Scrapbooking Workflow Part 4: Making Page Kits

I can't believe I actually made it all the way through this series! Somewhere in the middle I became a little afraid that I would get bogged down in all the dirty technical details and just lose it, but here we are at the last (and to me the most fun) bit- picking out the supplies and putting together a page kit.

As of my last post, I had picked out and resized photos and found a layout to copy.  At that point I could have printed my photos at home, but since I was sending off a Shutterfly order anyway I just uploaded them and waited for them to come back.

Once they arrived, I started to think about what kind of paper I wanted to use. I settled fairly quickly on a white background and knew based on my chosen scraplift layout that I needed two patterns to go with it. In the photos my shorts are teal, and since the race was on the 4th of July I thought it would be cool to have a little hint of red, white, and blue mixed in, too.

It was much easier than I thought to find paper in my stash that matched this color scheme. I started by pulling out my scrap basket and leafing through it until I stumbled upon a piece of that blue paper in the photo above (that perfect blue paper with teal and white accents and little red dots!). The scrap I had wasn't big enough for the layout, but since my paper is well organized it didn't take long to find the paper pad it came from and discover that I had another full sheet. Then it was simply a matter of choosing another coordinating pattern to go with it.

Embellishments are the most difficult part of scrapbooking for me. I love picking out matching items, but I have the hardest time actually using them and liking the results in the end. I think I overcompensate by choosing a ton of embellishments for each page kit and just sorting it all out later. For example, I only needed two different lettering fonts, but I picked four. I'm not sure which ones I'll actually use, but at least they're there.

After I'm done choosing items for a kit, I do one of two things- I either put it all (including photos) in a 12x12 Iris case between two pieces of cardstock, or I put it in a big 2.5 gallon zip-top bag (which also often ends up in an Iris case). You can see more of my kits and how they're stored in this post.

To help keep track of what layout idea goes with which page kit, I keep a folder on my MacBook full of directories, each one representing a page kit that has yet to be scrapped. In each folder is a copy of the page I'm going to scraplift along with the (resized) photos I plan to use. This helps me remember what my page idea was when I finally get around to assembling that page, plus it ensures that I have a backup of the cropped photos in case anything happens to them before the page is completed.

Once I've finished a page, I simply delete its corresponding folder.

I'm hoping to get this page scrapbooked and photographed in time to make a wrap-up post next week, but that may not happen since I'm knee-deep in two very cool online classes right now and considering a third. I will try to get it up soon, though!