SYW299 – Getting Back to Scrapbooking

[00:00:00] How do you get back into scrapbooking if you've taken a break of a month, a year, or longer? That's what we're gonna be talking about in this episode, plus a little bit of behind the scenes conversation. Let's do it. All right, Jennifer here with another solo episode. You all seem to really like the last one.

So I'm sitting here. I am well caffeinated, and we are gonna dive in. I'm gonna follow our regular format, but it's just me chatting with all of you. I love this podcast. And at the end, I'm gonna be sharing a little bit more about the future of Scrapbook Your Way. But for now, let's start with our normal routine.[00:01:00]

So one of my favorite recent layouts is one called Be Wild that I made at our recent Stash Bash event. I will share a photo of this in the show notes for the episode, of course. And this was so fun, and I always find. Participating in my own challenges to be very fun because it pushes me outside of the box.

I don't always have a plan or idea when I am writing the challenges or working with my team to develop our programming. I participate fresh with our members, and this one, of course, since it was Stash bash, I was pulling stash from. Very, very long ago, I ended up using a lot of products from Old Studio Calico Kits back when they were doing the full 12 by 12 scrapbook kits, including a, [00:02:00] uh, let's see, a scenic.

Paper that I never thought I would really find a use for, and I used that for my background. I also found this little selection of supplies in an envelope that I think I gathered. I. Maybe 20 16, 20 17 at another Stash Bash event. Uh, they were all very well coordinated. They were all things I loved. And I know we have a challenge that's related to creating in your comfort zone and gathering a little collection of supplies that you're gonna be excited to create with.

And I just happened to stumble upon this when I was trying to find items from my stash for this project. I also love how this type of challenge, this type of just let's make a layout, let's have fun with it. This helps me tell stories that span time, the products [00:03:00] inspire kind of the direction that I want to go, connections that I'm making in my mind.

And this layout ended up being about how we travel as a family and that we travel well together. We're all perhaps a little more high strung and uptight at home, but we seem to have a good go of the flow relaxed approach to traveling together. And so it was fantastic to be able to pull images from various adventures over the past years.

All right, I just got a text that my grocery order is ready. So once I conclude this conversation with you all, that will be the next step on this Sunday morning. So in our next kind of, you know, standard intro question here, what am I excited to do, use or try? [00:04:00] When I wrote these notes, maybe like a week ago now, I was feeling really excited about this and I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I'm gonna say that.

I'm gonna commit to diving into this. And then I'm excited about it because I'm both excited and apprehensive. So I really, really want to dive into this gallery wall in our living room. I have maybe 12 framed images on this wall. I never quite liked how it turned out. There was a little bit of imbalance, which of, of course, I could have corrected by adding more to it.

But then the glass broke on one of the frames, and there's still, I think, an image. A frame that doesn't have an image in it. It's like just whatever it came with. And so I've just had this vision of something that spans most of the wall that's a little bit more eclectic. 'cause right now everything [00:05:00] is in a black frame.

And so I started collecting frames of different colors, textures. I want it to be a combination of black, white, wood and gold. So just very. Eclectic, as I said, but hodgepodge looks like it's been curated over time, even though I'm going to be designing it all at once. I. Briefly looked for some tools and I discovered that print one of, you know, the, um, more popular services for printing photo books and wall art and, and, and really high quality prints.

They have this thing called the print wall editor, and I liked this compared to some other tools because it allows you to save your progress right in your account and so you can. Use your own photo or use one of their photos and then design your wall. [00:06:00] So the first step that I need to take is I need to inventory all the frames that I have, start trying to, um, arrange those.

In this wall editor, start figuring out what photos I already have, which ones I wanna print, and then kind of see what other frames I need to collect. I want to do a little bit of thrifting for these. I'm always kind of been eyeing, uh, the clearance racks at various stores. Uh, I think for me, one of the challenges always is.

This is wall art. And so the frames that are often on clearance are desk frames, tabletop frames, and if you ever tried to hang one of those, it may have a hook thing on the back, but it's never gonna be level with the wall. So I'm, I'm quite particular with having. Frames meant for the wall, or if it is a desk frame, that [00:07:00] it has a very clear way to remove that stand.

'cause I have destroyed some frames in the past trying to remove that on my own and they're quite secure. Anyway, that was a tangent. I really need to dive into this project. We are so close to kind of feeling like we're finished with our living room. We've already committed that we're not. Painting our living room anytime soon because.

