A good friend of mine has been talking about scrapping forever. She is one of those people that has all the stuff, but never does it. That’s OK, I don’t judge. I love shopping for scrapbooking stuff. In fact, when I took a year off from scrapbooking when my second child was born, I still went shopping for scrapbooking stuff when I had no real intent of using it anytime soon.
Today, we got together to scrap. I invited her over to my place to share my supplies (although she brought some of her own) and told her to bring some pictures. We threw our kids in the playroom (not literally of course) and we got busy. She finished four layouts, I finished two. I had a lot of fun scrapbooking with her because she is so new to scrapbooking. For me, it is fun to get together with people that don’t normally scrapbook and help them with their pages. Here are some things I realized that might be good tips for the budding scrapbook artist:
1. Don’t stress. You can’t worry too much about perfection in scrapbooking. There are plenty of pages in my past that I look back at and laugh at. I don’t like them anymore, but I was learning! You have to give yourself a break. I had to repeat this over and over to her. Here is an easy way to scrapbook.
2. It doesn’t matter what I like, what matters is what YOU like. This friend kept asking me, “Should I put this here?” “Is it OK to do this?” I kept saying…well, “Do YOU like it?” It finally clicked with her that she just had to do what she liked, not what others might like.
3. There are no rules in scrapbooking. There really aren’t. It is a creative art, so you can’t judge someone for their own art! It’s what they love, and feel, and find beautiful. So, if you like it when your photos don’t overlap, and I like it when they do….that’s OK! Both ways are great.
4. Get a space at home that is your scrap space. Even if it is tiny, having all your stuff ready to go will make it easier to sit down at scrap. Check out my scrap space here.
5. Have Fun! I believe if you aren’t having fun scrapbooking, then you aren’t doing something right. You have to let your hair down and have fun. Check out my article: Scrapbooking Is Supposed to Be Fun for more ideas to have more fun scrapping.
She walked away feeling so proud of herself for accomplishing 4 layouts. It took us almost all day, but we had great day. Hopefully this will inspire her to keep scrapping! Because the hardest part is just getting started.