like a highlight on each individual chicken. I mean, there's, that is very much part of your life right now. And it sounds like through the years. So I would say that definitely counts as a Bucket List story.

Jennifer Wilson 21:15

Yeah. And it's just they're they're so they're very nutty right now. They're in their little teenage years. And Ron in particular, is he loves to find little things and drag them all over the house, like hair ties, and socks and just random things. And you'll just find a random item in a random place all over the house right now. So it's just super cute. And now at this point, it's like, it's hard to imagine how we went like a whole year without a cat. How did we do it?

Kim Edsen 21:46

Yeah, they're big part of your lives.

Jennifer Wilson 21:49

Yes, they are. And you know, it's, they make sure they're the first thing you think about when you wake up.

Kim Edsen 21:57

We have one of those. Before I wake up in the morning, she's making sure I'm thinking about her.

Jennifer Wilson 22:04

Yes, yes. And then the other one is more about my mental health journey. So when this episode goes up, you will have already heard my conversation with Laura Wonsik. She actually interviewed me to talk about this for the show. And I have documented it in more personal ways, like in my journal and in my One Little Word. But I want to create a more reflective lessons learn type layout from where I am, at this point, to put in, you know, my real albums. To put in the what I consider the legacy part of my library. I mentioned on that episode that I feel like my One Little Word books are so personal, that those are the ones that I probably would want to discard. Because they're, they're about growth in that moment. And they're just more personal then even more personal than the rest of my scrapbooking, which is very personal to begin with. And so I think I want to do more of a Bucket List style layout, just, you know, explaining what's happened in the past 42 years of my life and where I think I'm going with it from here. And just celebrating a new willingness to ask for help. And that's just had like a huge ripple effect throughout my life. Now I'm just rah rah, yay, experts, let's hire people to do things that they know how to do better than we do. And I'm just excited to, you know, be in that mindset.

Kim Edsen 23:35

Yeah, that sounds really powerful.

Jennifer Wilson 23:38

All right, let's shift gears to Simple Scrapper here. This past month has been so fun. We had our first ever Finishing Day. And we had so many members say like, partially our newer members. They're like, I don't know what to expect for Finishing Day, can you, can you guys tell me what it's like? And everyone's like, this is our first one. And apparently we talked about it in a way that made it seem like we've been doing this for a while. And I think the experience even came across like that.It was just so much fun.

Kim Edsen 24:13

Well, I think there are some elements of it are things that we have done, we just haven't labeled it Finishing Day and I think, right we would have like all day crop events before we've done that in the past. But I think the difference here was that encouragement to focus. And I will say I found it very, very rewarding. Um, one of the things we had for the membership was this idea of planning out what you want to create. What you want to corral, connect, and consume with for this journey. And I was just reviewing all the things that I had listed out and then also like kind of my year long plan and I completed everything I wanted to do for January and February. You know we still have quite a bit of February left so I can kind of move on to other things. Or right, there's that space that we always encourage people to leave to you know, for those things that just kind of pop up. Like a Soundtracks Bucket List story. So I think, even though we've done so much events before, I think the difference was that encouragement and, and finishing and I know personally, it worked. I got, I talked about on the last episode, either we're updating birthday and Halloween albums. And that's what I did it was, it feels good to make progress.

Jennifer Wilson 25:29

That's terrific. I am so glad to hear that you've, you know, checked off your whole list already. And it was just so amazing to me, we have this, you know, we have a chat room inside the community that's just, you know, ongoing asynchronous chat. And so many members that they finally have a use for that, like Best Day Ever sticker or stamp or whatever they have in their stash. And you know, because it's kind of a joke, like, what do we, how many best day evers can we have? And there were so many really genuine comments saying, this is, I, this was the best day ever. So that just really felt affirming for our choices of prioritizing, having a Finishing Day during each creative journey.