The living room goes into the dining room, which goes into the kitchen. It's all connected. It just becomes this, this big thing. And so it was painted when we moved in, which was now 10, 11 years ago. But it is white. It's fine. We need to focus on painting the rest of the house, but I want to kind of just have the.

Cap on on the living room so we could say it's done enough for now. We finally hung some curtains last year and so getting this gallery wall done, um, is something that I'm excited to do. So more [00:08:00] updates to come as we make progress. But I'm excited to try out this printed wall editor. To be the place where I can manage this whole process.

'cause I've gotta be able to see, see it visually and laying it all out on the floor. Yes, that will be part of the process, but I can't just leave it there as I figure this all out, there's, there's too many cats and kids and, and all kinds of stuff. So having a digital solution, um, is, is going to be a helper on this.

All right, let's dive into the main topic. So I received this question from Amanda and she calls herself a lapsed scrapbooker. And I, I get this question a lot folks who have really enjoyed and dedicated themselves to this hobby in the past. And something happens, you know, a shift in our seasons of life and [00:09:00] we have to step away.

Or we choose to step away. Maybe we're a little burnt out, but we have this craving, we have this desire to get back to it. And so I have a list of steps here of how I think I would approach this if I was coming back to scrapbooking myself and. To be honest, I, I don't know if I've really fully answered this question in this manner before, so I would love your feedback to know, is this something that feels like that would work for you if you are maybe in a similar boat as Amanda.

Or maybe you've already come back to scrapbooking, and I would love to hear what helped you do that. I've heard from so many of our members that they were on the verge of quitting, including Peggy, who you've heard on the podcast, who's part of our team now. And the strategies that we [00:10:00] use at Simple Scrapper helped them reengage with their hobby and find their own way forward.

All right, so let's dive into these steps. First off, you have to remember what you love about scrapbooking, and this means ignoring any guilt feelings about being behind. Inventorying the full qua quantity of photos that you haven't done anything with. We can't start there. We can't start with overwhelm and frustration and feelings that drag us down.

We have to start with the. The mindset that every layout, every project that we can add to our full library of memories is, is a gift to this treasure chest that we are leaving for our future selves and future [00:11:00] generations. So we have to start with. That, that centeredness and that often requires you to go look at things you've made in the past.

Look through your photo library, look through journaling, look through anything that can help you viscerally reconnect with your hobby, whether it's been a little bit or a very long time.

And then with that is. As we continue to ignore and put things aside, our next step is not to then go back to where we left off or the next thing that we should do. I wanna encourage you to choose a recent story, one that. Uh, it really is pulling to you. It could be the one that made you think about scrapbooking.

Again, something that's going on in your life or something that happened that reminded you [00:12:00] of your childhood, of a past experience, of a dream fulfilled of, of a challenge. Overcome something that's really exciting you, and start there. Print the photos, select the photos, do what you need to do to say, this is where I'm going to start.

It doesn't matter if I'm in the middle, I'm at the end. I'm starting with this story because it connects me back to my hobby and reminds me of why I love it. So from there, we don't want you to face a blank page. Design can sometimes be intimidating. And I wanna encourage you, or at least give you permission to find a sketch, to use a digital template or even just a page that you admire to scrap lift.

Look for something that works with about the number [00:13:00] of photos that you want to use, and allow yourself to follow it. This isn't the time to be your most creative. It's a time to remember that muscle memory of what it's like to scrapbook and what it's like to create with meaning behind it. Next, it's time to gather some supplies, and this is where I offer another piece of wisdom that you probably don't need anything new yet.

Because what you love about scrapbooking today and forward may have changed from the past, but the only way you will know that is if you start working with the supplies from the past that you already have. So I want you to dig through your stash, whether that's physical or [00:14:00] digital, and find some things that will work.

It could be something that maybe you were saving for that special time in the future. This is that special time. This is your recommitment to your hobby. It could be just, just some things that happen to, to go with the color scheme you have in your mind or the theme of your story. Just pick a selection of papers and embellishments.

Grab the tools that you think you need. Typically we're starting with some type of adhesive and some type of cutting implement. It could be a tremor, it could be scissors. Gather the basics and then set a timer when we are. Facing something new, facing something maybe that has baggage with it. We sometimes need that timer to get us over the hump to get us started, to get us into the flow.

So set that [00:15:00] timer for 20 minutes and allow yourself to begin N now if in 20 minutes. You haven't found yourself in the flow in it, ready to keep going, then you have permission to set it aside. For now you got started. Maybe you need just a little bit different environment, a different day, a different scenario to continue.

