Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from team member Margrethe Aas Johnsen. This month in the Premium Membership we’re also talking about how to simplify and streamline your workflow.
Today I want to show you my work process and show you what I’ve made work for me. It’s important to me to keep my scrapbooking simple and streamlined; I have a busy schedule and have to be effective. Therefore I’ve developed a style and a workprocess with this in mind.
I always start with the photo, as I guess many scrapbookers do. My software of choice is Adobe Lightroom – library and editing tool in one.
After printing my photos I find the colors I want to use and pull out patterned papers to check how they work together.
While cutting photos, working on my composition (using a Simple Scrapper sketch, of course) and pulling out embellishments, I cut out any shapes I want to use with my Silhouette Cameo. Doing more things at once is definitely the way to go, for me!
I then begin testing things out, but I do not glue anything down just yet.
When I feel it’s ok, I glue down parts of the design, add the title, etc. I then photograph the layout and imports it to Lightroom. This helps me see the whole layout to see if the different elements work (not always the case).
This was how the layout looked at first. However, I was not happy with the gold feathers. I wanted to use them, but didn’t know where to place them. I ended up removing them.
And this is how the layout came to look like. It’s true to the original design.
I don’t clean my desk while scrapping, but leave the supplies out. When I’m done, I write down the supplies I’ve used, adding them to “categories”, name of layout, which design team it’s for, sketch, patterned paper, alphas, stamps, Silhouette files, embellishments, other. I use the sketch paper to write down brand names, collection and item name and add it all to a document I store in my Google Drive, which makes it easier when I upload the layout to different galleries and need all the details.
Do you have a specific way to scrapbook that you follow every time? I hope you’ll share in a comment!
Interesting! I don’t clean my work area until I’m done with a layout as well. I progressively create a bigger mess as I take out supplies to see if they will go, then everything gets reorganized after I’m done so I can start the next project in a clean area.
I like the idea of saving your supply lists online. I usually write everything down, but I can see how easy it would be to access this info if it is kept online.