A little bit more . . .

I began scrapbooking as a teenager, and it is by far my favorite creative activity. I vary between simple & straight-forward "get-it-done" pages and more detailed, intricate designs. While I enjoy digital album-making, I absolutely love holding beautiful, smooth paper, photos and scissors in my hands and creating traditional layouts from scratch (or scrap-lifting great ideas that others share!). And my kids pore over the scrapbooks I've made - especially my oldest's baby book (I'm still working on my younger two - 13 years later!).

I'm a homeschooling mom of 3 teens, and my husband is a pastor. Our calendar is full, so I scrapbook slowly - in the margins of life. Sometimes my pages are simple (Full Album Kits & Fast2Fab Albums & Refill Pages are lifesavers for this!). Oftentimes, though, I find that slowing down and playing with our Creative Memories punches and tools to create more detailed layouts is good for my brain and soul. Working with the colors and combining shapes, photos and words help me be more focused and loving in the rest of my life and relationships.

Sometimes I journal alot- like in my kids' baby books - that I'm still working on 13 years later. Other times, just a little caption under a photo is enough. And then there are the pages that are 90% writing, with very few, if any, photos.

I make a lot of samples with ideas to share with others who are also scrapbooking, and so I have a lot of unfinished pages, just waiting to add photos. And eventually . . . those pages get their photos and end up in a album. I've figured out that an album in process, even with just a few pages finished, is a good visual landing ground to organize the years and stories of my family's life (out of my head!). As I find photos on my phone that beg to be printed out, the finally-finished page is ready to go straight into its album home.