But I bet for most of you that that 20 minutes will be more than enough to really find yourself back in it. But we have to. Actually connect with the process in order to get to that place. Doing it is what makes it happen, not we can't just wait for the motivation or the creative spark. We have to bring ourselves to the table first,

so then you will make your layout. Whether that takes you 30 minutes or far [00:16:00] longer. It doesn't matter when you are done. I want you to share your layout with others. It could be others in your family, in your community. It could be with your Instagram friends, your Facebook friends. It could be in a community like Simple Scrapper, share your work where others can acknowledge that you did something.

You, you put in the effort and you documented a memory. The, the momentum that's created from sharing is so incredibly powerful and. Often gives us that, that drive to keep going.

Okay, so you made a layout. No. What? At this point, you have a choice. You can either just make another one. If you feel like I just need to create a little bit, then I want you to allow yourself to do that, particularly if you had another story in mind, [00:17:00] another awesome photo that you took recently. Just get some things under your belt, but if that one layout was enough to really fire you back up, I want to invite you to use our Focus Finder tool, and I will have that linked for you in the show notes for the episode.

This is where you can start thinking about what you want to do and how you might prioritize that. Give you all the steps, how to think about it so that you can make a decision of what you want to focus on next, because. You're gonna get really excited. You're gonna notice that there's fun products out there.

You're gonna realize you have some things in your stash. You have so many photos. This is where we have to then continue to give ourselves boundaries of what we're actually focused on. Because if we're not focused on one thing, we're focused on nothing. [00:18:00] And this tool is one of our favorites to, to help you figure out really what should, should rise to the top.

And really the final step here is being consistent. I have mentioned many times on the show that I am not the most prolific scrapbooker. I have times of the year, particularly at in-person crops where I'm creating 20, 30 layouts. I'm creating as part of our events, and I do lots of little things in between, but I'm not.

Making 1, 2, 3 layouts every single week, and that's okay. The important part is that I'm staying connected. I have made a habit of being a memory keeper, of being a scrapbooker, so that I can retain that joy and reduce the chances that I'm going to have [00:19:00] a lapse in the future, that I'm gonna step away for so long that I feel disconnected.

You don't have to be. Scrapbooking to be a scrapbooker. And that's what I want to really emphasize today, that declaring yourself a scrapbooker again and embracing that identity is gonna be huge for giving you that consistency going forward. And the more that you can surround yourself with encouraging and supportive community, the more you'll be able to sustain that.

All right. That is my advice for Amanda and anyone else who feels like they need a return, an official return to scrapbooking. All right. To conclude here, gotta go to the next page of my notes. I wanna talk a little bit about what is coming up. So this is [00:20:00] episode 2 99. It feels, it feels big, but it's not really big because episode 300 is gonna be the big one.

That's a crazy milestone in the life of a podcaster. I, I can't believe I've been doing this for so long and I can't wait to bring you so much more in the future. But right now we are gonna take a little pause. We are onboarding some new staff. I'm working on some bigger projects that I just haven't been able to get to because of the weekly rhythm of the podcast.

So over the next couple months, you're gonna see. Replays of past episodes. These aren't just any episodes. These have been hand selected as being some of the best conversations. Um, these have been recommended by our members and we are excited to offer them to you with a little [00:21:00] bit of new introduction to share why it might be worth a listen again or even a listen for the first time.

And then we will come back together for episode 300 and beyond. As I said, I love these conversations and I am not planning on stopping anytime soon, so never fear, but we do need to take this little bit of break to, to reset some things and do some tinkering. Behind the scenes, so make sure that you're getting our regular emails.

Um, we just had finishing day, so if you heard anything about finishing day, you're probably getting our emails, but signing up for that focus finder is the easiest way to make sure that you're on our email list. I've not been on Instagram quite as much, and part of that is just because of these behind the scenes projects I've been working on.

Some of it is just more personal, not feeling as much of a desire to share, [00:22:00] but I wanna make sure that I do stay connected with all of you via email, particularly during this little, we'll call it a podcast to vacation. I don't even wanna call it a hiatus, because those often seem longer. This isn't really that long.

We'll be back in July with new episodes and I'm so excited to share with you something fun that's gonna be happening end of June, beginning of July, to mark that 300th episode to bring us all together to reengage with our hobby and feel excited about scrapbooking in the second half of 2025. All right.

That's all I have for you today. If you have any questions for me or any other advice for someone who wants to get back into scrapbooking, I'd love if you left a comment on the show notes for this episode. You [00:23:00] can find those at simplescrapper.com/syw299, and until next time, please remember that you have permission to Scrapbook Your Way.