It's a New Year, what is your resolutions?

I hear this phrase quite often...

How do you have time to scrapbook/paper craft?

Honestly, I don't have EXTRA time to scrapbook - I have to make scrapbooking time a priority. I am a Stay At Home Mom with a toddler in the house and a husband that is here as well. My husband is in the process of becoming self employed. So I have a lot of interruptions to say the least.

I am one that also feels guilty scrapbooking if there is housework needing to be done. Once I get going on a project I don't want to stop so the household chores can pile up. I am learning to prioritize my responsibilities.

One thing I have found to make it easier and a little more guilt free is to have designated days for some things such as laundry. Before my husband left his previous job to work on his own employment ambitions my schedule was like this:

Sunday is church day. We have Church and Sunday School in the morning and AWANA's in the evening. No plans in between other then preparing a "lunner" or reading. Quiet day.

Monday would be grocery day and local errands if necessary.

Tuesday/Wednesday would be scrubbing sinks and toilets and sweep/mopping or running errands in town with dh. If we were gone Tuesday then Wednesday would be scrubbing day.

Thursday would be laundry day. Easy task - just time consuming. Thursday was also dh's night back to work after his weekend.

Vacuuming is a noisy task. I only have carpets upstairs in the bedrooms. No shoes or dirt so not a daily task. I didn't necessarily have a designated day for vacuuming since dh would sleep during the day. That came when he was out of the house when it fit around other tasks.

Daily tasks are playing with my toddler, dishes/kitchen and sweeping.


When do I do my creative time? I would use Thursday evening for that when dh was working nights. This way it didn't interfere in the weekend activities or if friends would call for a get together. It was the end of the week so if I was up late creating - I didn't have a full week ahead to be exhausted.

Now that he is home all the time, I have a harder time making an evening to scrapbook. I do designate a day and tell everyone, this is important to me and I'd like to get work on my projects. If I'm staying on top of my daily responsibilities then I don't feel guilty about having ME time.

When are you scheduling some paper crafting time for yourself? You have the supplies -- make it a priority and get to it! Start with small blocks of time -- 2 hours. If you don't have a space to leave the "mess" out. Invest in a flat 12" storage box where you can lay what you've begun into and/or a bin to keep the supplies still being used in so it is ready to grab and go and get back to it next time.

Are you going to set aside a day a week or a day a month for paper crafting? Leave me a comment if this is something you are struggling with and want to squeeze in more time for.

Stay tuned -- I am in the process of creating my wall calendar. It is all black and white inks and papers and I can't wait until it is finished. I will post January and February pictures here shortly. No photos on the layouts yet though. I'll do that when the entire calendar is done.