Tuesday was Trick or Treat. Here's my little boy in his scary vampire costume. Many of you know that I like to go to the Halloween store the day after Halloween to find Kyle's next Halloween costume. You can't beat 50% off! One year I accidentally ended up with a purple girl dinosaur instead of a manly green one. Last year I bought this adorable vampire costume that Kyle decided he liked. Anyway, Kent took Kyle trick or treating while I passed out the treats at my house. So, I decided to work on a mega swap that is due this Friday.
What is this?
What is a swap? It is when a group of stampers make enough scrapbook pages or cards for everyone in the group. My Stampin' and Scrappin' Clubs swap at each meeting. Some people have asked how I do my swaps, so I thought I'd share my ideas.
The swap you see here is a 12x12 layout for a Mega Swap that my upline is hosting. We need to make 19 layouts and will receive 18 back (one is for her to keep as hostess of the swap). Sounds like a lot, doesn't it?! The trick is to break everything down into steps.
1. Decide your colors, stamp set, etc.
2. Make one layout to start. This allows you to move things around or add elements.
3. Cut everything you need to make all layouts/cards.
4. Get out the correct # of background pages. Stamp or wheel these if needed.
5. Stamp your sidebars or other elements (title bars, tags, journaling box, etc.)
6. Color in line images (if needed).
7. Adhere small pieces together (like tags, matted punches, etc.)
8. Begin adhering pieces to background pages. Sometimes I start with adhering one element at a time and other times I put together the whole page before I go to the next.
When you are doing a swap, it's a good idea to work on these steps over a few days. Day One--do steps 1 - 2. Day 2---step 3. Day 3--setep 4 -5, etc. The idea is to break it up into small, manageable steps!
Why do we swap? It is MUCH easier to make 8 of 1 layout/card than it is to make 8 different layouts/cards. Swapping also gives you a variety of looks without having to purchase all the stamps yourself! Swapping also allows me to get (somewhat) caught up on my scrapbooking. If I had to design all the pages in my scrapbook, I'd be waaay behind! Now, I just grab a swap that goes with the theme of my pictures, add some matting, occasionally a title bar, and maybe an accent or two and I'm finished!
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