For the Joy of Page Kits

I used to call my scrapbooking style "Batch" scrapbooking, as I seemed to do things in a batch styled process. I'd edit and print and bunch of photos. Then my next block of time I'd work up some journaling on the computer for the photos. This would help me solidify the story I wanted to tell if there was one or might help me decide to break photos up for multiple stories. A plus is that it also usually gave me my title as well. Then I'd match the photos with paper, grabbing individual sheets from collection packs and tearing each sheet out from paper pads if necessary and bagging them together. Then I'd grab embellishments that I thought would go in each bag. I'd have a nice stack waiting for me.

I loved being able to just grab a bag. I don't scrapbook chronologically, so I could still go through my eclectic mix of photo bags and choose what was calling to me at the time.  However, over the last couple of years I fell away from my batch scrapbooking process and my page kits.

Recently, I've rediscovered the joy of page kits. 

I forgot to do the journaling before and just paired photos with papers. This is something I will go back to in the future. I realize I don't use a lot of titles when I don't work on the journaling or if there is no real story.

What I tweaked, just because I'm lazy, was that I didn't tear sheets from the paper pads or separate collection packs. If I was using a pad or pack, the whole thing went into the bag.  I would include any photo that I thought went with the collections feel. So I might have a photo of my son to talk about a quirky habit, a family outing, and my great niece (where generally there is no story since we don't see her often).  I didn't worry about embellishments unless I knew there was ephemera or an item that I really wanted to use. I like pulling those things in the moment.

With the Fancy Pants Collection "What A Wonderful Day", I ended up with 2 different photos of my niece in the bag. These are the pages I came up with.

What makes this tweak so AWESOME!  I liked that the paper pieces go back in with the collection pack and get put right back on the shelf for a quick and easy clean up.

I'll be adding even more page kits to my future. (happy dance).