Wednesday 22 April 2015

Adventures in scrapbooking

Warning: if you're not a massive stationery geek, you may not love this post. If you are, then let's be friends. 


I have a new something that has been taking up a lot of my time these past few weeks or so. It's something that combines my intense love for new stationery with my love for taking photos and documenting things. I've got into scrapbooking in a big way.

Since Arlo was born, I've tried to make an effort to take lots of pics of all the things we get upto, and also to try and actually print them. There are literally thousands of photos on my phone right now, but without printing them out, how often are they actually going to get seen? So every few months I order a massive batch of prints and get them all put in photo albums. But I found that, as well as the photos themselves, I also wanted to make notes so we could remember more - the things that might not necessarily be in the picture, so might get forgotten about in years to come when we flick through for the hundredth time - the date, who else was there, where we were and why. The notes sections in the albums I found just weren't big enough, and some pictures had more to tell than others, and I felt like I needed a bit more space to capture it all.

Come in scrapbooking, answer to my stationery prayers - you can add photos and notes and any other keepsakes you want, be creative with layouts and make it as colourful as you like (I like). You don't need glue or scissors (unless you want to be a fancy-pants and go all out, in which case I salute you) - all you really need to get started are the photos and a pen.

I bought this Project Life album and photo pockets, and also started off with what they call a 'core kit' which has lots and lots of the pretty note cards you can see dotted around in the pics above - there is literally the perfect one for any note you could ever want to make. You can use them to introduce a theme, occasion, or just some colour. I use them for memories - for example, I have one on one page, next to a picture of him eating peanut butter straight out of the jar, that lists all of Arlo's favourite foods, because it's something I don't want to forget.

I've also subscribed to Messy Box, the newly-launched scrapbook subscription box from A Beautiful Mess - a blog I have followed for a loooong time. Their scrapbooking albums are a bit smaller and I preferred the Project Life format because it works really simply with standard 6x4 prints, (and I don't have time for photo printing that's any more faffy than ordering one of everything in the standard size), but their insert cards and extra fun stationery bits are AMAZING and getting my first delivery yesterday was the most exiting post I've ever received. The final pic above is a snapshot of some of its contents - lots of gorgeous spring colours, and a little stamp that I can't wait to have a go on. Although I kind of had the basics covered with the stuff I bought from Project Life, everything in the Messy Box is going to add so much colour and fun that I reckon it's well worth it (and shipping to the UK was only $3!) I promise this isn't an ad, I genuinely just geek out about this stuff.

So this is how I've started - there's lots to be getting on with, but I couldn't help taking pics of how it's going so far. I originally started scrapbooking photos from the beginning of this year, which is where our last photo album runs upto, but to be honest I'm having so much fun doing this that I want to go back to the very start (i.e. when Arlo was born - I can barely remember anything that happened ever before that point) and re-home all the early pics into scrapbooks instead of the plain albums we've currently got.

Basically I'm in stationery heaven right now and I don't want it to end. I'm making something to keep in the family forever, and I get to use pretty pens while I do it - what's not to love?




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