A Tortoise Approach to Scrapbooking

Or how to finish a layout in no less than 90 days.

That's not even my longest lag. I kid you not. There is a traditional paper-and-glue page that sits unfinished, waiting for . . . oh, who am I kidding? Waiting for me to get over the fear of doing it wrong and ruining the expensive, coordinated supplies.

Be that as it may, I finished a digital layout for Little Sprout's First Year Album yesterday. And I cranked out a digital section divider page today! That's progress, baby. Yeah!

It's a good feeling to complete a scrapbook layout that was particularly frustrating and look back at the creative transformations along the way. It shows me that I am getting better. Even if I still scrap at a snail's pace. Or a tortoise's, if the tortoise and hare analogy works better for you.


Here is the first incarnation of the Budgie Boy layout. I originally created it for my first ever scrap challenge. The goal was to scrap an endearment or pet name. The journaling needed to reflect why the name held special meaning. An amazing designer named Michelle Sparano complimented how I laid out the crossword-style title and got me thinking. So I decided to rework the page to play up the crosswords.

Quite a bit of time passed as the idea germinated in the back of my mind. Then I half-hazardly searched for crossword elements online. A few more weeks passed.

Then Caelie Haine's very wise words whacked me back into action. She used to say, "It's not brain surgery!" (She's a doer. That's one of the many things I admire about her.) Over-thinking was getting in the way of doing, I decided, and it was time to get to work.

Without further ado, here is yesterday's finished layout:
[drum roll, please]


Last but not least is the digital section divider page I cranked out today during Little Sprout's morning nap. (Hey, hey hey! I may actually be getting back some me time.)