Get a Ton Done - Part 1 - Decision

Yeah, I know you come here to see punch stuff.  And I promise, I will get back to the dwarfs and some new stuff that is percolating in my brain.  But since so many of us turn to thoughts of ORGANIZATION with the start of the new year I wanted to share something with you.

I'm going to share some tips on getting your scrapbooking done in a way you might not have considered.

Most of us work on one page at a time - some work quickly and steadily to scrap their precious memories - some spend days creating artistic masterpieces and love doing it -  but some of us labor for hours and/or days on layouts and want to get more done with less frustraton. 

I want to share with you a class I developed in 2009 after I finished 80 pages in less than 48 hours on a scrapbook retreat.  (Yes, I typed those numbers correctly, 80 pages in one weekend retreat)

And while this is geared for going away for a scrap retreat, the ideas will still work wonderfully for your long term scrapping at home. 

If you don't scrapbook and don't care to start, take a few days off from the blog (or maybe not, I might sneak in a punch share or two during all the yakking)

Here is an outline of the class
1) Go with a group where you don't know everyone - you won't visit as much. (I'm not kidding)
2) Plan, plan, plan
3) Pack the right things
4) Use Ellen's Secret Weapon

Since I can't help you with #1, my focus will be to help you plan and pack.

Here is the basic decision to make:
Choose ahead of time what you are going to work on.  It is easier to work on a "theme" or two, like Christmas pictures or vacation, or a pet album, or your own childhood, than to just grab a lot of random photos.

By limiting your subjects, you limit the supplies you need to take.  If you are working on your vacation to Disney, you won't need your Christmas stickers or your formal alphabet stamps.  If you are working on your parent's anniversary album you probably won't need your pirate stuff but you might need your vintage stamps.

If you insist on scrapping chronologically and use an album where you must do each page IN ORDER then you will have a harder time packing because you will need to take more, but the planning ideas still apply.

Tune in tomorrow for my tips and ideas on PLANNING

Here is one of my layouts from my productive retreat:

I used a combination of rub-ons (not SU)  for my title quote which was the perfect summation of our Spring Break in Hawaii one year.  Oh and just to be perfect clear that is NOT me in the bikini.  That is college girl who as the time was High School girl.