ScrapbookAddict Tip of the Month

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kathy m from San Jose cA writes...
What is my scrapbooking monkey? Well, I have lots of little ones, called unfinished layouts. I\'m talking these are in really old albums. I started the layouts with the best of intentions, but they\'ve never been finished. What is preventing me from finishing them? Well, I guess that I\'m on to bigger and better things and the plan that I\'ve had doesn\'t interest me.

Donna Scraps from NC writes...
I have several monkeys. The biggest one being my wedding pictures from 12 years ago. I have tried several times to start them, but they seem so important that I guess I don\'t want to mess them up! Then I have Boxes and Boxes of photos from my grandparents. I need to choose the ones I want and then send them on down the line to other relatives, but it\'s so hard to decide what to keep!!

Rinda from El Granada writes...
My biggest scrapbooking monkeys are my heritage album and unfinished journaling. I feel like I need time to plan out the former and I just get lazy about the latter. I\'d rather work on some new layouts. For a while, I had a weekly goal of 5 pages of catch-up journaling. Maybe i should go back to that! And plan some time to plan my heritage album. rinda

kjo from New Jersey writes...
My monkey is just soooo many pictures I find it hard to begin. The monkeys bothering me most are my wedding pictures and the \"expectations\". I got married in the court house, with just family. No big dress, flowers, etc. so my layouts will seem so \"blah\" compared to what\'s out there now. Twenty-one years later, I wouldn\'t change a thing about how we were married, but I just can\'t get \"into\" putting them in a layout. I have four kids and love scrapping them. My tip? Just get them into an album I guess...maybe I\'ll put everything else aside and just do it!

Barb from PA writes...
Mine is getting old photo\'s of myself and other photo\'s of my outside family members, like cousings, etc., friends at school and my husbands old photos done. I need to get them done so my children will know who they are. I did however go through them and put them in big yellow envelopes. I separated the photo\'s I keep putting off and labeled the front of it with things like: Before 1970, 1971 to 1980, etc. I put on there if they are my husbands (husbands family), etc. I figured if I get caught up on all the other albums I have going then at least they are sorted. Also, my kids will know alittle about what\'s going on with them. I also put on the front a little description of what\'s inside. ---I also didn\'t do my wedding album for 10 years but finally got it done by just saying to myself just get it done and it helped to buy a Creative Memories Album and I got the front of it engraved with a nice saying. It\'s actually pretty easy to do your wedding pictures because if the photographer had them in their albums their already in order. I did the wedding and honeymoon together in one album. It did take a week to get it done but boy do they look so much nicer in scrapbook form instead of just putting them in sleves. It maybe be the nicest album next to the military album that I have done. You can do some nice things with wedding photo\'s. The photo\'s of my husband and I together alone, I did one page with black & white, and another with black & pink. Wow, are they nice. My girls wore teal (greenish) dresses so I didn\'t do that on theirs. I set up one page that looks like the girls are coming down the aisle. Just giving the posters below tips they may help them get theirs done. HTH.

Peggy in Ny writes...
Sorry about the above post, My wedding album is my biggest monkey, I\'m afraid to do it and then not like it. Or find a better way to do it. Actually I just want to do simply anyway. So I\'m just going to have to get the courage to do it.

Dorthy from Milford, OH writes...
My monkey is creating a baby album for my second son whose 15. We didn\'t take many photos of him and I found more photos I wanted to include after I started. I\'ve done about 6 LOs, but want to rip them up and start over. Journaling is not a problem as I\'ve learned to do that first. To fix my monkey may be to start over on those layouts and do some better pre-planning before I begin again.

Polly from Bremerton, WA writes...
My biggest \"Monkey\" is getting started on my Dad\'s scrapbooks. I have his old scrapbooks that his Mom kept for him (he doesn\'t know I have them) and I want to redo them. They are very old and the pages are crumbling. I want to put everything into new albums and try to preserve as much of the notes/handwriting written on the pages as possible. That\'s going to mean a lot of work scanning and printing and it just seems overwhelming. I really want to do this for a Christmas gift for him this year so I guess I better brush the monkey off my back and get started soon. I am going to try and get my DH and DD to help on the project too. Maybe if I had help I wouldn\'t be so overwhelmed!

Jill in Chicago from Illinois writes...
Easy! My heritage album. I have so many photos, a good thing I know, but it is beyond me how to get started. I have received some excellent ideas from the board, but I don\'t want to just dive in. I want this album to have a unified look, versus my other albums where each page is completely different. It\'s this pre-planning that has slowed me way down.

