Scrap Happy Days

For me, part of the joy of scrapbooking is sharing my pages with others. I suppose that is largely the point, but my little ritual includes sharing finished pages with Brent for his review in much the way a little kid brings his mom his art projects (speaking of which I may have driven off with B's art still on the top of my car today..hmm...). In pursuit of sharing the fun, I've included some of my recent pages below.

This pre-baby phase has been very good for my scrapbooking. What is also helping is my tentative adoption of the Photo Freedom approach found in Stacy Julian's book of the same name. After an initial freak-out about the absence of chronology and the precision of the filing system it actually makes sense for me. Largely, this is because 1) all your photos are in albums so you can see them whether scrapbooked or not and 2) you are never "behind." I just scrap whatever I feel like that day regardless of the timeline and pop it in the book of the coresponding category without worrying that I "have" to do this other page first. As you'll see in the below there are some pages here from February 2008 and some from this summer so a delightful mix. I love being able to flip through my pictures again after most of them have been sitting in storage boxes for way too long.

The other thing that is really helping is The Best of Becky Higgins' Sketches. I have loved her sketch's in Creating Keepsakes and this book is great as they are all organized by the number of pictures they contain and very accessible. I use a lot of the templates, but due to differences in embellishments, pictures, papers, etc... the finished product is still uniquely my own. As I don't have much formal art-type training I think this book has improved the balance, flow, and general "feel" of many of my pages versus the ones I cobble from scratch. It also encourages me to plan before I cut which is helpful. Not all my pages come from here now, but it is a frequent starting place and I am so pleased with the results. Hope you're finding some creative time too!