Streamlining the Process

From the LM Newsletter Archives

January 27, 2005

Streamlining the Process

by Madeline Fox

How many scrapbook pages would you like to complete in 2005?  One a week, one a day, or simply more than last year?  Upon noticing a tally in the signatures of several scrappers at the end of 2004, I decided to do a count of my own, resulting in a final tally of 87 (12x12) pages, a quite sizeable number considering the time it takes for me to complete just one page.  Meanwhile, the photos that I want to scrap, the moments that I want to document, the thoughts that I want to share, and the memories that I want to preserve continue to accumulate like snow on the slopes of the Cascades.  I needed to dig myself out of this avalanche before beginning my climb to the top.  Getting down to business, I first cleaned and decluttered my scrap space, organized and rearranged my supplies, then looked to the mountain ahead, ready to conquer!  I set my goal for 2005, increasing it by over 30 pages to 120.  How hard could that be?  Breaking it down, 120 pages is merely 10 pages a month, 3 pages a week, one page every 2 days!  Why was this so hard for me?  I’ll tell you why.  I’m obsessive!  I’m indecisive!  I procrastinate!  I rethink my designs, color schemes, accent placement, and even photos!  And I have a family…’nuff said!  So I began to think about solutions.  Here are a few good ones that I plan to utilize in order to achieve my goal this year:

Idea Books-From simple to sophisticated, there’s an idea book out there for everyone and every style.  Some books are designed around a particular product line, such as KI’s Little Book of Big Ideas and Junkitz Unzipped.  Others are geared towards a selected theme, such as Baby, Oh Baby, All About Kids, or the Scrapbook Solutions DVD Birthdays, Holidays and Everyday Life.   For an inspiring and varied compilation of page ideas, complete with creative techniques and fresh concepts, choose one of these new books: At Home, Scrapbooking with Faye Morrow Bell,Designing with Simplicity, or The 2005 PK Powerbook.  Let the layouts in any one of these volumes be a springboard for your creativity, as you utilize their design, photography, and journalism tips and tricks, incorporating them into a page that is uniquely yours. 

Lifetime Moments Gallery-I found one of the greatest resources for fresh and original page ideas right under our noses here at LM…our gallery!  Like an online idea book, the gallery is filled with incredible talent!  When you peruse the gallery, remember to add those that inspire you to your Favorites, thereby creating an unparalleled resource, an idea book filled with pages that you have chosen based upon your personal taste and style!  Browse categories by theme or execute a search of your own.  There is even a section devoted to sketches!  Speaking of sketches…

Becky Higgins Sketches-These fabulous templates for page design are wonderful tools especially when working with a large number of photos.  The sketches help to streamline the layout process, by giving us pleasing page arrangements, ready to be customized by our own choice of papers and page accents.  The new book, Becky Higgins Creative Sketches for Scrapbooking, showcases over 50 new sketches, each with accompanying page ideas from talented readers of CK magazine.  See how a single sketch can inspire such diverse pages.  (TIP: If you don’t have that many photographs, use only one page of a sketch to create your layout.)

Coordinating Products-A tremendous amount of my time seems to go into coordinating the papers, cardstock, and embellishments that I want to add to my page.  Choosing just the right alphabet stickers, colored brad or buttons would have me sifting through my supplies, taking out products I hope will match only to find that they don’t quite go together.  No more worries!  Paper manufacturers are beginning to do a lot of this work for us by introducing lines of coordinating papers, cardstock, AND embellishments.  The most recent KI Collections have a selection of matte cardstock, tags, frames, labels, and acrylic accents that coordinate with their patterned papers.   Basic Greyhas recently added fiber assortments to go with their lines of paper, tag sheets and alphabet stickers.  Doodlebug has assembled one of the most comprehensive collections of coordinating products: cardstock stickers, rub-ons, I-lets, tokens, ribbon, ric-rac, ABCs, 123s, sequins, and buttons come in an astonishing array of colors, made to match their papers!  Another extraordinary product line is the new Studio K from K & Co.  Papers, acetate and vellum combine with frames, words and word tags, tag books, string clasps, alphabets, and full color rub-on transfers.  Metal art embellishments in this line include word strips, photo clasps, page corners, and brads.  In a bit of a different twist, Junkitz is adding papers (to debut at CHA next month) that match their already coordinated Collectionz of alphabetz, labelz, buttonz, swatchz, and twillz!  Halleluiah! 

With an abundance of inspiration and products designed for easy coordination, fast yet innovative pages should be within our reach.  In order to give everyone a jumpstart on their 2005 layout goals, the Design Team this week has been given the challenge of creating pages that can be recreated in 30 minutes or less!  Are you ready?  On your marks, get set…..SCRAP!

If you’re interested in what page goals other scrappers are setting for themselves this year, check out this General Scrapbook Discussion Poll.  Add your post if you haven’t already!  Thanks!