Cynthia from Indiana writes...
My monkey is heritage LOs. I am afraid I will find more info to journal at a later date, more pics of a certain person or event, etc. I just need to do it and, if I do want to add more pics/journaling later, find a way to do it! I could add pockets of journaling/pics, do a whole other page, journal on the back, etc.

Rema from San Jose, California writes...
My current scrapping monkey is an album I\'m doing of my brother\'s 30th birthday party. He turned 32 this year. The main problem? I scrap maybe once a month. I counted up the remaining layouts after the last crop, and I am halfway done. As soon as I can find a few dedicated scrapping hours, I\'ll get this baby done!

Sara from WG,NY writes...
Ineed new ideas on disney layouts.We go every year and the pages are starting to look the same. HelpMe

jllurker writes...
My scrapbook monkey is not doing layouts. It is doing the journaling (especially computer journaling) and putting the layouts into the albums. I have a recipes album started. I have done lots of layouts. Some I need to type up journaling or the recipe. None are in the album. I have a number of other layouts done that have not been journaled and are waiting to be put in an album. Help me get this monkey off my back!

Mackenzie from Cassidy Marie Harkins writes...
Mackenzie you are going to go with me to the very quite plas to stay Love Cassidy Marie Harkins

Paula from Wabash writes...
My monkey, like most everyone else, my wedding album. However I have decided to look through all my layouts I have done through-out my \"scrapping\" years and decide what feel I like best...which is simple... so after giving myself an \"ego\" booster (my honeymoon album was kind of the trial run). I expect to get started on my wedding album very soon...as soon as I get all those wedding pictures scanned in for all the relatives. My best advice for all those monkeys on your back...try giving yourself 15 minutes a day to work on them...it won\'t take long before the ideas start flowing...or if it\'s the dreaded \"journaling\" you can finish some of your journaling in that time one page at a time.




