5 Ways To Play With a product When You're All Caught Up

As an empty nester, I’m mostly “caught up” with my scrapbooking—but every now and then, a new collection comes along that I just can’t resist!

Here are four fun ways I love to put a fresh collection to use:

Create a page before the event.
Themed collections usually release before the actual holiday or occasion, so I like to plan for photos I know I’ll take. For example, my husband and I always sit in the driveway with our dog to hand out candy on Halloween. Since I know that’s happening again this year, I went ahead and made a layout in advance. Once the night’s over, I can pop in a photo and enjoy the finished page! Bonus: this trick helps me make a mental checklist of shots to capture.

Refresh older pages
My style has changed a lot since I first switched from paper to digital scrapbooking. These days, I have a better handle on things like scale, shadowing, and text placement. One way I use new collections is by revisiting older layouts with the same theme. If the old version doesn’t spark joy anymore, I give it a refresh! It’s a fun way to keep my albums feeling consistent and to make sure I love the pages I’m looking back on.

I was really into small photos for a while and now I want larger photos and more of the story on the pages. Both options are totally fine-it’s personal preference! I redid the first page to fit more of my current goals. The printed book I have of that year, includes the old layout, but my digital display of pages, will include the new page. There is no rule that you can’t have multiple pages of an event. My pages-my rules!

(Before)

(After)

A couple additional ideas to use a kit you love without photos:

Scrap for a friend.

If you have friends who don’t scrapbook, ask to borrow some of their photos! Sometimes I just want the creative outlet without worrying about my own stories. Friends are usually thrilled to get a page—even if they never print it and just enjoy it digitally. It’s a win-win: I get to play with a new collection, and they get a special keepsake.

Create a page without a photo or take a photo from Google.

Feeling nostalgic? While you may not have photos from your youth, you can probably find a photo of a childhood topic on google and use the kit to tell the story with no photos or generic photos.

This new release was one I couldn’t wait until Halloween to dive into—and I’m so glad I didn’t!

The Midnight Apothecary Collection