Kim Edsen 26:09

Oh, yes, most definitely. And you can talk about to a lot the idea of like with the organization, it can kind of weigh on you if it's just always something that's in the back of your mind. And so this, you can give a space to like when we do like our organization journey, or like a Stash Bash event, or whatever that's a gives you the opportunity to focus on it then. But I feel like this was like another layer of that of like, yeah, I have these, I have these and I want to do them more like I have this project in the works that I want to wrap it up or whatever. But this gives you that opportunity to really focus and dig in and, and make progress. And people did . Like there were so many, like success stories it was was you kind of ride that wave of momentum from everyone else's successes to so we can celebrate it together.

Jennifer Wilson 26:57

Yes, and I think there was also just there was an empowerment around a permission to just start finishing, because everyone has different scales of projects. Some are finishable in a single day, and some aren't. But putting in the time is what matters and what what will make the difference and start moving you towards that finish line. So we talked a lot about that throughout the day. I mentioned earlier about, you know, the I've a variable number of possible stories to finish for my December Daily. But I completed four whole stories on that day. And I think I was able to participate, maybe four or five hours. And some of it was like, you know, leading conversation too so it was it was very productive for me and I've, I love being in community with our people as much as I can. And it's yeah, it was it was awesome. Were there any other like fun words shared from community members on that day?

Kim Edsen 27:59

There were and I this came up like Sunday or Monday after Finishing Day. So this is a note that member Jessica S had shared with our group. She said the Finishing Day event was amazing. I joined in the morning and then again around dinner for a few hours. I finished my oldest first grade year. I uploaded all layouts I had completed thus far this year for all projects to Persnickety Prints for their sale. I'm blown away, I have 63 completed pages. Wow. She did not put that emphasis, I did. Counting the collage pages from the Project Life app, I've added journaling or small bits. The finishing, Finishing Day was like being in an in person crop. Thank you for the opportunity to finish a goal. That is definitely something to celebrate. Oh my goodness.

Jennifer Wilson 28:44

Yeah. And you know what, the timing worked out so well to coincide with that Persnickety Prints Super Bowl sale. A lot of people whether they're ordering photos or finished pages, use that as even another layer of momentum to to to put in the legwork there.

Kim Edsen 29:06

Yeah, well. And I think the other thing I would add is, so I essentially completed four layouts through that process, but I did two on actual Finishing Day, and then started another one. But I've just kept scrapbooking. Again, it kind of goes back to where Peggy was saying if I'm involved in this hobby, then I want to keep coming back to it. So yes, that snowball effect where it kind of jumpstart it kind of like the fire again. So it doesn't have to just all revolve around the one day but it's nice to have that jumpstart from that day, and then it just kind of keeps propelling you forward. So yeah...

Jennifer Wilson 29:43

I think that's what we do well and also why we've tried to very intentionally spread our official activities throughout the calendar. Just so that we have those jumpstarts fairly frequently, and then of course, there's tons of informal opportunities in between. But so there's always something just around the corner to look forward to. But in terms of our, I just, I have to share this number before we go on to our organization journey. Last December, so just you know, a month and a half ago, we had about 12 hours of open crop time on the calendar. And these are member hosted times that you can show up. And they were pretty like diverse in terms of time zones, and days of the week and all that. And now we have 33 hours on the calendar. It's, it's just amazing.

Kim Edsen 30:43

Well, I mean, think it's part of that is the permission to make it work for you, like we have, like lots of members that are in the southern hemisphere. And so obviously, the timing doesn't always work out for them. So some of those ladies have just decided they'll host their own crop and what works for them, and then whoever can join them to join them. And so it's nice to have that permission to like literally Scrapbook Your Way. I mean, that the community is there to support that.

Jennifer Wilson 31:10

Yes, yeah. So it's just it's so amazing. At some point, we might just put start and end times on each day, it's, we might have to do it differently, because the calendar almost looks like over full now, because there's so many times scheduled, but it's just so awesome. And I love that we can provide this sense of camaraderie, friendship, cheerleading, and accountability through our Zoom crops. And yeah, some of them are more chatty. And some of them are more quiet. I think we have a good variety of structures. And yeah, I just the when I started adding it up yesterday, I was flabbergasted. So yeah, so cool. Yes. And then so even more cool is the next creative journey. These are our two month themes that allow our members and really the broader Simple Scrapper community as well to dive into a topic without getting bored of it and without being done too quickly. And so January, February was the Habits Journey. And now March and April, is the Organization Journey, a little bit of a spring cleaning theme there, particularly for those in the northern hemisphere. And that this week marks the beginning of our organization series on the podcast, we have so many great episodes lined up on both physical and digital organization topics. And it's yeah, it's just such a fun, fun thing to be diving into. This is something we're always thinking about. And I love that we can spend two months really having some good, sometimes tough conversations about it.

