Throwback Thursday: Old Family Photos

I try to keep my photos dated, organized, and labeled. I also scrapbook a select percentage of the photos I take. In each scrapbook layout I make, I include dates, names, places, and context behind the pictures. You may wonder I spend so much time (and money) to do this. Well, its because of these photos that were kept my grandparents. I have very little context as to date, place, or even some of the people. I feel sad that important things to them are now lost because they didn't spend a little time labeling them. I won't throw them away, because that's a horrible thing to do. I just wish I knew more about these images.

So the moral of the story is record information about your photos!!!!

© 2007-2016 TIFFANY WACASER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Travel Tuesday: Rootless

Did you know that I was on a podcast episode for the scrapbooking podcast, The Paperclipping Roundtable in September 2013? Several months earlier I had contacted the host with an idea about the often transitory life of an expat family and how scrapbooking can be a tool to help process the challenges and keep one's family connected to roots.

Marie-Pierre Capistran was also on the show and had amazing things to contribute.

You can listen to Rootless here.

© 2007-2016 TIFFANY WACASER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Scrapbook Saturday: Creative Energy

This post is part of my series about overcoming creativity killers. You can read part 1, part 2,  and part 3 before checking out this post. Or not. 

I apologize that this post doesn't have any pictures but this topic didn't exactly inspire pictures for me!

Twelve years ago, I was diagnosed with lupus. Ever since then I have been keenly aware of what parts of life, decision-making, child-raising, outdoor activities, etc. generate or drain energy. I also learned that to create, you must have energy. It is very hard to create out of a place of exhaustion. While creating requires energy, it also produces energy. Have you ever experienced a crafter's high? I have. It's that zing you feel when you have created a page that you love. It gives you a boost of energy and happiness.

Because I prioritize creating and consider it a form of self-care, I carefully assess my schedule and energy to determine the best time for creating. I can't craft in the evening anymore because I'm much too tired to make pages I'm happy with. Five of my six children are at school during the day. My baby/toddler takes a nap in the afternoon. In the mornings, we work on cleaning and any errands I have. Then I put her down to bed. Her naptime is my work time. I scrapbook, blog, or do other creative activities. Because that time is short, I have learned to work quickly and efficiently.

When she wakes up, I am done. I usually have a page completed and feel a welcome burst of energy to get through the rest of the day.

I usually don't scrap on Saturdays because that is our family day when we do projects like work on our garden, fix the deck, or household repairs. My husband likes me to be with him so we work together.

Things for you to consider:

1) Why should you make time to scrapbook? Why is it important to you? I think knowing the answer why will help you give yourself to put that time in your schedule.

2) When is your energy highest? What could you move around in your schedule to make time for creating when you are your peak?

3) What things are you wasting your time with that you could put to better use crafting? My time-suck is Facebook. I'm working hard to limit that so I make time for things that really matter to me.

© 2007-2016 TIFFANY WACASER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Friday Favorites: Learning from a Scrapbooker

Scrap Gals hosts a delightfully funny, educational, and interesting podcast about scrapbooking. A few weeks ago, they shared an episode called Scrapping the Pain Away with guest Andrea Bethke. Andrea suffers from an extremely painful chronic condition where she is constant pain from her nerve endings. This was an incredibly powerful show. I appreciate Andrea Bethke's drive to make her life meaningful as she scraps and finds a way to live through the pain.

I appreciated Tracie Claiborne's admonition that we aren't our pain or our condition. Truer words have never been spoken. I was diagnosed with lupus 12 years ago and I had to take this to heart. I do speak about my disease to help others learn, but it isn't my identity. It affects my life, but it doesn't run or rule my life.

I appreciated the strong message to find gratitude, happiness, and joy when experiencing extreme suffering. I think this is a life lesson every person in the world will have to learn. Many of us do not learn it but if you get that secret, you are a remarkable person.

I also appreciate the analysis and discussion of scrapbooking as a powerful tool to express gratitude, process pain and challenges, and transcending difficulty and tragedy.

Please listen to this episode. Even if you have no interest in scrapbooking, this has some profound life lessons everyone needs to hear. 

© 2007-2016 TIFFANY WACASER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Scrapbooking Saturday: How to Scrap When You Have Little Kids

I belong to a Facebook Scrapping community where we talk about all things scrappy: paper, photos, photography, shopping, and memory-keeping. It is so refreshing to chat with other enthusiasts and also prevents me from boring people who aren't interested in my hobby.  

