paper: Too Precious to Scrapbook :: Paperclipping Roundtable Scrapbooking Podcast | pretty paper. true stories. {and scrapbooking classes with cupcakes.}

Earlier this week I recorded a new episode of the Paperclipping Roundtable, a weekly scrapbooking podcast hosted by Noell Hyman and Nancy Nally, and produced by Noell’s mister, Izzy. I snapped a picture just as we were finishing up this week so you can see what it looks like behind the scenes for me. I’ve been on the show five times and each time has been in a different location – which has been a total coincidence – but my set-up is pretty similar each time. We’re told the topic of the show a day or so in advance, and I start brainstorming bits and pieces and I stick them on the wall. The wall is always how I do my best planning – each of my classes and special albums and books and magazine issues I’ve worked on? All of them lived on a wall of notes at some point in time. In this case, the blinds ended up the best place. Some of those notes were discussed on the show and others didn’t really fit in naturally – but better too many possibilities than going blank while we’re recording, right? Back in the days when I had to host some radio hours as part of an exam, I always had quite a bit of criticism for not having a good radio voice, but I never lost marks for dead air!

The rest of the set-up includes more post-it notes and a pen to write as we go – sometimes someone says something I want to come back to and I don’t want to forget it as the conversation continues. We record the show online, and this time I tweeted right before we started recording then I left Twitter automatically refreshing in the background so I could see the replies. Then there are the necessities: water and a microphone! (And yes, water tastes better in glasses from the release of The Great Muppet Caper. I am sad there are no commemorative glasses for the new Muppet movie, actually!)

The Paperclipping Roundtable Episode 103 – Too Precious to Scrapbook by Paperclipping Roundtable

I was super excited to be joined by Wilna Furstenberg for this episode, and the topic of discussion came from that feeling we get when we build up important photos to be so very important that they are almost too precious to scrapbook – that idea that photos from key moments in life need to be scrapbooked perfectly and until then, not at all. You can listen online or via iTunes to hear the discussion around the table.

In general, my advice in this situation is always something is greater than nothing. If you’re scared to scrapbook a really important day, would you prefer your scrapbooks be left without that event entirely? Or would it be better to give it a shot and see what you can do, and if that means you go back later and work on that subject more, then so be it. But if you never start, it will never be there. Simple as that. So something is always great than nothing.

Other things that might help:
Try a warm-up session. If time allows, try scrapping something less intimidating first, then use that confidence to move onto the more precious photos. Just like warming up your muscles in a work out – except it’s your creativity in this case. (If I go a week without scrapbooking, I honestly feel something I describe as ‘forgetting how to scrapbook’. It just means things aren’t running as smoothly under my fingers as usual. That first page or two after a break helps me warm up and then I’m off and running again.)

Remember you can go back. You can always go back. You can add, subtract, rework. Your scrapbooks are your memoirs and you are the editor. If you decide a page doesn’t have enough detail or writing or perspective, you can go back and add whatever it needs whenever you fancy. I go back through my older pages often and add in more writing and sometimes more photos… and I take things out or change things around. I don’t consider the pages themselves to be so precious once they are finished that they can’t be changed.

Be thankful for digital images. These days, you either took the photos with a digital camera or you can create a digital back up by scanning or photographing your one-of-a-kind photos or scanning your negative collection. With that in mind, why would we ever be scared? If we decide we don’t like how the page is going, we can print a new copy and start again – as many times as we like. No longer do we have to worry about ruining a photo. Everything will be okay!

I hope you enjoy the episode! You can find more discussion about this episode here on the Paperclipping blog.

xlovesx

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25 February 2012

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