In which I actually discuss scrapbooking!

My blog address is "springfieldscrapbookartist" because my sister actually started this blog for me a year ago when I was still an active CM consultant, doing other people's scrapbooking for them.  I would still happily accept work as someone's scrapbook slave, but I am no longer a CM consultant.

Anyway, CM had a sale this month--20% off a digital scrapbook, including extra pages.  This is a really good deal.  Digital scrapping is cheaper than traditional, but only slightly, and of course any book I make will have more than the minimum number of pages.  I had started a 2010 family scrapbook in January of 2010, and kept up pretty well for . . . the first two months of the year!  Then I had done some off and on, and had completed several other projects in the meantime, but still was nowhere near done with the book.  And along came the sale!

I worked like a dog most evenings in January and got the book to a point I was happy with, but definitely did not cover the whole year.  I only made it to May!  One lesson learned is that I need to be more liberal with the delete button for my photos.  I take a lot of pictures "since they can just be deleted," but then I don't delete them, and even though some are not that great, they end up in a scrapbook.  Silly.

Another lesson is that digital scrapbooking is in a lot of ways easier than traditional, but it can quickly become even more time consuming.  Or maybe that's just me.  If I'd had a stack of pictures, some paper, and a blank album, I probably could have slapped it together a lot faster.  Digital brings out a level of perfectionism in me that traditional doesn't.  Since it's not glued down, I can fiddle with it endlessly, whereas with traditional, I'll apply the glue, turn the page, and move on.  Very rarely do I go back and add to a page.

So I finally got the book done, with a whole day to spare before the sale ended, and then I couldn't get the book to upload to the website!  I waited 10-15 minutes for the preview to load, and then got an error message.  So I tried again, waited another 10-15 minutes for the preview to load, did not get an error message, and started the actual upload.  This took over an hour, and at the last minute--ERROR MESSAGE!  Talk about frustrating!  Fortunately (?) I knew a friend was having a similar problem, so I assumed it was an overload on the company's website, and I had a day to spare.  Tried it the next afternoon, done in 30 minutes!  Ordered the book and saved my 20%!  I can't wait for it to arrive.

This whole process reminds me of producing the school yearbook.  You're so anxious to see the finished product, and then once it's in your hands, you realize you've already seen all the pictures, read all the copy, and memorized every inch of every layout.  You're still proud of your creation, but the wonder of it is just not there.  There is no newness, no surprises.  You just have to hope other people appreciate how hard you've worked.