Aby Garvey’s Scrapbooking book

I was lucky enough to meet the gorgeous Aby Garvey who runs Simplify 101 at the NAPO conference in Reno. She generously donated me a signed copy of her book “the organized and inspired scrapper’ – which I know will make many of you creative scrappers jealous! Thanks Aby!

Overwhelmed by creative clutter? With 26 years of combined experience, professional scrapbooker Wendy Smedley of Simple Scrapbooks and professional organizer Aby Garvey of simplify 101 will guide you through the process of creating your very own organized and inspired workspace. Overflowing with tips, quizzes, projects, and inspired scrapbook spaces, The Organized & Inspired Scrapbooker will help you define your scrapbooking approach and discover how to organize your stash in ways that support your hobby. Plus, you will learn from the beautiful spaces of Stacy Julian, Renee Pearson, and other inspiring scrapbookers

Organized scrapper

Co-written with Wendy Smedley, this book is a visual treat for scrappers around the world and has some points that resonate with me. In “getting inspired” they say:

“A key component to organising is being intentional to what you bring into your space and life. “ (page 19) I agree – think hard about what you bring into your life…. wether it’s scrapbooking related or not!

Another great tip that I resonate with: “regardless of your scrapbooking approach be sure to include a final step: clean up. Getting your space back in shape after each project ensures that your workspace is always ready and waiting for you whenerver you’re inspired to create. “ (page 29)

I know some of you have completion issues – but this cleaning up stage should be part of your creative process.

But this is the most golden wisdom:
“Not convinced about paring your photos down? This about this: if you have 5,000 photos, scrapbooking them all would mean making 714 spreads (if each spread included seven photos), investing $3,570 (if each spread ost $5) and spending 1,428 hours to complete them (if each spread required two hours of work). You can’t possibly scrapbook every photo you caurrently have, not to mention those yet taken.” (page 37)

ouch! that’s it, I’m chucking half my photos!

Finally, “determine what’s working and what’s not” (page 59) is a key philosophy of mine: if it works, even if it feels less than perfect, leave it well alone.

For more scrapping wisdom, check out Aby’s blog: http://www.creativeorganizing.typepad.com/

Scrapbooking – a waste of time?

I laughed out loud when I read this blog entry from John Trosko of OrganizingLA  The original article comes from Get Organized Now and is called “my son doesn’t want my scrapbooks!”  A woman writes to Marcia: 

Now my 12-year-old son, my only child, says he really doesn’t want to haul scrapbooks around after I’m gone and ‘couldn’t you just put all the photos on a thumb drive and hand it to me, Mom?’ Well, needless to say, that sort of took the wind out of my scrapbooking sails! 

 I think it’s cute, hilarious and ironic all at once.  For me, it raises two points. Firstly, scrappers primarily scrap for their own pleasure.  Scrapping is a lot of work…. probably the equivalent of running a marathon, or building a house I reckon.  There’s a lot of love in your albums (I know this because I scrap).  So what if no-one else actually wants your albums?  They probably don’t want your other stuff either.  At least when you’re dead, photo are respected, in order and there will be some clarity to your history (rather than dog-eared, dusty and damaged pics in a shoe box up the top of the wardrobe).  

 Secondly, I think decluttering and organising is about editing what you have… and that’s an ongoing process.  I talk about this on page 45 of my book, SORTED! the ultimate guide to organising your life – once and for all (extract below)

Editing    

Editing is a big part of organising. It’s about selecting the best and letting the not-so-good go. Professional photographers are skilled editors. They take a large volume of work and whittle it down to a few good shots. Let’s say they shoot 30 images: they might end up with only two or three stunning shots out of that much work.Film editors edit raw footage to make a stronger film. They snip 30 seconds here and 30 seconds there to create a better and tighter film. Less information (less stuff) means more clarity and a better end product.Life is like this. There’s lots of stuff that doesn’t matter: things you’re ‘going to do’; outdated, broken or not-so-good stuff. If you constantly edit the stuff in your life, you’ll stay organised. Give some thought to what’s truly special. Be an editor everyday. Constantly reassess and you’ll find that the things that don’t matter easily slip away.

 

So, to me, the mum scraps the photos by editing out the ones she feels has less value, and her son can continue on by chosing the specific images (scrap pages) that are meaningful *to him.*  He’s not going to value every page!  And yes, why not digitise some of the pages? She’s not wasting her time, but she might do well to consider scrapping as a team project  

Organising Digital Photos

I love this article sent to me from Angela Miller-Davis in Brisbane… it’s about the pros and cons of storing photos digitally.The article speaks of little 9 month old Amber… who’s mother, Nie, has taken a STAGGERING 6,500 images of her little one since birth. She says “years from now, I want to remember the bad face she made” possibly “grabbing a shoe at the shoe store”. Oh my god Nie, years from now, Amber is going to want to lock you up! Or possibly she’ll never want to keep anything as a reaction to your obsession.Wouldn’t you agree we have to be selective about what we shoot – and keep? How much valuable energy and time do we waste looking for the ‘good shot’ or organising images we really don’t value? Of course, it is all too easy to collect when digital images are so easy to shoot. Yes, there are a lot of good software programmes to help manage this stuff, but it all takes time, which is your most precious resource – particularly if you are a parent. This article has lots of great tips and things to consider.