As you will know if you are a regular reader, I have been on a mission to organize my crafting space this year and I am purposefully tackling it in a slow, mindful manner. I want the systems I implement to make the most sense for how I create, how I think, how my space functions, and to allow for maximum future satisfaction.
Our blog team has taken the Clutterbug Quiz and we’ve all talked about our results in posts over this year. Scroll down the main Blog page and you’ll see post after post full of great tips and tricks for how to sort, organize, and store your stash. But this post is about a different type of stash that you may have overlooked. I know I have! Let me explain …
I’ve sorted through my stamps, dies, stencils and embossing folders. I’ve sorted through and completely reorganized my 12×12 papers. And I’ve figured out better storage systems for both what I use all the time and need to have handy, and what I use occasionally and need to have tucked away but visible and categorized.
My new systems are working really well for me and I’m able to create layouts with ease now. Everything is close to hand and with minimal searching I can find what I need. Except for one thing …
I have a different kind of clutter dilemma that is hampering my creativity and I’m wondering if you have this same problem too…
Loose Layouts!
There’s a saying that goes “loose lips sink ships”, well I think “loose layouts sink scrapbooks”!
When Alice and I chatted for a recent podcast episode I referenced these boxes of layouts. For me, these represent stories I’ve told but haven’t “published” (i.e put into albums so people can actually admire them) and therefore haven’t mentally marked off as completed. This leaves them in a kind of limbo and makes them a roadblock to telling future stories.
When I am given a prompt or an assignment, I generally look through my most recent photos and pick something that will work. Sometimes this results in an incredible story that I may have forgotten about, or not planned to tell just then. Sometimes this can result in a beautiful artistic layout where I’ve played with a fun technique or product. But typically, it results in something ‘nice’. The layout usually looks good (if I do say so myself), has photos and journaling, but it is lacking something really important. THE STORY! It may document a moment, but it doesn’t move my story forward in the way I really want my scrapbooking to. In the way Alice and I talked about on the podcast.
What’s a girl to do?
Start at the Beginning
Before I even get to the how of my sorting plan, it’s worth going even further back. Alice has a fantastic podcast episode that you all really need to listen to. I just re-listened to it and it has once again helped me find the focus I need for this project. Because this is not a quick, done in a weekend, type project. I plan to take a few months (I’m giving myself until the end of August) to systematically look at, sort through, and re-evaluate the stories I’ve told so I know which stories I need to tell next.
What is the podcast episode all about? What is your why?
Your ‘why’ can be whatever you need it to be at any given moment in your life. And there are no Scrapbooking Police who will throw you in Scrapbooking jail if your why isn’t the same as mine. (I was going to say “as important as mine” as if there are some reasons that are more important than others and that’s simply not true! Your why is important to you which makes it just as important as my why, or Alice’s why, or your neighbour’s why! Okay, now that that’s sorted, let’s get on with the rest of this post.)
Through my many conversations with Alice, and because I am now regularly interacting with other ScrapHappy members in our monthly Zoom chats, I have realized that I have not been scrapbooking according to my why. As I said above, I’ve been making perfectly acceptable layouts (some that are really cool IMHO) but they lack depth. They have fallen into the “we went to the park and had a nice time” category. I desire to go beyond the basics now and tell stories that will allow my girls to get to know me better.
And here’s my why in one photo …
I lost my Mum and Dad in a car accident when I was 14 years old. I have boxes and boxes of photos and slides with little to no story or context. My aunts and uncles and family friends have filled in many gaps for which I am eternally grateful, but I want to leave a better legacy for my girls. A more complete story.
Will I be able to scrapbook every photo and tell every story from my life and theirs before I am no longer able to scrapbook? No. But I can try to make the layouts I do create more meaningful than “we went to the park and had a nice time”. And this brings me back to those loose layouts and my roadblock, and my plan to handle both of these as I move forward in my why.
Start by Taking Stock of What's There
Confession time! There are layouts in these boxes that were in albums but I took them out to reorganize that particular story and they never made it back into an album! Gasp! Are you sensing a theme here? Well, take a look at this video and you will see that this little layout problem is not a new one for me!
I’ve also got a notebook addiction – are there any 12 step programs for that?
As you saw in the video, I’ve roughly organized my layouts into piles for each kid (3), family stories, vacations, me, our dog Scout, and then a miscellaneous pile. That miscellaneous pile contains layouts that are perfectly lovely (for the most part) but are perhaps stories that don’t need to live forever in my albums. One is about a bird that got trapped in my store. Now, could I keep it in the section of my life story that deals with my adventure of owning a store? For sure, and I may decide to do just that. But I’m also totally okay with letting it go. The process of making it was fun. It’s been photographed and posted in a LOAD gallery so it will live on. The paper copy could be tossed and I’d never miss it.
