Scrap Doldrum No. 1: Piles of Photos!!!

Can you believe it's Monday already? Can you believe October is almost halfway over? Christmas decorations are in the department stores! Time just passes so quickly... and the photos keep piling up. :) How can we ever get caught up with our scrapbooking?

Let me ask you a personal question. How many pages have you completed this month? And one more question: how many photos have you taken this month? Please share your answers in the comments. Want to know my answers? I've completed 8 pages this month and I've taken approximately 100 photos. YIKES! At that rate I'll never catch up!

So, you're probably wondering where I'm going with this...

Something that will make your scrapping go SO much quicker. Something that will help you catch up. A magical solution that will erase your scrap-stresses and instantly make you a success and all the envy of your scrapping buddies who bring a 5" stack of photos with them to crops:



Don't scrap every photo.
In fact, if you're like me, you should scrap about 5-10% of the photos you take.


GASP! "But, Brook," you say, "that is scrapblasphemy! How could I ever decide which photos should be scrapped and which should be... scrapped!?"

Well, let me give you a tip and an example. TIP: Include photos which play a part in telling the STORY without turning it into a NOVEL. Think short stories or snippets of moments. EXAMPLE: Instead of doing an entire Christmas album every year, why not pick the photos you love the most... the ones with strong memories (journaling) attached to them and do, say, 4 pages? Then, if you still want to honor the other 300 photos you took, arrange them in a good ol' fashioned photo album.

You will accomplish your scrapping in record time if you edit your choices. And, if you're finding scrapbooking has become a chore or a drag, using this method may even bring your passion for the craft back. :)

Here are two pages with the October kit where I edited my choices. I had SO many photos of these two occasions... each one had something endearing about it. The page "excellent" is of my Grandma with my two kids. I took 40 pictures of her with them. Each photo was adorable in it's own way. There were 10 that were keepers. From the 10 I chose the 3 that were the best. I could have done 4 pages of these photos. But I did one. The page "dad lessons" uses two photos from our afternoon at the beach house. Again, there were dozens of photos of my husband with my son. I chose two.





So, for those of you getting dragged down by the sheer number of photos you have I hope this Manic Monday post has empowered you just scrapbook the photos you love the most! Go to your next crop with an edited pile of photos and enjoy yourself again!

Happy Monday!