How to Scrapbook when your a busy gal

Most every gal I know is behind in her scrapbooking (well, those that do this sorta thing). The number one obstacle I hear from my gal pals and myself is. "We're too busy, and scrapbooking requires soo much time". Busy + huge time commitment=No scrapbooking.

I hope to give you a few simple solutions to get you back in the swing of scrappin.

First off, set realistic expectations. I would love to have each of my pages look like they belongs in a professional scrapbooking magazine, but this desire was actually keeping me from moving forward as I didn't have what I needed to make it happen. Unrealistic expectations were my number one obstacle. Once I decided it was more meaningful to me that our family's personal history books be made it instead of having each page look like it came from a magazine I moved into action.

We're moving onto #2. Use an album that comes with the top loading plastic sleeves. I used to only use a famous scrapbooking brand with paper bound pages. I love the quality of it, but the pages limited me tremendously. Let me explain further. If you use the plastic top loading pages, you have the freedom to start scrappin with any pictures that inspire you. Once the page is created, it simply slips into the plastic page. Easy breezy. Done. After you've scrapped some more and the order of your pages need to be rearranged, no problem....if you have plastic sleeve pages. Here is where the benefit really kicks in. The plastic sleeves lets you move pages around to create the flow you desire, but the paper pages restrict you. Once pictures are mounted on paper bound pages the order/sequence cannot be changes, resulting in awkward transitions and pictures being out of order. Hopefully I've made my case.

Solution #3. Buy decorative, pretty paper the size of your plastic sleeve pages. Many hours are spent on decorating plain paper. The busy gal is better off spending those hours putting pictures down and journaling. The decorative paper requires less embellishments to look good. Pictures might only require some matting, but often the paper is enough and the picture can simply be mounted on the decorative paper. That's another benefit of pretty paper, often enough it can stand alone.

Lastly, and I already mentioned it in passing, is start with pictures that inspire and excite you. Once you start, the momentum will keep you going.

At the end you will see 9 pages I completed in one afternoon. I was happily amazed because I used to go to scrapbook parties for 6 hrs. No joke. I would come home having two, maybe three pages completed. Why? I was spending all my time decorating a page and adding embellishments. Now, if I want to add stickers, flowers, or what ever later on, there's no stopping me. I'll even have a better idea of what works best within the page.

Hope this helps all you busy gals.