Someone on the group asked how to keep up with scrapping while dealing with the normal challenges of having young children. I completely sympathize because this has been my situation for 16 years as a mother to six children. I responded with a rather lengthy comment. The following is an expanded discussion of the topic.

Why would a busy mom with young children even want to scrapbook? I think every creative person needs to reflect on why they devote time to this hobby. Doing so will give them direction in how to maintain their hobby.  These are my reasons why:

• Scrapbooking is a form of self-care.  I get a boost in happiness when I make a page, which helps me be more effective in fulfilling my responsibilities. My mother modeled this when I was growing up. She managed our home efficiently but also carved out time to sew. She loved sewing and made us dresses, cross-stitched pictures, and crocheted. Now she quilts as both a creative exercise and an expression of love for her children and many grandchildren. 

• Scrapbooking is a reflective exercise. Scrapbooking gives me an opportunity to reflect on my experiences and find meaning and value from them. This happens for both the negative and positive events. I find I am more grateful and often recognize the good things in my life when I scrapbook.

• Scrapbooking is an opportunity to express creative impulses. I think all human beings are deeply creative at their core. The challenge is to find a way to express that creativity in an authentic and unique way. I express my creativity in a variety of different ways: scrapbooking, blogging, cooking, and through singing and playing the piano. After dealing with the necessary, but sometimes mundane tasks of maintaining a home for 8 people, I crave opportunities to make something that lasts. 

• Scrapbooking is fun and a form of play. According to more recent research, adults need to engage in play. Doing so has enormous benefits across the board. I find scrapbooking to be enormously fun and playful. 

• Scrapbooking allows me create a lasting record of my life and record the memories of our family.  I believe that my story is important and should be told from my perspective. I also believe the life my family is making is worthy of recording. I want my descendants to know why our family has moved so often. I want them to understand how being expats has affected us. Too many people mistakenly believe their stories don't matter, but they are wrong. My grandparents didn't record their memories and stories. There are so many things I don't know about them. I wish I had more information about them. You would astonished at how much history is lost from one generation to another. 

• Scrapbooking allows me to provide a tangible record for my children to explore of our adventures. From 2002 to 2013, my family lived in four different countries: Sweden, Israel, the United States, and Saudi Arabia. There are details I want my children to remember and have access to. I have layouts documenting our bikes that we rode in Sweden, our morning routines, grocery stores we visited, the playgrounds we explored, our backyard, the buses and trains we rode, and the people we met in those places. 

These are all profoundly powerful and important reasons to scrapbook and therefore, I think it is worthwhile devoting time and energy to scrapbooking. 

Here are my best tips for fitting in scrapbooking into a busy life. 

1.  Plan with spreadsheets what you want to scrap. I usually include the idea of the layout, number of photos, and any other relevant info. If  the thought of a spreadsheet terrifies you, try making a list or mind-mapping to get an idea of the stories you want to record. 
2.  Batch edit and print photos. If I am too tired to scrap, I can spend 15 minutes editing photos and choosing photos to print. Having a stack of photos ready to go makes it easy to get started.
3. Let go of perfection. I decided that I wanted to have fun scrapping more than I wanted my layouts to be perfect. My layouts make me happy and serve a meaningful purpose for my family. Its OK that they aren't magazine or blog worthy.
4.  Scrap from a kit so you reduce your time looking for supplies. Limit your supplies. If you don't subscribe to a kit, make your own kit. There are videos and classes teaching how to do this. 
5.  Scrap lift or use templates to speed up your time designing.
6.  Plan creative time in your day when you aren't tired. For a while I was planning my creative time at night when the kids were in bed. But I was so darn tired I couldn't think. Now I scrap in the middle of the day when my daughter naps. I instituted a quiet nap time for all family members when they are home. 
7.  Make scrapbooking a part of your daily life. I create something every single day. I have found that creativity begets creativity. 
8. Be flexible and willing to adapt your scrapping style and focus so that it meets your needs and your circumstances. I never thought I would ever scrap digitally until the Project Life App came out and I found I didn't have time to spend on traditional layouts. I used the app exclusively for a long time while my life was crazy. As things have scaled back I have been able to return to scrapping traditionally, but I still use the app. I also make photobooks and use Chatbooks to print out my Instagram photos. It all counts and it all makes me happy. 
9. Use the Project Life App to scrap during those quick moments in the day. 
10.  And finally, this quote from Elisabeth Gilbert in her book, Big Magic, DONE IS BETTER THAN PERFECT! 

