So I’m in the grocery store yesterday when I see this cute under-sized magazine at the checkout lane. It is called Scrapbooks Made Easy 12 cool album ideas. Make one tonight! Of course I grab it right away. Not often I get to make a scrapbooking impulse buy at the grocery store.

This little magazine is a dynamo. Not so much for the layout ideas (although there are some cute ones) but more for the guilt reduction. You know, the stuff we scrapbookers make ourselves crazy over - cropping every picture, not doing anything unless everything is perfect, stuff like that.

A quick glance at the section headings alone offered me some relief from the self-induced stress of scrapbooker’s perfectionism.

It’s never too late.
Lose the guilt.
Leave most of your photos in the box
Celebrate your life

Here is an excerpt from the final section, Quality, not quantity:

“It’s easy to get excited about scrapbooking and start seeing everything with ’scrapbooker’s eye.’ Suddenly, everything is a layout waiting to happen. You dress your kids in shirts that match the paper you just bought and take them tot he park to take a picture for a scrapbook page. If you snap the photo and rush home to make your page, you’ve missed the point. If you take the photo, then put the camera away and have a great time playing on the swings, there is still hope for you! Scrapbooks are for saving memories and telling stories, but first you have to live them.”

These great concepts are interwoven with good ideas for album themes for baby, school, vacation, holiday, birthday and family. All in all, this was a great impulse buy. Well worth the $3.99. When you see this little mag co-produced by Simple Scrapbooks and Soap Opera Digest, go ahead and get it. If you aren’t seeking the latest, greatest, whiz-bang layouts but good concepts and ideas about scrapbooking, you’ll be glad you did.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 29th, 2005 at 6:08 am and is filed under Album Themes, Scrapbooking, Scrapbooking Magazines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.