I am sure that most scrapbookers had no
idea that an "average page" could take 22 hours of their time
and cost $100 in addition to the supplies needed for your page. Obviously
the sample log is just a sample, sometimes you will have all the supplies
you need at home or you will have a great layout idea and it will take
less time but other times you might spend more time than this on a layout
if the supplies are hard to find, the page requires elaborate matting,
paper piecing or lettering. Also remember this didn't include the supplies
for the page, just the expenses incurred in creating the page. This
example makes it possible to see that it would be EASY to invest this many
hours and this amount of money for a single layout. Consider the number of
children you have and the number of photos you take, if each layout
requires an investment 20-25 "premium hours" of your time, most
of us will not ever finish our children's scrapbooks. Why take a chance
that you will have 22 hour /$100 pages in your scrapbooks when time
management can help you save time and money?
Step Two, focusing on your priorities. When
you are planning your scrapbook pages think about the reason that you
scrapbook. We all have different reasons for scrapbooking, some scrapbook
to preserve memories, some scrapbook to create a memento of childhood,
some scrapbook to preserve family history, some scrapbook because they
enjoy the craft, some scrapbook to pass along family values and others
scrapbook to build a child's self esteem. Probably most of us scrapbook
for a number of these reasons. If we want to preserve our children's
childhood memories for them but want to ensure that we are able to finish
the project we may want to combine pages that are quick and easy along
with our artistic endeavors. In my books I try and create very special
pages for the special events in our lives but I let the less important
events be represented by pages that are simple and fast to complete. If
you consider journaling to be the most important part of the scrapbook,
you may want to spend extra time taking journaling classes and doing your
journaling while your pages have a simple design. If journaling is a
priority also consider using pre-cut acid free paper to do your journaling
at the time of an event instead of waiting until later when your memory
has faded and the details are hard to recall.