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Tip of the Month Challenge Hot Links Home <MAP NAME="boxmap"><AREA SHAPE="RECT" COORDS="14, 200, 103, 207" HREF="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm/privacy-policy.html?o=1" ><AREA COORDS="0,0,10000,10000" HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/scrapbookaddictc" ></MAP><img src="http://rcm-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/rcm/120x240.gif" width="120" height="240" border="0" usemap="#boxmap" alt="Shop at Amazon.com"> Subscribe to SBAnewsletter	Tip of the Month This month we are talking about scrapbooking monkeys--those items that you want to scrapbook but just can't bring yourself to do it. What is your scrapbooking monkey and what is holding you up from scrapping it? Share your monkey and if you have an idea on how to get rid of it. Share your thoughts and be entered into a drawing for a special prize from href="http://www.ScrapBasics.com" kathy m from San Jose cA writes... What is my scrapbooking monkey? Well, I have lots of little ones, called unfinished layouts. I\'m talking these are in really old albums. I started the layouts with the best of intentions, but they\'ve never been finished. What is preventing me from finishing them? Well, I guess that I\'m on to bigger and better things and the plan that I\'ve had doesn\'t interest me. Peggy in Ny writes... I\'m afraid of doing it and then not liking it. Donna Scraps from NC writes... I have several monkeys. The biggest one being my wedding pictures from 12 years ago. I have tried several times to start them, but they seem so important that I guess I don\'t want to mess them up! Then I have Boxes and Boxes of photos from my grandparents. I need to choose the ones I want and then send them on down the line to other relatives, but it\'s so hard to decide what to keep!! Rinda from El Granada writes... My biggest scrapbooking monkeys are my heritage album and unfinished journaling. I feel like I need time to plan out the former and I just get lazy about the latter. I\'d rather work on some new layouts. For a while, I had a weekly goal of 5 pages of catch-up journaling. Maybe i should go back to that! And plan some time to plan my heritage album. rinda kjo from New Jersey writes... My monkey is just soooo many pictures I find it hard to begin. The monkeys bothering me most are my wedding pictures and the \"expectations\". I got married in the court house, with just family. No big dress, flowers, etc. so my layouts will seem so \"blah\" compared to what\'s out there now. Twenty-one years later, I wouldn\'t change a thing about how we were married, but I just can\'t get \"into\" putting them in a layout. I have four kids and love scrapping them. My tip? Just get them into an album I guess...maybe I\'ll put everything else aside and just do it! Barb from PA writes... Mine is getting old photo\'s of myself and other photo\'s of my outside family members, like cousings, etc., friends at school and my husbands old photos done. I need to get them done so my children will know who they are. I did however go through them and put them in big yellow envelopes. I separated the photo\'s I keep putting off and labeled the front of it with things like: Before 1970, 1971 to 1980, etc. I put on there if they are my husbands (husbands family), etc. I figured if I get caught up on all the other albums I have going then at least they are sorted. Also, my kids will know alittle about what\'s going on with them. I also put on the front a little description of what\'s inside. ---I also didn\'t do my wedding album for 10 years but finally got it done by just saying to myself just get it done and it helped to buy a Creative Memories Album and I got the front of it engraved with a nice saying. It\'s actually pretty easy to do your wedding pictures because if the photographer had them in their albums their already in order. I did the wedding and honeymoon together in one album. It did take a week to get it done but boy do they look so much nicer in scrapbook form instead of just putting them in sleves. It maybe be the nicest album next to the military album that I have done. You can do some nice things with wedding photo\'s. The photo\'s of my husband and I together alone, I did one page with black & white, and another with black & pink. Wow, are they nice. My girls wore teal (greenish) dresses so I didn\'t do that on theirs. I set up one page that looks like the girls are coming down the aisle. Just giving the posters below tips they may help them get theirs done. HTH. Peggy in Ny writes... Sorry about the above post, My wedding album is my biggest monkey, I\'m afraid to do it and then not like it. Or find a better way to do it. Actually I just want to do simply anyway. So I\'m just going to have to get the courage to do it. Dorthy from Milford, OH writes... My monkey is creating a baby album for my second son whose 15. We didn\'t take many photos of him and I found more photos I wanted to include after I started. I\'ve done about 6 LOs, but want to rip them up and start over. Journaling is not a problem as I\'ve learned to do that first. To fix my monkey may be to start over on those layouts and do some better pre-planning before I begin again. Polly from Bremerton, WA writes... My biggest \"Monkey\" is getting started on my Dad\'s scrapbooks. I have his old scrapbooks that his Mom kept for him (he doesn\'t know I have them) and I want to redo them. They are very old and the pages are crumbling. I want to put everything into new albums and try to preserve as much of the notes/handwriting written on the pages as possible. That\'s going to mean a lot of work scanning and printing and it just seems overwhelming. I really want to do this for a Christmas gift for him this year so I guess I better brush the monkey off my back and get started soon. I am going to try and get my DH and DD to help on the project too. Maybe if I had help I wouldn\'t be so overwhelmed! Jill in Chicago from Illinois writes... Easy! My heritage album. I have so many photos, a good thing I know, but it is beyond me how to get started. I have received some excellent ideas from the board, but I don\'t want to just dive in. I want this album to have a unified look, versus my other albums where each page is completely different. It\'s this pre-planning that has slowed me way down. Cynthia from Indiana writes... My monkey is heritage LOs. I am afraid I will find more info to journal at a later date, more pics of a certain person or event, etc. I just need to do it and, if I do want to add more pics/journaling later, find a way to do it! I could add pockets of journaling/pics, do a whole other page, journal on the back, etc. Rema from San Jose, California writes... My current scrapping monkey is an album I\'m doing of my brother\'s 30th birthday party. He turned 32 this year. The main problem? I scrap maybe once a month. I counted up the remaining