Scrapbooking your memories - how to get started

Earlier this year I thought I'd give scrapbooking a go for a couple of different reasons - one, I love photos. Taking them, printing them, looking back over them. This love intensified a LOT when Arlo arrived, when I realised how quickly he's going to grow up and how important photos are going to be to remember the little things. The other reason I decided to give scrapbooking a go is because I have a slightly-unatural-for-someone-in-their-thirties obsession with stationery. This new hobby of mine gives me a legitimate reason to buy new stationery supplies all the time and I LOVE IT.

I've talked about scrapbooking a couple of times on the blog so far, and I've had a few people ask about getting started and how it all works so I thought I'd do something of an introduction - about what works for me, what you need to get started and (maybe) some inspiration to have a go yourself. So here goes:

L-R: an empty Project Life folder and photo pockets waiting to be filled, and a selection of journalling cards in 6x4 and 3x4 sizes

1. Getting started - the basics
For me, there were two main caveats to scrapbooking when I first started out: 1. it had to be easy, and not time consuming, and 2. it needed to work with the photos I already had, which were all printed out in standard 6x4 photo format. after a bit of research I settled on Project Life, because the format is all geared towards those two things - making it quick and easy to do, and using 6x4 photos, which you just slip straight into photo pockets, it's dead simple. I bought a 12x12 album, which comes with photo pockets inside in two different sizes - 6x4 pockets, for your photos, and 3x4 pockets, for journalling cards. So I also bought a pack of journalling cards to get me started, which come in either 6x4 or 3x4 sizes, and I was off!

Simple layouts with lots of notes capturing everyday life - the little things I don't want to forget

2. Keeping note.
It was really easy to lay out my photos, pick the card designs I wanted, and write little memories on them to accompany certain photos. This was a really important factor for me because I want to remember all the little things along the way that I might otherwise forget, and that's why straightforward photo albums just weren't working for me. For example, I've got journalling cards with lists of Arlo's favourite foods at a certain time, the different words he uses to describe animals, all kinds of stuff. The stuff I want to always remember. And to show him some day.

Some recent subscription box goodies from (L-R) A Beautiful Mess and Studio Calico subscriptions

3. Keeping the supplies coming
Once I realised I was getting into scrapbooking, I wanted more supplies and I subscribed to a couple of monthly boxes that send me goodies once a month. They work really well because I get something different each month, I get to try lots of different supplies that I didn't even know existed, and let's face it - getting parcels in the post is the BEST EVER. So once a month I get a Messy Box from A Beautiful Mess, and Scrapbooking and Project Life kits from Studio Calico. Stationery lovers be warned - checking out these sites may result in some serious purchasing!

Two different layouts for a 12x12 album

4. Playing with layouts
After a while sticking to simple layouts using 6x4 photos, I started trying out new things - different photo layouts, new embellishments, cutting photos to different sizes... the one thing that doesn't change (except for the large shot of Alex and Arlo on the beach above) is that I always just print out my photos in standard 6x4 photo size, because I can't be bothered to faff around with different sizes for printing. Other than that, anything goes.

Recent shopping hauls from L: A Beautiful Mess Shop, and R: Tiger

5. My favourite supplies
Along the way I've tried out new things and picked up a few new supplies to help satisfy my stationery addiction me add more colour to my scrapbook layouts. There's load of amazing supplies out there to try, but if I had to pick my three absolute faves right now, they would be:

• A great pen: my favourite is one I bought from the A Beautiful Mess shop, in the first pic above - it's an Extra Fine Messy Pen, and it's perfect for me, it writes over any kind of paper (including directly onto photos, which is fun), is the perfect thickness, and I swear it makes my handwriting better too!
• A mini stapler: Also from the A Beautiful Mess shop (and I swear this isn't an ad, I just love that place!) This little stapler CHANGED MY LIFE* when I got it. Rather than using glue and leaving marks everywhere, I use this to attach things to journalling cards and photos and I love it - it's so quick, so neat, so pretty. It even comes with mini staples in lots of different colours (also pictured above) so you can match it to the page 
• Alphabet stickers: These come in all shapes, colours and sizes, and I've bought these from loads of different places, and they're the quickest and easiest way to add some interest to a scrapbook page - more examples of this below:

So that's it for now - if you're a fellow stationery fan and fancy giving scrapbooking a go, I really couldn't recommend it more, it brings me so much joy to pootle around with a pen, some scissors and stickers and make layouts that I hope the family will look back on over and over again. If you like this kind of stuff, or enjoy perusing pictures of stationery on Instagram (who bloody doesn't?!) then I have a little side-Instagram feed which I use just to share scrapbook layouts and supplies - there's a whole little community online sharing awesome stuff so do come and check it out if you fancy it. Any other questions on anything scrapbooking, I would love to answer them (I could talk about this stuff for hours!), so do ask below in the comments.

*literally.

Now I am 32...

I very nearly just posted this picture all on its own, as a bit of a 'silent Sunday' post, but I thought it probably deserved a word or two of explanation. It's a shot of a recent page I pulled together for my scrapbook, to mark my birthday a couple of months ago. It's the first layout I've ever done without a photo in it, because I wanted to try and remember all the things floating around in my head as I entered by thirty-third year - in particular, all the things I'm thankful for. In the midst of all the boring day-to-day stuff, and schedules and work and who's-made-the-packed-lunch and we've-run-out-of-nappies and please-please-wait-for-the-potty moments, there's loads of really good stuff happening, you just have to try and stop for a moment to remember it all...

Scrapbooking in May: the very beginning

Ever since I started scrapbooking about a month or so ago, I haven't been able to stop. When I got my first set of scrapbooking supplies, I printed a load of current photos and set about getting them all in order, but since then I've realised that I want to go back and start at the beginning.

So that's what I've done - I've taken all the images from the moment Arlo was born, removed them from the boring albums they were in, and started getting them logged in my new scrapbook folder. I enjoy this format so much more than plain albums because you can fit a lot more photos on one page, which really helps capture an event or moment in time, you can play with photo sizes and crop them down so you have a mixture of big and small shots alongside each other, and of course you can add to the photos with notes, words, pictures, doodles, quotes... anything you like. The finished article really helps capture memories better than a plain album, and the process of doing it is so much fun too.

Each month I'm going to do a round-up of scrapbooking to capture what's been logged that month. It's essentially another chance for me to look back over old pics of Arlo and say things like "How was he ever that small?" for the umpteenth time. So May saw a lot of scrapbooking action, and I took it right back to the start to document those first few months with tiny Arlo - it was a long hot summer and he was the littlest ever. Feels like a very long time ago now - I'm so glad I have this to remember those days (and long nights!) by.

But seriously, how was he ever that small?

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?