Teens, babies and organization.

The weather here is still really cold, so it was pretty easy to stay huddled inside and do a lot of scrapbooking this weekend. With four kids - and 13 years of scrapbooking that only happened hit-and-miss - I could do this 24 hours a day for quite some time before I ran out of things to document or stories to tell on paper. So, I've been jumping from project to project pretty frequently.
After doing several baby and family focused layouts, I decided I needed one that would reflect my teenage son and where he's at right now. So, I handed him my camera and told him I wanted 5 photos that would tell a complete stranger pretty much everything Karstin wanted them to know about him. This is what I got and what I did with it ...


 
Pretty cool, eh?? It will be fun to look back at someday, because he did a great job taking photos... this really is KARSTIN.
I also decided to get going on Danica's scrapbook, since she only had one layout in it compared to her sister, who has about 40! Here's what I did this weekend...

Yesterday I decided to take a break from actually scrapbooking and get organized. If you could see my computer files, you would know why. I had digital kits scattered in about 5 different places on 3 different hard drives. Not easy to find - and really hard to know what I had to choose from. So, I put everything in one file, cleaned it all up by creating consistent folders and labeling, backed it all up on one of my external hard drives, then imported everything into Shoebox, which makes it super easy to view and sort all of those papers, tags, alphabets, etc.
It took 5 or 6 hours to get it all done, but I'm sure glad I did. Now I can focus on the fun part of scrapbooking without all of that frustration!

Inspired to stay inside & scrapbook!

We woke up this morning to a new blanket of snow ... very pretty but most enjoyed from inside the house. It's days like these when I really appreciate that I am able to work from home with my little ones. I'm also very glad our appointment in Billings (2 hours away) was yesterday, as I am NOT a fan of winter driving or traveling.

Came home with a couple great finds yesterday after a quick trip to Target. One is a really cool "notebinder" that is going to be home to the "idea catcher" I am starting to help me get the ideas out of my head and onto paper where I hopefully won't lose them! This little binder is made of some kind of flexible plastic and has pockets for index-card sized items, larger transparent sleeves and dividers, three-ring paper and graph paper, etc. It's perfect for my plans! Will share more about this as it comes together.
I also found some great little items from the Real Simple line that I
plan to turn into mini albums. One is a business card sized "card
wheel" with clear pockets intended for business cards (I'm envisioning photos...) and the other is a similar wheel with larger sized cards in
place of the pockets. Lots of inspiration coming from those!!
 



 

An easy way to save those holiday cards, letters and photos

I discovered a great new use for one of my kitchen gadgets and just had to share.

Every year, we get a nice stack of holiday cards, letters and photos, which, of course, I want to save. But I usually end up tossing them into a drawer for "later" and, well, later never quite comes. So, this year I decided (with the help of my word of the year - BEGIN) to actually DO something with those holiday wishes.

I have now started a scrapbook album devoted exclusively to our holiday cards and letters. Nothing too fancy - it's basically a binder with clear protective pages where I can slip each item into. All of the items for each year go in one section and I'll add cute index pages for each year once I have a chance to visit a scrapbook supply store. I used a white binder with a clear cover, so when I have time, I can make a cute holiday-themed "cover" to slip inside the front, back and spine "pockets."

The part I wanted to share is how I created the inside pockets for the items that are smaller than a standard-sized page. We don't have any suppliers in our area that offer more than your basic 8.5x11-inch protector. And I wanted a way to store smaller sized photos and cards without using a whole protector page for each. I knew (from experience!) if I wait until I could go shopping for specialized pages, the project would never get started. So, I used my vacuum heat sealer from the kitchen to create my own pockets on the pages.

I enjoy freezer cooking and was fortunate to receive a Foodsaver Professional III sealer last year for Christmas. But I'm guessing just about any sealer would work if it has the option of sealing without "vacuuming." Basically, I just laid my protector page in the sealer where I wanted a side seam and then used the manual seal option on setting 3 for heat sealing time. I sealed the top of the page closed, then added seams to make smaller pockets within, depending on what specific items I wanted to put in each page. To make openings to slide the items in, I then used my rotary paper cutter and removed the original seam from one side of the page. It worked really well and I plan to use this method again for my other scrapbooking projects, especially when I'm in a hurry and don't want to wait for an order of special pocket pages to arrive by mail.

Now that this album is started, it should be easy next year to just add another section. Plus, this will make it much easier to go back from year to year and see how people have changed!