© 2007-2016 TIFFANY WACASER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Wondering Wednesday: A Study in the Ordinary

This week, along with thousands of women, I am participating in a project called, A Week in the Life, where I document all the little everyday moments of my life. I have taken at least 100 pictures in the past few days. The pictures I take showcase the ordinary and mundane things that comprise my life.

I clean a lot, which is no surprise because I have six children. My house gets really messy.

Working on this project, I have caught some really tender moments.

My ordinary moments have changed over the years, as our family has grown, children go to school, we move to a different country, and people change. I'm a different person than I was 16 years ago when I was a very young mother to one small baby boy. I'll be a different person and our family circumstances will change in a few years as my oldest children start to leave home for missions, college, and their own families. In three years, all my children will be in school and I will no longer have a toddler following my every step.

I think that learning to appreciate the ordinary moments of life makes for a richer, fuller life. We start to see progress and growth as we look at how these ordinary moments fit into the big picture.


© 2007-2016 TIFFANY WACASER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Scrapbook Saturday: Digital and Paper

This week has been a busy one where I have spent much of my creative time working on other responsibilities. I didn't scrap with physical product as much as I wanted to. This is why I love the Project Life app so much because when time and energy are short, I can still make pages I am happy to look at.

Here are a few of my projects this week.

Paper Projects

First, I made this page of my adorable niece, Baby V, who lives too far away from me. I got some really sweet pictures of her when I visited my sister in Kentucky in March. I thought these pictures showed Baby V's softness and cuddliness. The papers and embellishments came from Simple Stories' Baby Collection.

(BABY V)

I haven't been able to get out the image of Do Ho Suh's thread art canvas out of my head. He sewed an image of a person with several selves superimposed upon the one. I relate to this idea so much as I feel that I am SO many people. I tried to convey my many layers and selves with a list.

(I AM SIMPLY ME)

 This is one of my favorite photos of my daughter in her pinafore and standing by one of our forsythia bushes. I love the pop of the pink and yellow and wanted to accent that with matching embellishments. Again, I kept the patterns soft and gentle so the photo would stand out.

(OH SO LOVELY)

This last page showcases a funny and favorite picture I took of my children a couple of weeks ago when we visited a Buddhist monastery near our home. I really couldn't say more than the title did so I left it at that. Again, I kept the patterns and colors soft.

(I AM GRATEFUL TO HAVE THESE PEOPLE IN MY LIFE)

Project Life App Everyday Life Pages 

I made quite a few fun everyday life pages using the Project Life App. They came together quickly and helped me document some of the little moments that happen on a daily basis. 

(STONECROP GARDENS PART 1)

(STONECROP GARDENS PART 2)

I love the pictures in this layout because of the light and the movement and energy of my children as they play together at dusk.

(FUN IS MESSY) 

This last page is a favorite because it shares a story from a unique perspective about my oldest son, who doesn't like me to take his picture.

(@ 16)

JOURNEY TO ISRAEL PROJECT LIFE PAGES

It has taken me nine years to finally tackle my Israel scrapbook, mostly because I really didn't know how to incorporate the large amounts of text from my blog post into a scrapbook in an organic way. I will probably print these out into 8x8 pages. I think the smaller size is a good fit for this project. It will probably cover two volumes. 

I don't particularly love the card kits I have on my app for this project. I just haven't found the one that makes my heart sing. So sometimes I experiment with different cards. This is one layout I made two times with different cards. 

On a side note, after getting prints from the app, I have decided I don't really care for the large 12x12 size. I prefer the 8x8 size. It frustrates me because finding the binders and page protectors for the smaller size is a challenge and will cost me more money. Maybe if I just make the commitment and purchase as I can, it will all work out. The prints themselves, do cost less and if there is a sale on Persnickety, I can get more pages for my money. 

Pic Collage

This is a really fun app I downloaded while working the polls a couple of weeks ago. The app has some really cute templates for thank you cards. The collages have more of a scrappy feel.

This layout is of my newest little nephew, who was just born in San Francisco. His mama sends me pictures that just melt my heart.

