Working toward my scrapping goal

23 February 2009

Page Kits

Well, I'm nearly to the big 5-0. Pages, that is. (Psha! I'm nowhere near fifty years old. Okay, more than halfway. And not that there's anything wrong with being fifty, it's just that I'm not there. Yet.) I also need to add that all of these pages have been scrapped in the past week. I realize that I have quite a bit of time on my hands for scrapbooking, but I also have been caring for my niece (8ish months old) and my nearly-five-year old, as well as basic chores, and tackling an extremely cluttered garage, spending quite a bit of time there. And the afternoons bring my older two kids home, so... life is busy, too. :) The following is how I've managed to create this many pages in a week.

Anyway. 48 pages and counting. I've no idea if I'm going to make my page total goal this year, and I know I didn't last year, which was something of a bummer. On the other hand, I still did well, and I'm still wondering exactly where I'm putting all of these layouts. *laugh* Granted a huge chunk of the layouts I did were 8x8s for the kids, and when you see the albums (two of which are utilizing the Snapload system), you can easily see how I managed 400-some-odd pages two years ago. (Boy, was I ever on a roll that year!) Even if I don't make it to 365 pages, I'm scrapping in a smart way right now, and that's by making page kits first.

Page kits are simple to make and even better to have. How does one make a page kit?, one might wonder. Well, as I said, they're simple. Start with photos/subject or paper and then add the elements you'll be using on the page. Include photos and paper, but don't forget to add embellishments, and I'd highly recommend, for further time saving, journaling on scratch paper so that you just have to copy it as you go. (Or you could even have it printed out and ready to slap on the pages.) Slide it all into a large plastic bag (2-gallon bags will fit 12x12 paper, I believe). Voila! You're ready to put that page together.

Seriously. It saves oodles of time. Many people only have a short period of time during which they can actively scrap. If you can take a half an hour or an hour to put together some pages kits, then when you have that half hour or hour, you won't be spending the vast majority (or all) of it trying to decide on papers and embellishments; you'll have it all at your fingertips.

I think the only downside for me is that when I scrap this way, I forget to use all of my non-paper embellishments. Since part of my goal this year is to use as much of my hoard as possible, obviously a large chunk of my stash is still (figuratively) collecting dust. So my goal for the next set of page kits I make (coming up on Wednesday, I suspect) will be to include some of these embellishments.

Tomorrow I'll try to remember to update this post with a photo of a page kit and its pieces.

P.S. I'll also try to upload some photos of recent pages.

17 February 2009

Blog-Crazy

Yes, I am. I admit it. I mean, I suppose I'm not as blog-crazy as some people out there, but for someone who rarely remembers to blog, hasn't been blogging for very long, and tries to not spend too much time online (hah!--what a joke, right?), I sure have collected quite an amount of blogs. I'd like to pare the list on the right (over there somewhere, see?--->), but I just can't. Why? Because this is how I keep track of whether I've looked at them recently or not. I just can't keep track otherwise. Please don't think that I value each of these blogs and bloggers less for not being able to always remember who is who (except in certain cases, like my fellow Yahoo Group members, or non-scrapping blogs), because I really do cherish each and every one of them. And to you bloggers, the ones who actually peek at my blog now and again, even when I post nothing of real interest, know that even if I'm not commenting, I'm trying to check all of the blogs on a somewhat regular basis. I try to comment, but don't always find the time.

As some of the younger crowd have taken to doing: MUAH! As I'd do instead *kiss* Love you all!

13 February 2009

Most recent swap items

Figured I'd post them now before I bag them all and prepare them for sending (Tuesday). It's going to be a fairly briefly-worded posting, 'cause I'm pretty tired.

First we have the Dragons group items: photo box, journal box (and a close photo), and handmade surprise.


Then the Unicorns group topper:



The Mermaids group topper:



The Wizards group topper and handmade surprise:


I apologize for any badly placed flashes and for blurry photos. I've been taking these at night in my living room, and there just isn't very good lighting for photos. Anyway, I hope you all like these; I had fun making them. :)

Create a font from your own handwriting

While my husband browsed his usual websites, he found a post about this great site, YourFonts.com, which creates a font from your handwriting, for free if you use their online version. Not only is it awesome that they make it for you, but it's incredibly simple to do as well!

You go to their website, print the template(s) (one if you just want basic letters and numbers, and the second if you want special characters), and then use a black pen (I used a Sharpie ultrafine point, I believe) to write each of the letters within the boxes. I did have to redo each template page once, because I'm usually really bad with my handwriting, especially when I can't make any errors and am using a pen.

And now... a sample of my font. :) I hope you all enjoy this terrific program!
Thank you, YourFont!

02 February 2009

Blog Sweeties, anyone?

Going Buggy has some blog candy up! Wonderful blog and work that she does. So... if you're going there, be sure to check out the rest of her blog, 'cause it rocks!