February Scrap our Stash (SOS) Pick a Side Layout Challenge: Throwback summer page and time crunch tips

I'll keep the momentum going to get an "ancient" project completed (my summer photos from college years. This is the cover page). Scrap Our Stash posted a great Pick Your Side challenge this month. I picked the right side sketch and rotated it.  

It also required: 

1) Use of two different alphabets (I used Coluzzle template and letters/negative space from stickers I got back in San Diego Scrapbook expo days (sometime between 2008-2012 I think) from a class I took.

2) Striped paper. Had this one in my stash from San Diego days as well!  

We beat the heat in many different ways-lake visits, trips a few hours away to the beach, pool time and naturally, ice cream--though I don't think I've scrapbooked about ice cream in a long time-high school perhaps? I think it might be time to! Funny to think of heat when I'm rummaging in the closet to grab my thickest sweater right now, but I think we long for change after some time.

Have you ever scrapbooked or done a project about a food you like? Last week I professed my love for coffee. I have also seen some tongue in cheek Christmas cards online from singles with cutesy "couples" style photos taken with a favorite food-like gazing lovingly at a burrito or photo edited person-sized bottle of Budweiser getting an arm around the "shoulder".

The other two layouts I made are not tied to any challenges but inspired by a couple layouts found on Pinterest. And used the same paper/paper theme as this page above.

Really been wanting to try out the hexagon one for sometime now, and liked how the dog-biting wake page turned out. One of my favorite memories of our childhood pet. In scrapbooking these photos that I lack notes on or don't remember much about that particular trip, it was fun to journal about how my dad got into water skiing in general & what kind of food we would pack for a typical day on the lake.

So, if you're behind on your scrapbooking or just getting started, that's ok. It can be a nice twist to scrapbook about an event that occurred awhile ago to compare to what's happening now, or you might focus on something different closer to the event compared to months or years later.

The Creating Keepsakes (CK) magazine from May 2005 that I paged through for ideas, gave some good advice for scrapping when you have a busy life.

• One response was to look for the time in the day/week when you have creative energy and calmness (is it early mornings? the weekend afternoons? and shift other tasks to times that you have lower energy (like autopilot chores you can do)
• Another response was including (if you have them) your children in your scrap space to spend quality time with them AND get some of your stories told! I like to use it as an excuse to get friends together in person or on the phone (let's catch up and work on something creative together!) Like exercising, sometimes having a person you promised to do something with helps with follow through! 
• One person said organizing your supplies to find things faster --> complete pages faster
• CK also said, have out the photos you want to work on to give you ideas during the week, or put items you are starting on under a piece of plexiglas to protect it.  I used to pull out one sheet protector and hang it on my wall with a thumb tack, tossing in the photos and colors or embellishments I wanted to use as a visual reminder that I had a page in the works.
• As an occupational therapist, I would say, you can try to break down your page making into more manageable steps. Maybe one day you go through photos you want to tell the stories, another day you find layouts that would work for these photos. You could decide to do a small album that just uses one 4x6 photo per page and you have less space to worry about adding a lot of embellishments and design, use a same couple of layouts or color theme throughout the book.
• Perhaps look for a product or technique you'd be excited to try to get you to carve out some time. It seems like "fusing" right now is popular on Pinterest (I haven't tried this and don't have the heat tool) and splattering paints. I like the mini-clustering effects too. 

Thanks for stopping by! Let me know how you incorporate crafting into your calendar!