Hey everyone!
Last Monday I was so happy to jump over my fear and be a guest on the Scrapgals podcast! Yay for being brave! Right?!
If you want to listen to the episode you'll have to register for the podcast and you can do so right here.
The episode is called Marie's dilemma and was prompted when I talked about having not scrapbooked in 3 years and being kind of lost as of where to start again.
After looking at all my already created albums/layouts, and after making some switches of some layouts that should live in different albums, I came up with the list of what I have, which is always a good starting point:
My Childhood (birth to 20 years old - right before I met my husband) | 2 albums full
Vancouver/Meeting my husband | Some layouts
Switzerland (1999 to 2010) | Some layouts
Travels (occurred while living in Switzerland + after kids) | 1 album full
Our wedding | Some layouts
Our honeymoon | Some layouts
My oldest daughter | 3 albums
My youngest daughter | 2 albums
Project Life/Day to day life | 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 (half the year)
Prague and Paris | some layouts (more than I thought)
From there, I decided to write down what I wanted to have in my library of memories, in other words, what I want to add to my collection:
Childhood
Teenage years - jobs, cars, brother, synchronized skating, Highschool - 3 schools, prom, graduation, summers with brother and friends
Vancouver - friends, family, school, private classes, activities
Wedding - civil
Wedding - religious Guests, flowers, music, colors, invitation, menu, photograph, ceremony, reception
Honeymoon - Camping trip through USA
Honeymoon - Cruise
Honeymoon - Canada with the inlaws
Honeymoon - Canada with the friends
Travel - one layout per place visited
Switzerland - moving to... German classes, friends, outings with the boys, job
Bachelor degree in Canada (4 years)
Back to Switzerland (before having my baby)
Young mom - 2 babies away from home, expat life but not really
Travel after kids (take out of family album and gather as travel instead)
Moving to USA - life in USA (other than Project Life) - moves to Farmington, Avon, NC
Prague - special stories: house, villae, school, friends, concerts/dance, city, visits, special events and visits
Paris
Travel while living again in Europe (2016-2019)
Move to Cleveland/summer (2019)
Everyday life - Covid
Since the podcast appearance and talk with the two hosts (Tiffany and Tracie), I have much more clarity as you can see by my "want-to-do list" and with clarity comes Mojo and motivation! Woohoo! I have to say that I have had Tiffany watching over my shoulder and steering me in the right direction every day of the week! lol
Here's the first layout I made and that will go into my Prague album:
Some comments in this layout:
- I had so many photos that I had to use 2 pages.
- Some photos didn't make it on the layout
- I liked playing with different size photos. I print at home and resize my photo with Photoshop.
- I was overwhelmed by the products because I haven't used any in a very long while! So I opened an armoire, grabbed a pile of stickers, chipboards, letters and just started! My intuition did the rest and knew how to guide me to the right products. I had been a 24/7 scrapbooker for 9 years after all. Can't really lose that experience it seems like!
- Starting with a white background is ALWAYS a good idea. It's a neutral canvas and you can always add more colors to it with embellishments and photos!
- When stuck, just continue.
- Sometimes, more is more ;) Trust the process. And a story told is always better than one untold! <3
Now a little bonus, coming directly from the podcast:
I talked about a layout I made about my childhood. My neighborhood and the different places making it up. Here it is with some close-ups.
I've cut out my address in black paper with my Silhouette!
I took these pictures one summer, when visiting my parents in Canada, I went back to my childhood neighborhood, 2 hours drive away!) and snapped pictures of my school, grandma's house, babysitter, etc... But you could do the same using Google Earth and screen shoting the different places of your childhood.
Stitching on a layout makes everything better!! Take your sewing machine out of the wardrobe and try it! :)
The map was screenshotted from Google maps. You can see here the starting point.... A.
On the right page I added more photos of the street, the inside of the house, the backyard, the schoolyard... places where I played and hung out! I wrote the name of the place or street and added some childhood stories as the description of the photos.
Hope this can inspire and motivate some of you to scrapbook, no matter how long you have been stuck! If I could, you can totally do it too. Assess what you have, find out what you want, and start!! :)
Have fun memory keeping!
Marie
