Quick scrapping CAN be done... I wasn't so sure about this, since I am NOT typically a quick scrapper. I am so slow and detail oriented that one of those SEI one hour albums takes me weeks to complete, if I work on it ALOT during the weeks. The last time I did one, I think I spent about 40 hours on it. Now, I did add alot of embellies, but I put the layouts together just like they had them in the kit. Which by the way if you have never done one of those one hour SEI kits, has everything precut...yeah, I am slow:P
I am one of those scrappers than can spend days, seriously DAYS, maybe even WEEKS on one layout, then when its all ready to be glues down, think to my self it needs to be better. I have been known to spend 5 HOURS beading a layout. SERIOUSLY, its a joke among my friends. This is NOT conducive to speed scrapping. Remember that. It's important.
I recently had to put together our wedding album for our 25th wedding anniversary. I wanted it to be a surprise for DH. It was 40 pages. It was going to be more, but I was speed scrapping and decided some of the stuff I had and some of the bad photos were so bad it wasnt important stuff.
You need to be VERY motivated to do it and not worry about if your layouts look EXACTLY like you want them to. That's not saying they need to look bad, just get over the need to have them be all day layouts, know what I mean?
I collected all of the papers I had that I would want to use and all of the embellies and rubons etc. I gathered them all in one place on my work table. The papers were stacked and the embellies and such were pu in a container that I could flip though quickly. This right here is what I think saved me the most time. I am notorious for spending hours upon hours digging through my stuff trying to find just the right things to use on my layouts. BUT I wasnt always doing it first, I would do this as I scrapped. This step must be done first for me to successfully scrap fast.
Then I sat down and took all of my photos, got rid of the ones hat werent good or that I decided not to use, and put them in order as to what photos would go on what pages. I put them in page protectors in the album I was ging to use.
I was all set to get this album done fast. I only had a few days and in those few days I really only had 8 hours total to work on it when my DH wouldnt be home. It was supposed ot be a surprise after all.
Since I already had everything I wanted to use and all of the photos sorted by page and ready I knew I could get it done.
I chose a background paper for each set of photos and slipped this in the page protector with the photos.
I started at the beginning, pulled out the photos and the paper for the background and got to work. I gave myself very little time to put the layout together and DID NOT embellish them yet. When the layout was done without embellies and journaling I slipped it back in and moved on to the next.
The layouts looked very sad and not what I wanted, but I knew that in the end it would be okay.
After I got all the papers cut and on the background sheets with the photos, I went back and started at the beginning again.
I took out the first page and embellished it quickly, REALLY quickly, I also included any journaling then. Then it went back into the page protector and I kept this up till I was at the end.
I flipped though the album and decided it needed just a little something else and I still had a couple about an hour left to finish it, so I pulled the layouts out of the protectors again. This time I added these pretty little rhinestones I had, lots of them. I used wet glue so the layouts had to be stacked and not put in the album so they could dry. By the time I got the rhinestones on the last layout the first was very dry and i could start putting htme back in the album.
I actually finished my album on time and it looks GREAT! I am not dissapointed in the least and really, even though I did it a little more simple than I normally do, as I look at it I dont see that.
So, thats how I am now scrapping. I may not do whole albums at once, but I will be using that same method to even put single page layouts together. Everything is chose before and on the table where I need it rather than searchig for it. Even though journialing pen will be there waiting.
Oh, one thing that I know helped me alot to not take so long is that my supplies are all oprganized by color, theme etc. As I was pulling things to put in that labum I didnt have to dig around for ages (I used to ahve to do this) and get frustrated and head to the store for stuff I knew I had but couldnt find. I knew where everything was and I could pull it fast.
Goodluck, you can do it.
I just thought of something. If you use sketches, have them ready too. AND dont be determined to have your layout match the sketch exaclty. This can take too much time too.
BTW, as I look through our wedding album, even though its more simple than I was normally doing, I LOVE it and so does Kirt, he told me it was the really beautiful and I know he meant it, I could see it on his face as he looked through it.
