Suddenly feeling very overwhelmed by the sheer number of photos I'm coming across when ever I think about going to scrap something. Not felt quiet like this before, except sometimes when I'm doing a holiday album and need to take a break from it for a bit. Maybe it's time for a different approach to how I look at and choose photos.
Angela, I barely ever do EVENT pictures because I feel so pressured. I either have too many pics or not enough or they are not good enough. Just read your signature here at the pad and follow that! FOCUS ON WHAT MATTERS AND RELAX!
Years ago I started to feel like a LOT! Something that I personally started doing it a monthly "misc" page. I only allow myself 2 pages to capture all the smaller events and misc things I want to remember from each month. I often end up with about 40-60 pictures in that pages' folder, so I obviously can't do them all or they'd be tiny. SO, I end up using Just Jaimee's Ready-to-Go templates and I pick my favorite photos to go in the photos spots and then I leave several spots open for journaling and I just journal about the other photos. For instance, I often take a picture of something like the price of gas if it's especially high or low, but I don't need that photo on my page... I just take it to make sure to remember to add a snippet of journaling about that. That has helped me not feel so overwhelmed by everything I want to capture in my scrapbook, without having to do a separate page for each thing. Here are my pages for February:
I have all my photos in LR, but I keep a folder called Photos to Scrap. I pull out the best ones from the events, etc. for about a month and export them from LR to the folder. I then scrap from the folder, deleting the photos after I comlete the page. Having a much smaller selection of photos works for me than having all of them available. I am also a chronological scrapper trying to get 2019 done (I am on late Nov photos).
What I learned as a highschool yearbook editor: Use photos that tell a story (particularly, when you have events with lots of photos). And then use the ones that are just exceptional photos for features. I switched to Adobe CC, which gave me Lightroom, allowing me to actually organize all my photos. I have photos organized by year, and organize so I can see event photos grouped together. I add a white flag when I've used a photo, and I use the "x" flag for a photo I have no intention of using from an event. Do not feel pressure to use every photo. In fact, be ruthless - only take the photos that either (1) add to your story or (2) are truly exceptional. My other thing I've learned to do is I scrap events together now. Earlier this week I scrapped a photo of my daughter Ruth from 2010 for a challenge. I have now scrapped all the other photos I wanna use from that event. I used the same template pack, and based everything on the same kit so I've now got a unified look. It's also quicker to scrap when I've got a bunch of my decisions made for me. (Repeating the background paper, or style treatments I'm using on particular items.)
thank you everyone. I've decided to stick with the here and now for the next week or so, before attempting to look at the catch-up / past photos again.
btw @Angela Toucan Just wanted to say that we have all been there so just breathe. Have you made a page of TJ scrapping? LOL!!!
Symptom 379B of Life in Coronatime is the feeling of being overwhelmed, especially when we are constantly reminded that we have so much 'free time'. The thinking about that we need to do these days to get so many of life's chores really is an unseen mental burden. I KNOW how much you do here!!! So be kind to yourself. None of us can do it all... Maybe take some of those old photos of events etc and just do a family look at them and talk about the memories. If nothing else, the talk will help imprint the memories in your families minds.