These are decisions future me needs to worry about! LOL
Let’s look at my notebook and talk about next steps.
Write it Down or it Doesn't Happen!
Now that I’ve looked at each of the layouts in my eldest daughter Marley’s pile, and written down notes about each one, I can move on to the next step which is to get her albums and see where these layouts slot in. It’s possible that her albums are full though, in which case I will add more to my shopping list and make a note to that effect here.
Let’s take a look at her albums …
As you saw, I’ve currently got 3 albums that deal solely with Marley. The first one in the video was the result of my first crack at organizing my story and I am immensely proud of the 3 albums I made for each of my daughters. They are a succinct snapshot of their first year of life. Each album has a beginning, middle, and end like any good story should. That is what I want for all my albums.
After the camera was turned off I jumped onto one of our ScrapHappy Together sessions (our twice monthly casual hang out times) and kept working on what was in front of me. I found the date for the choir layout. I swapped out some broken page protectors for new ones. I slotted more layouts into the two albums I have – yes they are seriously over full! And I printed off a photo and wrote some journaling to finish that layout titled “this is 18”.
Here it is all finished (I pulled the journaling card out so you can see that I actually did journal LOL)
Since I was already looking at photos from her 18th celebration, I decided to use my time during the ScrapHappy Together hang out to create a companion layout with other photos from that day. I’d already looked through my calendar to write the journaling for the first layout so didn’t feel like I needed to repeat any of those sentiments on this one.
Since I wanted it to compliment the first layout, I reached for the same stencil I’d used on that one and some Tumbled Glass Distress Oxide ink. As I was inking I remembered the most recent ScrapSchool class from Sara Scraps about embellishing a central composition with stamped flowers. Instead of stamping my flowers this time I simply used my stencil in all 4 quadrants of the page, knowing my photos and “fun things’ would go down the centre.
In the June ScrapRoom Taste of the Month kit were some papers from Shimelle’s latest collection and I felt their youthful vibe, and all those colourful cameras, would work perfectly for this story. Those colourful macarons were my inspiration actually.
Final Thoughts and Next Steps
Now that I’ve tackled one of my piles, I’m eager to tackle the rest. But as I said at the top of this post, I am allowing myself time to “do it right”. And also to not overwhelm myself.
And also because running an online yarn shop and teaching crochet classes 3-4 nights a week means that sometimes I just don’t get to play with pretty papers all day!
So what are my next steps?
– revisit the earlier pages in my notebook to see if my 2015 plan still resonates with my 2025 plan.
– keep working through each pile of layouts and each of the albums on my shelves
– figure out how many albums I need to buy to realize my vision for my stories (as I was thinking about Marley’s story I determined I need more than 2 albums so I can split up her story better – Year One special album, Birth to Kindergarten, Kindergarten to Grade 7, Grades 8 – 12, Grad, and Post Secondary is what I am now thinking I would like. Which incidentally means I’ll need those same albums for each of my daughters – Yikes!)
– find the story holes, print photos (if I have any), and store the photos with notes about the story for easy grab-and-go projects when I have an assignment to do, or am feeling creative. Creative Team member Misty has a system a bit like this that I deeply admire. I don’t think my Bee personality is quite up to the task of making it as detailed and organized as Misty’s but a girl can dream, right?
What can you take away from my journey?
1 – Take a moment to think about why you scrapbook. Is this a purely artistic hobby, or are you trying to document more than “today was a great day at the park” type stories? Remember, there are no wrong answers here, but if you have strayed from your why like I have, it’s worth regrouping and finding your way back.
2 – Revisit your albums. You don’t have to do this all in one go. Take 15 minutes a day, or 15 minutes every few days, flipping through the pages you’ve made. Alice and I did that when we met up in Edmonton recently. We both realized that a) we loved our pages and felt pretty proud of them, and b) we’d forgotten some of the stories we’d told and it was so good to read them again.
3 – Make some notes about stories you haven’t told yet. As you flip through your albums, try to notice if there are trips you haven’t documented, milestone birthdays that need more detail, funny moments that are unique to your family that you haven’t put onto a layout yet? Grab a note book and jot these ideas down. Keep that notebook next to where you create so you can reach for it the next time you don’t know what to scrapbook about. Or when that LOAD prompt stumps you.
I hope my Loose Layouts confession has inspired you to come to terms with your own layout organization (or lack thereof). I’d love to hear your ‘why’s’ in the comments. And any tips you have for making sure you tell the stories that matter to you.
I’ll be back next month with an update, and until then, Happy Scrapping!