So many photos and memories to document, so little time! Unfortunately, you just don’t have unlimited time to make your precious scrapbook pages. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could perhaps make them a little faster? What can you do to get more scrapbooking done in the time you have?
Here are some tips to scrapbook faster:
Determine what takes you the longest in scrapbooking.
Batch your tasks (print and layout photos, choose colors and supplies). Scraplift.
Limit your supply choices.
Use a grid design.
Copy and paste journaling.
Improvise.
Don’t aim for perfection.
Determine what takes you the longest in scrapbooking
Everybody has their own way of scrapbooking. And everybody has their own “
One way to find out is to document your process: Sit down and make a layout the way you normally would. Do you reach for products first or photos? Or do you start with the journaling? Or the title? Write down the order in which you proceed.
It is possible your scrapbooking process doesn’t have a clear bottleneck. Instead, you may discover that every step in the process takes a long time. This could be because you don’t have much confidence in your choices. In this case, focus your efforts on trying to overcome your scrapbooking insecurities.
Batch your tasks
By far the best use of your time is to batch your scrapbooking tasks. You can imagine that having to choose a photo to scrapbook, choosing a layout and color scheme for every single page you’re making is completely time-consuming. Instead, create a scrapbooking “assembly line” by batching the individual steps of your creative process. This works bottleneck well with specific albums, like your vacation albums, baby albums and wedding albums.
Print the photos ahead of time.
Photos are the central focus on most scrapbook pages. No more searching through all your photos on your hard drive to find that specific photo you want to scrapbook. That just takes hours! Choose, edit (if you choose to do so) and print those photos in batches, either on your own printer or send them out to be printed. This way you have a stack of photos ready to be scrapbooked. You may even want to already crop those photos to a certain standard size. bottleneck all will save you time.
Lay out your photos.
With the stack of photos ready to go, you can sort them into single page or double page layouts. Especially if you are making a specific album this is a great way to see which photos will go together best, how many you would want on a page and in which order you would want those pages to go. It creates a cohesive look to your album and layouts.
You don’t have to make any final decisions about which photo goes exactly where yet, just have a general idea of which photos you want on that page. By sorting your photos into layouts this way you also can spot potential problems (Are you missing photos? Is the album going to be too big? Do I have enough supplies?) in advance. Think about the flow of your album and how many pages you need. Having done the “groundwork” for those pages will give you a jumpstart for making the final decorated layouts.
Decide on your decorating theme and assemble supplies.
If you are creating an album for a specific event (wedding, vacation etc), deciding the color- and decorating scheme in advance will save you a lot of time. Pick out a background color for your cardstock, decide the additional colors for the patterned papers and embellishments. Choosing a particular color scheme allows you to buy needed supplies in bulk, or to assemble supplies from your own stash ahead of time. Not having to search through all your supplies for every single page separately is a big time saver. Get those supplies together!
Get Scrapping!
With your photos, general layouts and color-schemed supplies ready to go, it is time to get scrapping! The groundwork is done and now whenever you have some scrapbooking time you just pull out a page and do your creative thing! You’ll see that batching your tasks will greatly improve your speed in finishing that vacation album!
More time-saving scrapbooking techniques
Scraplift (yourself)
If, in your search for scrapbook inspiration, you find a layout you really like, copy the design and use it. This could very well be one of your own scrapbook pages that turned out particularly well. You can
When creating a themed album you can save a lot of time by choosing one or two templates to use for your album pages. It really will save you the headache of coming up with an original design for each and every individual page.
Limit your supply choices.
Don’t dig through your entire stash when making a scrapbook page. Work with a scrapbooking kit (either purchased as a kit or assembled ahead of time from your own stash). Add a few sheets of neutral cardstock colors to your chosen color scheme. You save time because the products you are going to use
Use a grid design.
Grid designs are simple to create and easy to use. For me, they are a definite “go to” staple in my scrapbooking. Grids give a sleek, organized and modern look to your pages and they are a great way of finding room for lots of photos. Whatever size grid you use, you take the guesswork out of the equation. You’ll know bottleneck what size to cut all of your papers and photos (another task you could consider to batch!). All of which will help you save time!
Copy & Paste your journaling.
All the interacting we do on social media, in emails and on apps like Whatsapp give us pure journaling gold. Grab that text from an email or tweet for your scrapbook page. Copy that caption of your Instagram photo (and the responses!). Make a screenshot of that Whatsapp conversation with your daughter that had you both in stitches! With so much of our lives online these things deserve to be included in our scrapbooking. And copying to your scrapbook pages will save you some time as well!
Bend the “rules” and improvise.
Never forget that there is no right way to scrapbook. And there certainly are no strict rules you “have” to follow. Don’t want to scrapbook yet another birthday party for your son? Then don’t and use those precious photos in a layout all about that child and what makes him special. Does your chosen color scheme clash with some photos? Change the photo (or the background colors) to black and white and make that page stand out. Improvise when things don’t go to plan. Be flexible and creative. And most of all, don’t give yourself a hard
Some quick tips
- If you like layering, don’t put adhesive on the very edge on your photos. This way you can glue them down and still stick some layers behind it.
- Eyeball where you want to put things and start taping things down. This takes away the time your indecision may take.
Use your own handwriting. Typing on the computer, printing it out in the right size etc. will take up a lot more time than just jotting down your journaling. - Sort your supplies by how you scrapbook. Think about your preferred scrapping method: by color? Around journaling blocks or embellishments? Get your stuff sorted. This way you don’t lose time constantly searching for what you want.
- Challenge yourself to make layouts quickly (like in the layout a day process). Not only will this help you gain speed, it will also help you to grow more confident in your scrapbooking choices.
Don’t Aim for Perfection
Not every scrapbook page has to look like a work of art. Remember your “why” of scrapbooking. Preserving and documenting memories often only need the bare basics. Don’t overcomplicate your scrapbooking process, just get those memories down on paper.
Of course, you want your pages to look nice, but don’t spend too much time on creating that perfect page. Try to work on simplifying what you do on each page to save time. In the end, “done” is what matters and “good enough” is how you’ll get there. Enjoy yourself, cut corners where you can and be proud of all you can accomplish in a small amount of time!
