Most of you may look at my gallery and wonder why the heck none of my layouts are in order. Let me explain... I started scrapbooking right after I got married in 1997. I was not even home from my honeymoon and had most of my wedding pictures planned out and ready to be scrapped. I was sooo on top of it for the first few months... lol.. then something terrible happened called LIFE. The days grew longer, and the pictures started piling up. I am not so much a organized kinda girl. in fact, I am quite the opposite. I would get my pictures developed and then they would get thrown in some random box, and forgotten. There were years I didn't even get photos developed, I just started saving the rolls and even to this day, I find rolls that need to be taken to the 1 hour photo booth for development. At some point I just got totally overwhelmed with photos, scrapbooking, and I just basically gave up. I wanted to get things "organized" again so I could start scrappin' chronologically. Well let me just say that never happened. I was putting way to much pressure on myself to get things in order, before I would scrap again. It made scrapbooking a task, and that was kind of a drag for me. So at some point after realizing that there was no way I would ever get 10+ years in chronological order I would just start with my favorite photos, and let my creativity decide what photo I wanted to scrap that day. It just took me getting over the mess, and dealing with the fact that my pictures, and books will probably never be in "order"!!! Now mind you, I still have good intentions of going back one day when I am completely done scrapbooking our entire lives (LOL) and getting these layouts in some kind of order but until then they sit in my photo albums all messed up, and you know what that’s ok with ME!! I have albums for every member of my family. My layouts get put in each family members album at the time of completion.. no system, no organization, just as I finish them. AND I AM OK WITH THAT!!!!!

So if you are a scrapper who just has to get things in order before starting to scrap, just get over it. Let your creativity tell you what you are wanting to scrap. Stop putting things off and just get started. Putting this kind of pressure on yourself will just take away from the whole experience of scrapbooking. Feel good about getting things completed.. and if it drives you nutty.... have intentions to one day go back and then get stuff organized!!!