© 2007-2016 TIFFANY WACASER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Scrapbooking Saturday: On Being Prolific

Back in 1999, I wore overalls, had a chunky haircut and chunky shoes, and was pregnant with my first child. My sister, a newly minted Creative Memories consultant, asked me if I would have a party. From that time on, I was hooked. My hobby became a full-blown obsession when we moved to Sweden. I wanted to record all the details of that adventure in a way my children would remember. I am quite prolific. I have 22 completed 12x12 albums, at least 10 photobooks, 20-30 mini-books, and two albums in process.

Scrapbooking is a creative outlet for me. I get a happy boost from making pages. I am preserving our family history. Scrapbooking feeds my desire to learn. I can take classes and improve my storytelling, photography, and design skills.

I am prolific because I don't care about creating too many books. I am prolific because I budget time and money for my hobby. I am prolific because I spend time almost everyday working on pictures, creating layouts, and learning about design. I am also prolific because I take a "good enough" approach about my layouts. The truth is, I will never be on a design team or be a featured scrapbooker. I don't have the patience, the level of detail, or the skill of a design team member. I am totally okay with that. I scrap for myself and my own joy and pleasure.

I am willing to try different methods of scrapbooking. I have made photobooks using sites like Shutterfly and Snapfish. I have created blog books from Blurb and Blog2Print. I have tried different types of mini-albums. I also purchased the Becky Higgins Project Life App and use that on a daily basis. I use pocket pages for different types of stories and pictures.

What hobby do you enjoy and are you prolific?

© 2007-2016 TIFFANY WACASER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Scrapbook Saturday: Egypt Memorabilia and Two Family Pages

This week I grappled with creative problems and tried to learn some new things. I am using a free trial of Big Picture Classes and trying to decide if I like the format. My first impression is that I do not like the new style of online Scrapbook education. There is a lot of reading and ironically, I do not learn by reading. I prefer an audio. They don't have nearly as much video and it is kind of hard to digest the information. My goal is to use the site everyday for a month. But I seriously doubt I will do a subscription to the site. I would much rather spend my money on Noell Hyman's site, Paperclipping.

So this week, I played with patterned paper and pictures from an Easter Egg Hunt. I have to be honest, after 16 years of scrapping Easter Egg hunts, I am done. I don't mind using the app to documents those events, but I feel no inspiration to traditionally scrapbook those events. There just isn't anything to journal about that feels meaningful.

Creating pages has been a real struggle for me lately. I don't feel particularly inspired or feel like I have stories to tell. I love mixing patterned papers together and usually am really skilled at this. I couldn't get the page to work. I tore it apart more than once. It's still cute and includes a picture of my daughter at her first egg hunt.

The second page I made this week was for an assignment for a Design Principles class by Meghann Andrews. This lesson was about asymmetrical balance. I know I am good at creating symmetrical layouts that are very balanced and stable. But asymmetrical composition is a tough one that I still struggle with. I copied Meghann Andrews layout, but I am still not sure if I like it. I do LOVE the photo and tried to create the feel of my oldest daughter expressing her vigor and vim for life.

Today, I was sorting through scrapbook kits for a different layout and found my bag of Egypt ephemera and memorabilia. I was so happy because I have been searching for the bag for two months--and rifled through this particular box about a dozen times. I had given up finding it and had worked to complete the 2-volume set documenting our 2012 trip to Egypt. I sorted the ephemera into categories and assembled several pages with postcards. In Luxor, we were not allowed to bring cameras inside the tombs, or even into the Valley of the Kings. I purchased a package of postcards from vendors with the intention of putting them in the scrapbook albums. The postcards show vividly some of the wonderful tomb reliefs, showcasing the gorgeous colors and intricate carvings. I made eight pages and added them to the second album. I have a few more pages to put together, but it will be fast because I can use the pocket page protectors and Project Life cards.

I also created journal scrapbook pages each day, recounting the highs and lows of each day. I won't post those pages because they are more personal and private. I am probably over-documenting my life because I post pictures on instagram--which are then printed into chatbooks every 60 photos I submit, I'm documenting on nearly a daily basis on this blog, and then I scrapbook and journal scrapbook. I don't feel too guilty because I really enjoy it. I feel happier and more emotionally healthy than ever and I think the writing and creating is theraputic.

© 2007-2016 TIFFANY WACASER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED