2013 Europe Backpacking Album - Part 1

A couple of weekends ago I spent some quality time in my crafty space (aka scrapbooking to my hearts content).

My focus was on completing additional pages for my 2013 Europe Backpacking album. 

But let's rewind just a tad. 

I recently completed Shimelle's new class "The Scrapbook Process", which was excellent and I highly recommend! (Click here for class details and to sign up!) She focused on three of her personal albums, each with their own "issue" and provided tips on how to complete pages for them. 

I really zeroed in on the tip of putting page kits together for an album that has been in progress for a long time (say years), but hasn't been touched in quite some time. These kits will include paper/embellishments, the pictures to be scrapbooked AND sketches for inspiration. 

I've used sketches, or scraplifted completed layouts created by other scrapbookers, in the past, but for some reason I felt like I was cheating because the layout design wasn't 100% my own.

After taking this class, I felt like somehow the guilt of using a sketch, or scraplifting, was released from within me because really, they are an awesome tool to help us in our own creative process. It's up to you just how much you stick to the sketch or original design.

I know this is deep and a little crazy for scrapbooking. So, let's jump ahead. 

I wanted to put my focus back on my Europe album and hopefully make a dent in it. Sketches and page kits came to my rescue. I went through all my photos for Barcelona that had yet to make it into my album, printed them, found sketches for them and finally created page kits. 

I managed to create 5 kits, each within their own page protector and placed them within the album of where they would live once completed. For the pictures that I didn't create a kit, I slid them in their own protector and also placed them in the album so I would have an idea of what was left to complete. 

The initial group of supplies I put together when I started this album has started to dwindle. So I need to complete some pages so I can assess what I have left to complete the remaining Barcelona pages.  My hope is that I can stretch these supplies to complete Barcelona and then use a new stack of supplies for our next country visit. 

I have to tell you that by just completing this bit of organization for my album, I felt super accomplished. It really took some of the stress I had been feeling about how I was ever going to move forward with this album. 

Since doing this, I have completed the 5 kits (one of them being a double page spread) and I have a sixth layout in progress right now. 

Tomorrow, I am going to start sharing the first 4 pages I completed during my scrappy weekend. 

Here's a little peak:

And yes, all these layouts used a sketch or existing layout as inspiration from one individual, Shimelle. 

Until tomorrow my crafty friends!