Scrappy Blues

About 11 months ago I went to England and Belgium for almost 2 weeks.  This past weekend I finally completed my scrapbook of those photos.  I certainly hope that happens to other people.  Because I was feeling like quite a slacker.  In all honesty, I had some trouble with it because I was overwhelmed.  I took over 900 photos over 12 days.  That's a lot of editing, printing and situating (my term for what I do when I attempt to scrapbook.)  And since that time I had taken 8 trips to NYC, 1 trip to Texas, celebrated Christmas, and took a trip to the ocean that I also wanted to document.  #Overwhelming

In this ridiculous process of "finishing" the album, aka starting with a plan, scrapping that plan after a month, starting with another plan, then also tossing that plan and finally deciding on the simple option, I learned a few things.

For one, I'm apparently neurotic and slightly obsessive compulsive. Who starts a scrapbook 3 different times?  This girl right here. I originally started with a 12x12 but quickly decided that even though I had 900 pictures, only like 100 were actually good, so there was going to be a lot of filler in the 12x12.  So then I moved on to a 6x8 which was a lot more manageable. But then I also wanted to edit my photos, which is mind-numbingly annoying when using PicMonkey. So I actually relied a lot on my cell phone pics to make up a majority of the album - PicTapGo + My trusty Canon Selphy really made that process so much easier.  So - Lesson 1 I guess is - Don't mess with simple.  If it's overwhelming, then it's not fun any more.  

Secondly, even though I had the best of intentions taking journaling cards with me to write about the trip in the moment, I was much too busy enjoying the trip to take the time to write.  Also, when I did have the time, i.e. on trains, planes and automobiles, the journey was much too bumpy or cramped to spread out and write. While it's best to scrapbook on the go, it's not always practical.  I suggest just taking some notes on things that need to be remembered on your phone, and then writing them down when you get back home. What there was time and space to do though was to edit photos on my phone.  Getting them done a little at a time, instead of one enormous batch was so much easier to handle.  Then printing was a breeze. Lesson 2: Technology is your friend.

Invest in some journaling cards designed by In a Creative Bubble.  She's amazing and makes super simple and super cute journaling cards for travel as well as every day life.  All you need to do print them out and fill them in.  And they look fabulous in an album.  My 3rd lesson: Apparently I like simple designs.

Lastly, as much as I love to scrapbook, and as much as I enjoy looking at everyone else's albums, my friends do not.  I just spent months of my life making it perfect, and only close family actually wants to see it.  Unfortunately, my friends are not crafters making them simultaneously a pain in my neck and no fun when it comes to showing off.  Lesson 4: Get crafty friends!

And one last lesson I learned just as I was writing this post - I need better lighting in the room in which I took these photos of my album.  I promise they looked better on the phone screen...