February, lets get more done

I have received so many e-mails the past month asking how I organize my scrapbooking supplies to get more done, so this month I will concentrate on organizing. First off keep in mind what works for one person may not be the best for another, we all think differently and scrapbook differently so take what I share that works for you and forget the rest!!

First and foremost you need to get your photo's organized, all the supplies and time in the world won't do you a bit of good if you are running around digging in drawers, bags and boxes of photo's. This can be a huge job but in the end you will be so happy you took the time to tackle this biggie

1.) Find a good out of the way place in your home that you have room to spread out and keep the mess out for a few days, you don't want to have to clean up at the end of each day.

2.) Gather up all the photo's in the house, check every drawer, closet, box and bag you can find, put them in your work area.

3.) Time to shop!! Yepee, you will need lots of cheapo regular pocket photo albums, I have a couple for each of our girls, some for family and trips we take. Also pick up a few cheap photo storage boxes with dividers. I bought my photo albums at a discount store on sale for 2/$5.00, the storage boxes were around $2.00 @. You will also need a photo safe pen to jot down dates etc on the back of the photo.

4.) Now comes the sorting, this is a huge job but don't get discouraged it is so worth the time you put into it. I sorted by each of our daughters then chronological when I could remember the dates. I sorted our events into different piles, Christmas, Easter, family trips, etc. Many of our daughters pictures were in magnetic albums I knew I need to get them out of that hostile environment so I worked on them first. If you are taking photo's out of these albums be very careful not to tear them and also don't stack them on top of each other, they may still have some sticky residue on them

5.) place the photo's you most want to work on in the albums, if you have more than one picture of an event go ahead and put them together in one sleeve, you can fit several in each sleeve. Use the storage boxes for events, Christmas tab, Easter tab etc.

6.) give yourself a prize after accomplishing each task, I give myself the time to do a layout from whatever has inspired me during this process, but maybe you need a little chocolate!! Reward yourself you are worth it