21 May 2013

I amaze myself......

Early last month I had a fantastic evening of sticking things to paper! A couple of scrapbook pages nearly completed whilst listening to the latest podcast from the Roundtable.The interesting thing was which photos I chose to scrap. I have 12 months + of photos of my LO, an album of weddings that  just need papers picking and stuff sticking, and various ephemera  piled neatly on my desk. But I chose to scrap a couple of my nephew from 2011.

The reason for this selection is my new journaling scheme. I have to pick and choose when I sit down in my room to scrap, balanced against all my other hobbies and my housewifely/motherly/social obligations. But I do have a lot of time for just sitting down and writing out journaling. So its not hard for me to look at a picture and decide on what story I wish to tell, write that story in a notepad and then pop the note and the photo in a expanding file and move on to the next one. I have an accordian file for holding my photos and journalling, and any work that I had done on my titles or other ephemera. So, on this particular evening, when I had the time to sit and scrap in my room, I was able to go to the first section, pull out the photo, title and journalling and get down to work.

I was trying to just create a page so I didn't think too hard about what background I wanted, I picked a nice green textured piece of card that matched with the grass colour of the picture, made a lovely yellow sun for the corner, matched up ribbon for the bunting title and then stuck and wrote. And its a good page, not sensational but it is good and fits the mood of the picture in the colour choices and composition. It needs something else and I don't know yet quite what that is, but not wanting to get bogged down, I have mentally marked it as "not quite finished" and it was headed for storage in my nephews album. And here comes the part that amazed me.

The photos are from a weekend in April 2011, when we had really lovely weather. That time particularly sticks in my mind as we had 2 BBQ's at my mum's house in the space of 2 weeks as the weather was so fine and I took loads of pictures at both. All the pages that I have scrapped so far are in very primary shades of Red, Yellow, Green and Blue, some patterns but mostly blocks of colour, because these are the colours that jump out at me. They are such a good match of colours across the pages that I can to put them into their own album to remember that special time. And this has now helped me when I chose to get the others finished as I know the palettes that I will be using. Obviously the pages will be different and some from these weekends wont match and so wont go into this album. But its such a good starting point that I have subconciously made for myself, that it re-inforces my faith that I do enjoy this hobby and have some aptitude for it, even though I can't make much time any more for the sticking and the writing.

20 May 2013

Paperclipping RoundTable 132 - Pause for a thought

I was listening to this episode of the Paperclipping RoundTable today whilst driving to and from work. It was just a random back-episode I had stashed to listen to but like many, it really spoke to me about what I do when I scrap and why.

One of my latest revelations/realisations is that my scrapping is a memory keeping excercise, just in a pretty format. And listening to the "professionals" on PRT has helped show me that this is ok. I don't have to make pages full of embellishments and blank space if I want pages full of journaling and photos.

A key point that came up was about style and that scrappers seem to think that having a set style is a negative thing. I know that I suffer from this impression, I think I should be trying every different style and technique and that no two pages should be the same. Yet, I know that if I looked now, I would see quite similar layouts. The only thing that is different now is that I won't see this as a bad thing. 

The guests on PRT mention President Obama's trick of having suits for designated days so as not to waste "decision making power" on trivial things. I really identified with this idea that you have a limited amount of DMP in your day, and although I do not have the same kind of pressure as the leader of the free world, I would like to cut down on the guilt that interferes with my creativity. 

So no more guilt about pages that look similar. If I like them, then thats enough. And to link in with a phrase for May's OLW prompt,

"I shall balance the excitement of experimentation with the comfort of the familiar" 

Love Elliefantasy

xxx

10 May 2013

Big Leap Forward....

.... but no sticking??

Today I finished my photobook of LO's first year. It is jam packed of photos and has loads little comments detailing the who, what, where, when and whys. All that needs doing is a final proof read by OH and then we can hit the finish button. And in 5 days time we will have a lovely memento of LO's first year in a handy, slim volume, ready to pull out for guests with the option of easily made copies for grandparents.

I could have scrapped it all, and I have got a half finished book of the first month, which might just become the first 2 weeks. It is important as it contains a lot of ephemera.

But for most of the pictures taken in the 12 months there isn't much of a story other than what we did or who we were with. Or, in a lot of cases, who the person was that brought the thing in the picture. It needs remembering but I'm not sure it needs patterned paper or alphas etc.

I am coming to a point where I want my scrapped pages to be about feelings and impressions. If I have managed to squeeze out time to stick and cut, I want to find a bit more time to describe and discuss.

So now I have found a way to do both. Yes, it has taken me a few evenings, but it was fun to remember all the.different events and focus my mind on the stories that might have a little more behind them. And with a nice discount coupon to redeem, it leaves more money in the pot for real stash!

Do you use photobooks or have an alternative way to keep your pics that works alongside your scrapping? I'd love to hear them

Love Elliefantasy