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.