Kim Edsen 32:59

Yeah, well, there's always that joke, right? That like organizing scrapbook supplies is a different hobby than actually scrapbooking. Because they get kind of out of hand sometimes, and maybe not out of hand is maybe not the right way to phrase it. But, um, and Peggy talked about this on her episode too, the idea of people want like, Oh, I'll scrapbook when I'm all organized or when I have all this in place. This is a nice way to kind of get that accountability and that structure around organization. But maybe it was the encouragement to still make progress in your scrapbooking projects at the same time.

Jennifer Wilson 33:35

Yes, yes. And I think if you're looking for some initial inspiration, you can check out the recording of our Your Way Workshop that just happened this past week. And we talked about reducing clutter and as we're recording this we haven't had the conversation yet, but I'm anticipating that it's going to be a good conversation. Doing this breakout style workshops has worked out so well because community members can meet each other have, you know, smaller group more intimate conversations about these topics, and then we can come back together and, and share lessons learned in that part. That's the part that we do record. So I love doing this series and really narrowing down we're not just talking organization broadly, we're specifically talking about clutter and how clutter forms and how we can reduce it. So I'm thinking that's gonna be a really insightful experience with our community.

Kim Edsen 34:40

Well, I feel like that's one thing that keeps comes up over and over again, a lot of these nonfiction books that we do read for Book Club is the idea of how impactful your environment is on your actions. So if you have like an organized space that's free of clutter or reduced amount of clutter that will free you up to kind of like that mental stress or strain of having to like deal with that before you create because you already are just like ready to go. So it's a good way to, I guess prime the, prime in the scene.

Jennifer Wilson 35:16

Mm hmm. No, it's true. And I think one of the big observations that I'll be sharing in that conversation is that often my most visible, and in the way, clutter is not scrapbooking stuff. It's like other random life stuff that's, that made it to the top of the pile, like, just the random sticker sheet that Emily brought in here is now sitting on my desk, or the box of tissues thatv needs to be put away somewhere else. Like, there's just always, you know, if you live in a home with anybody else, there's always things that just somehow up here. Could be the cat could be a family member. And, you know, that's tends to be my biggest clutter problem is not the scrapbook supplies, it's just the stuff that's covering up the scrapbook supplies. And that, but that observation really helped me feel more confident in my organization solutions for my scrapbooking, and to know where I really need to direct my energy, and that's making sure kind of all the other life stuff doesn't come into my office, if at all possible. So...

Kim Edsen 36:25

Yeah, that's a big observation. Plus, I think the other advantage too, is you talk about like having confidence in your scrapbook supply organization. There's...

Jennifer Wilson 36:34

Yes.

Kim Edsen 36:35

Many, many ways to store your stickers, or your paper or your scraps or wherever. So that's where it is nice to have that community aspect of, Hey, I am struggling with how I store my insert product here, dies, stamps, whatever. Chances are, there's going to be several people that have experienced with that and will be more than willing to share what works for them. So kind of take advantage of that.

Jennifer Wilson 37:03

Yeah, I think also just we're so encouraging and open minded in terms of, you might try a solution for a while, you might outgrow it, it might not work for you anymore, for one reason or another. And so you reorganize it. I just put all my December Daily stuff into a, let's see there's five drawers, it's like five drawers Sterilite unit, because A, The cats were dragging it all over the house. And B putting it all in one box meant it was jumbled together. And so I needed to have some sort of like, Hey, here's the stickers, and here's all the ribbons and fibers. And then here's all the die cuts. And I was previously using this for something else. But I really thought through how I needed to organize these things and chose a new solution. And now the other stuff will have to find a new home. But that's I think that's kind of part of the optimization process. And I'm sure I'll be doing some decluttering, two of the things that that used to live in that particular storage system.

