Many times people get so busy during the holidays, that they forget to take time for themselves. This is actually what leads to stress and anxiety during the holiday season. With a hobby like ours, scrapbooking, we have a wonderful way to combat the stress and anxiety. Here are a few tips to be sure that you are busy scrapbooking through the entire holiday season.
Make Time – This cannot be said enough. You have to set time aside to scrapbook. Even if you can only accomplish one page, or you only have enough time to gather the pictures and supplies together, that is alright. Just keeping yourself focused on your hobby can do wonders on your mood.
Put Yourself In The Mood – One of my favorite methods to get into not only the spirit of Christmas, but to be able to scrapbook the miracles at Christmas is to put myself in the mood. Turn on some soft, Christmas music, light a gingerbread or other Christmas scented candle, grab a hot cup of coffee or hot chocolate and pull out your pictures. Looking at pictures from Christmas’ past, can evoke a whole range of precious memories and emotions. Sometimes just doing this will get you right into the mood. Side note: Please be careful with the coffee and hot chocolate around your precious photos and albums!
Take A Break – If you find yourself getting frustrated with your current layout, take a break. Either browse some idea books for inspiration, or get out of the scrapbooking mode entirely. Trying to force yourself to scrapbook is not a good mood altering tool. In fact, if anything it will have an adverse effect on your mood. So take a break, stretch your legs, hey – take this opportunity to go grab your hot cup of coffee from the table across the room and sip. Inspiration can and will hit at any time. Just relax and allow it to come.
For Every Store Shopped – Make a deal with yourself. For every store (online or brick and mortar) shopped, plan to create a layout. Or simply challenge yourself to do something scrapbook related. It can be as simple as organizing your supplies, preparing a few page kits that you can assemble later, spending some time on your journaling or simply looking through your albums.
The holidays are a hard time to scrapbook. With the hustle, bustle and activities during this time of year, often our scrapbooks take a back seat. But don’t let that happen to you! Use the above tips to stay focused through the entire season.
Do you have any great ideas on scrapbooking through the holidays?