How and Why I Scrap

I'm a firm believer that scrapbooking should be fun, easy, and painless. Back in the day, I used to spend MUCH more time agonizing over each page, wanting everything to be perfect, creating complicated layouts with painstaking details. I realize now that the most important part of scrapbooking for me is the pictures- not all the fluff on the page. Don't get me wrong, I like a little bit of fluff, but if it means the difference between getting it done happily or leaving the pictures forever on my computer- I choose getting it done. I know everyone who scraps has their own system and their own reasons for doing so, this is just mine.

So...here's my process.

First. I organize all my pictures and decide what will go on each layout (I almost always do 2 page spreads).

I then pick ALL my papers and spend some time doing all the "prep work" This includes anything I print on the computer or cut with my Silhouette. I do most of my journaling on the computer so it's easy to just take my stack of paper and pictures over to the computer and knock it out in one sitting. I think this really saves time in the long run. I find as long as I've got a general idea of where my photos are going I can journal and print right on the paper in advance.

Then I crop and attach EVERYTHING! Now I've got very basic layouts completed. As you can see below, this stage is just paper and printed titles and journaling. And yes- I am one of the lonely few who scrap in 81/2 by 11 size. This is because I LOVE printing right on the page- it's just so easy!

Now for the fun part. I spread everything out, grab my basket of embellishments and start adding a bit of interest to the pages. Just enough to give the pages some dimension. Usually this involves staples, brads, small tabs, stamps or other doodads. This is just the icing on the cake.

Then I assemble the book. For my travel albums I use very basic Pioneer albums- mostly because I know they'll be available and I like my books to be uniform on my shelf.

Yippee! It's done.

I print my labels in vinyl using my Silhouette (more on that baby later).

It's ready for the shelf!

Like I said, this method isn't for everyone, but it works for me.