Kim Edsen 38:04

Yeah, I love to repurpose. I think we've talked about this before too. Like I have a basement storage room that has, as I'm shifting things in and out and about whatever. That's where all my extra baskets and bins and things go. So it's kind of good to like shop your storage or product or because I and like you said the whole optimization concept that I think is really fascinating. I'm like, Yeah, this is what I was worth using this before, for this particular use. But I think this is going to be better. So very cool.

Jennifer Wilson 38:40

Yeah, no, I'm excited about that. And I will, as soon as I reduce some clutter around it, I will take a picture and share as well.

Kim Edsen 38:49

Hey, keepin it real.

Jennifer Wilson 38:52

For sure. Now, the last thing that I'm looking forward to this next month, we always kick off our journeys with a member retreat. And so our next Refresh Retreat starts on March 24th. And I'm so excited for this theme, because we're doing something a little bit different. This one is called Savoring Light. And I wanted to, we as we've mentioned, we're always trying to respect that the natural seasons are different for those around the world. And so I think this idea of savoring light really works, whether your light is increasing or your light is retreating, depending on where you live in the world. And this idea that in this time of year, we're really thinking about the light because it is changing, either it's, you know, we're getting more of it or we're getting less of it. And so we're going to be doing activities related to light hearted stories, looking for the light with your photos, and how you can feel lighter with your organization and decluttering activities. So I think that's going to be a really fun one.

Kim Edsen 40:00

Yes, I do always find like those transition seasons to be powerful personally, but also from for a lot of people like your schedules will evolve and change as the seasons evolve and change. So I think it invites an opportunity to kind of see during that shifting time period, where you can fit in your hobby.

Jennifer Wilson 40:24

Yes, because you know, those are the busiest times of the year, right. It's the, you know, the winter and summer tend to be a little bit slower, a little bit more of a relaxed pace. There's, there's either more time for fun or more time for scrapbooking. Whereas the the transition seasons tend to be when there's activities and conferences and, and, you know, just lots of things going on. And so I think the idea of savoring emits that maybe increasing business, is also really helpful.

Kim Edsen 41:01

Yes. And I will say, just like, so many of the things that we offer in the group, it's really you have the invitation to make it what you need it to be. So for some people, maybe they have a lot of like kid activities going on, or family activities are going on for the spring. Or maybe that's like their big time for the yard and garden cleanup. So maybe for them, it's just like a quick check in and then move on with their day. And for some people, maybe that's their opportunity to create kind of another full day event for themselves. So you can make it what you want it to be. Whatever you need it to be.

Jennifer Wilson 41:35

100%. Yeah, we have a full workbook that allows you to pick and choose, you know, kind of a choose your own adventure type thing. Even our Saturday morning workshop is called Choose Your Own Adventure to help you determine how you want to spend your Saturday. And then if you want to participate in any of our creative immersions, which will begin after the Refresh Retreat. So it's yeah, we're always allowing you and encouraging you to do things your way as you mentioned easier. That's, that's why we have the show and why that's one of our biggest values. So I'm, yeah, I'm excited about it.

Kim Edsen 42:10

I always enjoy Refresh.

Jennifer Wilson 42:13

Kim, is there anything else that we've we've missed? We've covered quite a lot of ground today.

Kim Edsen 42:19

No, no parting words of wisdom, I don't think. But thank you for having me. I always enjoy our conversations.

Jennifer Wilson 42:25

Yes, me too. I love catching up even though we we chit chat all the time inside the community. But I love that we can spend this time really digging into what's going on both in our personal lives and inside of Simple Scrapper. So thank you, Kim, and thanks to all of our listeners. Please remember that you have permission to Scrapbook Your Way. Are you ready to start implementing the great ideas you hear on the podcast? The Simple Scrapper membership offers a welcoming space to connect with fellow Memory Keepers and find the creative accountability you've been craving. Visit simple scrapper.com/membership to learn more and join our community. It's the best it's ever been.