Scrapbook My Life

Christmas time is a great opportunity to clean out your scrapbook supply stash. To get your craft area organized and in shape for the New Year, remember these simple tips:

• Use scraps of leftover paper to make customized gift tags.
• Make handmade Christmas cards.
• Curl bits of paper along with charms, buttons, and tiny beads to fill clear glass ball ornaments. They make lovely decorations for your Christmas tree and fun gifts for friends, coworkers, and neighbors.
• Design a gift album for someone who is too busy or too overwhelmed to scrapbook. Create the pages using one basic template, leaving spaces for the recipient to add their own photos and journaling. Include an acid-free glue stick and pen for a gift that’s sure to please a new mom, newlywed, or avid traveler.
• Create a crafting treasure chest for the creative child in your life. Even if you think your paper and embellishments are a bit out of date, they’ll be great fun for a future scrapbooker to work with!

As we’re all recovering from the Thanksgiving day feast, it’s time to start thinking about Christmas! If you’re reading this in the process of searching for gifts for the scrapbooker on your shopping list, here are a few ideas to consider:

• Scrapbookers can never have enough adhesives. Fill a small basket with glue sticks, glue dots, double-sided tape, and other adhesive products for a gift that’s sure to please.

• Cardstock is a practical gift for the serious scrapbook enthusiast. Pick a nice assortment of neutrals with a few fun colors thrown in for a bit of variety.

• If you know that the scrapbooker on your holiday shopping list frequently scrapbooks a particular theme, such as baby boy photos or vacation memories, choose a small assortment of stickers, chipboard, ribbon, and rub-ons to match these types of layouts.

• Scrapbookers who love to learn about new techniques will appreciate a subscription to Creating Keepsakes, Memory Makers, or Simple Scrapbooks.

• When all else fails, you can’t go wrong with a gift certificate to a local craft o scrapbook supply store!

I hope has enjoyed the Thanksgiving holiday. Here are a few journaling questions to help you start scrapbooking those Thanksgiving day photos:

•  What is your favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal? Are you a traditional turkey and stuffing kind of girl or do you prefer something more unique?
• What non-food rituals do you associate with Thanksgiving? Do you enjoy watching football? Planning Black Friday shopping trips? Playing board games with your nieces and nephews?
• What are you most grateful for this year? Friends? Family? Work accomplishments?

If your Thanksgiving day photos didn’t turn out quite as nicely as you had hoped, remember that creative cropping can work wonders. It’s hard to get group shots where everyone looks perfect, but it’s fairly simple to crop the person who is blinking or squinting out of the photo. If your photos look overexposed or underexposed, try adjusting the contrast and converting them to a sepia tone for a traditional-looking Thanksgiving layout.

What I like the most about scrapbooking is the diversity among those who are passionate about this great hobby. Some people scrapbook to create a lasting legacy for their children, others enjoy socializing at crops or workshops, and some are simply looking for a great way to showcase their amazing photography skills. But for me, crafting has always been a form of therapy. When I’m sad, lonely, or upset, making something helps me feel better. It doesn’t seem to matter whether it’s a scrapbook page, a handmade card, a new bracelet, or a knitted scarf.  Keeping my hands busy and during a pile of raw materials into a finished project is immensely satisfying – even when I make a mistake or the item doesn’t turn out quite like I had hoped.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been working on updating the gallery pages at LoveToKnow Scrapbooking. It’s a project I really should be more diligent about completing, but the process of photographing, scanning, and uploading layouts is quite time consuming. Anyway, you can check out  Baby and Children Scrapbooking Projects and  Holiday Scrapbooking Projects to see some of my favorite pages.

For me, looking at my pages in an online gallery is an interesting experience. With pages from different years mixed together, I keep noticing small ways my scrapbooking style continues to evolve. Of course, there is also the fun of seeing how my son has grown so much! (He’ll be four on Thanksgiving!)

With the state of the economy the way it is, I’m trying to force myself to hold off on new craft-related purchases. On one hand, I really do have too much “stuff” in my supply stash. But, one of the things that always seems to inspire me is the purchase of cool new products. So, it’s quite the dilemma.

I’ve come to the conclusion that this recession will probably have a significant impact on the scrapbooking industry as a whole. It’s hard for people to give up scrapbooking entirely, but I definitely think everyone will be more frugal. Just from my own experiences and those of my friends who scrapbook, overpriced embellishments are out and understated pages with accents you make yourself are in. Cardstock layouts with brads and eyelets are fairly cheap to make, as are pages that incorporate digital scrapbooking freebies. Until the economy picks up, I predict you’ll be seeing a lot more of the “clean and simple” scrapbooking style.

Do you think it’s possible to “burn out” from a hobby? I’ve been scrapbooking since 2002, but lately I just haven’t felt particularly inspired. Plus, between my freelance writing business, the purchase of our first home, and chasing around one super active toddler, I’m just exhausted at the end of the day. Getting my creative energy back has proven to be quite a challenge.

I think another issue that’s contributing to the problem is that I have so much stuff! When you’ve been accumulating supplies for six years, you end up with lots of cardstock, patterned paper, and embellishments. Deciding what to use and when to use it is a job in itself.

I am trying to make handmade Christmas cards, however. Hopefully, this tiny project will be enough to get me back into the scrapbooking spirit!