layouts after the last crop, and I am halfway done. As soon as I can find a few dedicated scrapping hours, I\'ll get this baby done! writes... writes... Sara writes... Sara from WG,NY writes... Ineed new ideas on disney layouts.We go every year and the pages are starting to look the same. HelpMe jllurker writes... My scrapbook monkey is not doing layouts. It is doing the journaling (especially computer journaling) and putting the layouts into the albums. I have a recipes album started. I have done lots of layouts. Some I need to type up journaling or the recipe. None are in the album. I have a number of other layouts done that have not been journaled and are waiting to be put in an album. Help me get this monkey off my back! Mackenzie from Cassidy Marie Harkins writes... Mackenzie you are going to go with me to the very quite plas to stay Love Cassidy Marie Harkins Paula from Wabash writes... My monkey, like most everyone else, my wedding album. However I have decided to look through all my layouts I have done through-out my \"scrapping\" years and decide what feel I like best...which is simple... so after giving myself an \"ego\" booster (my honeymoon album was kind of the trial run). I expect to get started on my wedding album very soon...as soon as I get all those wedding pictures scanned in for all the relatives. My best advice for all those monkeys on your back...try giving yourself 15 minutes a day to work on them...it won\'t take long before the ideas start flowing...or if it\'s the dreaded \"journaling\" you can finish some of your journaling in that time one page at a time. Michelle in VA writes... Woo Hoo, I finally have something to say!! My Scrapbooking monkey has been my son\'s second birthday pictures. I took pictures at home with the cake, then pictures at Chuckie Cheese and then pictures with his Aunt giving him his gift at a later date. I HATE all of the pictures. Add that to I am doing 3 scrapbooks at the same time, so I had to scrap these sets of photos 3 times! That is total insanity and I dreaded it. So much so, it has taken me 4 months to do it because I can\'t move on to something else since I have to scrap in order because I use CM pages. Well, last night, I scrapped the final Chuckie Cheese photos and I feel like a new woman! Now, I can finally move on to another event. This also made me painfully aware that I need to take better photos. Of course, those photos are almost 2 years old (never going to catch up) so, I have hope that I will look for the shot and not just get some pictures next time!! Help me celebrate, say, Woo Hoo!! Holly in OK writes... My monkey has GOT to be my dad\'s retirement album. He retired a year ago! It didn\'t get done in time, he didn\'t care, Christmas came and he didn\'t mind, the list of big events goes on. I think it\'s hard b/c I\'m doing an ABC album with the military alphabet, and I\'m having trouble with a few letters. Still! And it\'s not the style I like to do anymore. I\'ve converted to mostly Cathy Zielske looking things, and this is NOT a CZ album. BUT, I have to get it done, so I\'m going to do a LO of my DSs to break the scrap block, then get started on this thing so it\'s done by Father\'s Day! Nothing else gets done until this is finished! Allisa writes... My scrapping monkey has been my child\'s b-day trip to Legoland. I have had these pages started for over a year, never completed. I finally managed to start and complete all 24 pages! Yes, that is a lot of Legoland! My kids love to look at the albums, so there are that many pages for their benefit. And I am thankful, that I have finally finished the event! Best tip I have is to, set aside the time and get it done! Jennifer Fletcher from Montgomery, Al. writes... My monkey was an old b&w photo of my dad when he was little, with my granddad, standing outside a RedSox game, and their ticket stubs from that game - dated 1957. It\'s a monkey because granddad passed away on Father\'s day last year and I hated the idea of putting these items in a place that won\'t be readily seen. I decided to do a 12x12 baesball layout of these items for my dad to be able to hang. When I finished the layout, I had it custom-framed and I plan to give it to dad on Father\'s day this year. Jill Downes from Virginia writes... My monkey? My Mom\'s Memory Book. She passed away 5 years ago next month and I started a book to kind of help myself \"heal\". I find that whenever I try to start a new page I am full of apprehension, I have even broken out in a sweat trying to pick out paper!!I have no problem picking the photos, just the stuff to go with it. I guess I am just worried because my mom was so special and I want the book to reflect who she was and what she meant to me. I want it perfect and am afraid I might make the wrong choice. But the couple of people that have seen the few pages I have done say the book is beautiful. I guess my tip would be to try and set aside the over emotional part and focus on the lay out not the subject!Follow your scrpbooking instincts and go for it!! scrapaddie from ohio writes... my wedding is my scrapbook monkey - I was married 30 years ago and while things are good now, it has been pretty awful at times. So how do you scrap the happy ever after - to love and cherish always, etc. when that is not what has happened. I have an album and stickers, etc - but have put off having pictures reprinted so I won\'t have to deal with it. Frankly, I don\'t see it happening any time soon Vanessa from Florida writes... Vanessa from Florida writes... Hello!!! I\'m only 12 and I have already did three scrapbooks. Doing them I have learned a valuable lesson. It is that scrapbooking never ends. The pages in the book may have been finished, but your live has not. So start a new book and complete that one. Nikki from Little Rock, AR writes... i have many friends with the monkey on their backs, and two heads are better than one right? What I have done to relieve them of their burdens, and make some extra cash now that I am a stay at home mom is to do the books for them. Some how its easier to scrap for people when you are on the outside looking in. I could help anybody that needs a little help. LaRae_240@yahoo.com Scrapbooking is quite time consuming! Angie writes... I have heritage albums that have been started and one that hasn\'t. I have an album for a friend of mine for her mom\'s 90th b-day. I have my dd\'s space camp album. I just have too much going on. I have a few more projects that I want to get completed before I start anything else. Finish what I have started is my plan before moving on!


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Tip of the Month

This month we are talking about scrapbooking monkeys--those items that you want to scrapbook but just can't bring yourself to do it. What is your scrapbooking monkey and what is holding you up from scrapping it? Share your monkey and if you have an idea on how to get rid of it.