Scrapbooking Advice

from someone who burned out and is back at it

Scrapbooking Advice –

Hi, My name is Rachel. I'm a SAHM and I home school my 2 boys. My days are full of school, cleaning, cooking, running errands, more cleaning, more school and more cooking. You get the idea! In the evening and sometimes on weekends or holidays I am building this site and publishing my monthy e-zine. I just work on it when I can. Usually, it is about 30 minutes at a time in the evenings.

I do things the Flylady (flylady.net) way (mostly)...a little bit at a time. I've learned a lot over the last few years – the main one: if I do too much too fast I crash and burn. In fact, that is how I started building this site (4-5 years ago). I did too much and had to stop. In early 2010 I started building again just a little bit at a time...slow and steady.

What does that mean to you? My most updated info and weekly scrapbook journey is on my Facebook page and my YouTube channel. That's where you'll find what I'm doing a little bit at a time. The Real Life Scrapbooker's Resource is my main focus and then I add extra content to the site as I can. Some of the content you'll find here is from my old site and some has been added since the beginning of 2010. My methods and ideas continue to change a bit but I hope everything is helpful.

So, browse around a bit and then join me over on YouTube or Facebook for encouragement if you need help in baby-stepping your scrapbooking.

In my normal life -

I'm a "health engineer" - spend lots of time tweaking our health and diets.

I organize a drop from Azure Standard.

I home school my 2 kiddos. 

I mow and garden. 

and all the other things that go along with running a household and family...we all know what those are....

Scrapbooking Advice – Talk to Yourself!

"What does that mean?" you may ask. Well, this may sound silly and maybe no one else struggles with this. But sometimes when I look at scrapbook magazines or start looking around the web at galleries and Pinterest, I get overwhelmed, discouraged, anxious and a wee bit discontent. There are so many cool products, neat layout ideas, amazing scrapbook rooms, opinions and options that I can just go into "shut down" mode if I let myself. I have to constantly remind myself that I'll never "get caught up" or "get it all done or organized". There is just no way...we live in an imperfect world and things are constantly changing...there is only so much time and if I spend all my time scrapbooking and recording my life I'm not actually living. : ) So, my advice to you would be to remind yourself of all the good gifts you do have and still enjoy looking at cool stuff online and being inspired to record what you can and enjoy the rest!

Scrapbooking Advice - Study Layouts in Magazines and Online

I like classes and I do take them sometimes...mostly free classes over at TwoPeasinaBucket.com. But...one of the things that I think has helped me the most is to "study" scrapbook layouts. I used to subscribe to Creating Keepsakes back in the day and I would keep copies lying around everywhere. When I had some free time, I would literally look at layouts and pick them apart to see what made them work. These days, I spend more time online at sites like Scrapbook.com, Pinterest and TwoPeasinaBucket.com - mostly Pinterest. I also watch videos on YouTube/TwoPeasinaBucket.com. You can learn so much from those! ...just remember to talk to yourself so you don't get overwhelmed...if you struggle with that like I do. : )

Scrapbooking Advice - Listen to Scrapbook Podcasts

My favorite scrapbook podcasts are Paperclipping Roundtable and The Digi Show...I'm 90% a paper scrapbooker but I have dabbled in digital and I enjoy listening to the Steph, Katie and Peppermint talk about digital scrapbooking. Their topics many time still apply to paper scrapppers. You can find them by searching in the iTunes store.

Oh yeah...and don't forget to come on over to my Facebook page and we can encourage each other to keep going and not get overwhelmed.

More Scrapbooking Advice from time to time....

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