About this time last year, my Paper Hoard gained some Scrapbook Workshops. By any other name, these are kits with all you need to create six 12×12 scrapbook pages, in three double-page spreads.

I only actually made one of these kits (despite collecting photos for another), and found several issues, at least from my crafting-style-perspective.

Firstly, I started my scrapbook with a ready-made 12×12 scrapbook from Hobbycraft. The space available for use is not, actually, quite 12×12. Neither’s the page, even when accounting for the space taken by the spiral binding. Very annoying. Hobbycraft, if you read this, fixing that would be helpful. I imagine the same applies to the smaller scrapbook sizes too.

Secondly, I don’t normally do double-page spreads. Don’t generally have enough photos of each event (or whatever) to group together for that, and I’ve only just started using both sides of a page anyway. So my first scrapbook is half single-sided, half double. Although, now I think about it, I have a scrapbook somewhere for all the mini cross-stitch kits I’ve otherwise had no real use for (you know, the ones where you just like the design or it came free with a magazine). That was where I started scrapbooking.

And thirdly, while beautiful, the pages created were considerably fancier than my normal crafting style. I don’t have the time, energy or patience for what amounts to artwork in my scrapbooks or for my cards. And I can never get the lines straight or the edges even.

But then, my lack of perfection probably better suits a scrapbook. The name does not suggest perfection, at least to me.

Besides, it’s cheaper to buy a not-quite-12×12 scrapbook from Hobbycraft then an album and page protectors (or: polypockets).

So now I have some pages floating about, although I never actually stuck the photos down, so at least I can reuse them in the actual scrapbook. Not sure what I’ll do with the now spare pages. Stick them in a folder and forget about them until I next reorganise my supplies, I expect.

In the meantime, I’m celebrating having got to the end of Tiny 1’s first year in photos. Only two years behind now! Not sure if I have enough space in the scrapbook for the photos I already have lined up, let alone for the new ones accumulating…

Also: still cutting into the beautiful papers I’ve had for too long!