Scrapping in a Hurry

I've been sharing about the Memory Scrapbook I made recently.  In making it I was up against a VERY tough deadline.  I had barely 3 weeks from the time the message first went out requesting pictures and messages to the day the scrapbook was to be completed -- and Christmas/New Years celebrations fell between these dates.  This meant that it took some time for the entries to trickle in, and I had other things on my "to do list" (like presents, Christmas dinner for 21 people at my house - fortunately several people helped with the cooking, and new years eve party).  Even though the pages were only 8 x 8, there were 42 in all, so this was no minor challenge.

Today I thought I'd share some of my tips for organizing yourself to make a scrapbook in a hurry:

1. Use a spread sheet to organize your pages.  I described this technique in an earlier blog here. Without doing this as entries came in, it would have been a disaster!  While I asked for entries to be given to me by January 1st, quite a few came in after that -- two of them the night before the presentation!  I could NEVER have tracked everything if I hadn't already been used to organizing things this way.  This also pointed out challenges -- like what I described in last Saturday's blog where there was too much journaling -- and enabled me to plan how to meet the challenges without a lot of trial and error.
2. Use coordinating paper packs.  This can really speed up the time it takes to find papers that look good together.  In this case, I utilized several 8 x 8 packs I had with pretty coordinating pastel papers in them. I had picked up quite a few of these Wedding paper packs from Hot Off the Press when they were on sale, and they came in really handy for this album.  In the past I've used them for anniversary pages and wedding/anniversary cards.  However, I realized that most of the papers are not really wedding specific and would make great pastel backgrounds for this book - I even found myself using some of the wedding-specific papers, because some of the entries specifically spoke to weddings and anniversaries! 
3. Use Spellbinders dies (or similar products) to create quick and easy mats and frames that really dress up a page.  Edge and border punches also make for great mats as well as page border treatments.
4. Use outline stickers and jewel stickers for quick embellishments.  Hot Off the Press makes a line they call Dazzles, some of which are specifically for scrapbooking.  I also use a fair amount of the "Peel-Offs" brand.
5. Layered purchased flowers with brads for centers also make for quick embellishments - as do ribbons.
6. Use scrapbook layout software for a quick arrangement of elements and to enable you to easily see what size to print your pictures.  I use Fotofusion and really like it.  I scan in the papers I intend to use, so I can really see what it will look like.  When I have the layout the way I want it, I eliminate anything I don't need to print (like the background paper and various embellishments) and am left with the pictures that need to be printed.  I save this as a *.jpg at 300 dpi. I can then cut and paste from this into a standard 8.5 x 11 page in my photo software so I can get as many pictures as possible onto one page for printing.  Saves money & keeps me from wasting money printing pictures that aren't the right size for my layout.

So, there are a few tips for speedy scrapping.  Hope you find them useful!