How I Do Daily Pages: @ErikaN

Welcome to How I Do Daily Pages, where ALP members tell us how they use this practice to help tell the story of their lives.

How I Do Daily Pages: @ErikaN

When did you start creating Daily Pages/How long have you been creating Daily Pages?

It all started in December 2021. I began searching for an online art community that not only survived, but was thriving despite the COVID-19 pandemic. In one of my communities, I was introduced to rukristin and the weekly Currently List. I wrote one every Monday, but I didn’t know anything beyond that.

I decided to start my search with those few pieces of information, and I ended up at The Awesome Ladies Project. An active group with a feed full of pictures of this thing they do called Daily Pages. I was intrigued since I hadn’t scrapbooked since 1998.

I soon learned Daily Pages wasn’t scrapbooking in the traditional sense, telling a story from beginning to end with a completed album sitting on the shelf. It was a place to play and practice, experiment and explore with small right now stories like the weather, a quote I found, or my coffee obsession – and it was the perfect place to restart this hobby.

What type of notebook do you usually use for your Daily Pages?

Homemade 4×6-inch journal bound together with book rings.

Do you have a typical Daily Pages routine?

I create Daily Pages at 7:00 A.M. on weekdays. I watch yesterday’s Daily Pages Live stream, and create my page along with Kristin and the other awesome ladies.

What are 3 of your most used Daily Pages supplies?

  1. Washi tape
  2. Magazine images
  3. Homemade ephemera

What is your favorite thing about Daily Pages?

artists : sketchbooks :: scrapbookers : daily pages

One of the reasons I quit scrapbooking was because there wasn’t a way to practice. I had to make a perfect page in an expensive heirloom album on my first try. To ease that kind of perfectionist pressure, I started scraplifting. That left me dissatisfied because my scrapbooks became suburban, cookie cutter albums. My albums were indistinguishable from my friends’ albums.

Daily Pages allows me to:

  1. Create ugly pages.
  2. Make mistakes.
  3. Not finish pages.
  4. Hone my pattern mixing skills.
  5. Practice making clusters.
  6. Take a month long deep dive into the possibilities and limitations of Washi tape.
  7. Record small ordinary life stories that would otherwise be forgotten.
  8. Workshop different ways to tell my stories in keepsake albums.

What is one tip you can give to someone getting started with Daily Pages?

Imagine two scenarios.

One, you are sitting in class with a blank page in front of you. The teacher says, “Write a story.”

Two, you are sitting in a class with a blank page in front of you. The teacher says, ”Write a story about a lion, a witch, and a wardrobe.”

Which is easier for you?

Some creatives desire unfettered freedom, doing whatever we want whenever we want. However, with infinite choice, infinite decision making is awaiting us. So when it’s given, we frequently abandon what we really want to do, and go binge watch our favorite TV show for the tenth time, remove the hard water stains from our shower faucets, or buy more scrapbooking supplies, thinking if we just had that perfect whatever, then we would begin.

This kind of freedom can cause overwhelm, confusion, or anxiety – and solutions like “just start” or “just sit down and an idea will come to you” are unsatisfying, because it’s not addressing the underlying problem. It’s not that we lack freedom — we have too much of it!

(If you’re like me, I know the rebel inside you is digging in her heels because she knows what’s coming next. That dreaded word – rules. “I’m not going to do that” is already on the tip of her tongue, just waiting for me to say it. If that’s you, then gently tell her, “when we read the word rules, we are going to use a different word like guidelines.”)

Creating some (flexible) rules for yourself beforehand to reduce these feelings and increase your motivation to show up and create a page daily.

When I started my practice, I decided to use the weekday themes that Kristin had already created, and I limited the number of supplies I was going to use for that week: 5 magazine images, 2-3 pieces of pretty paper, and Washi tape. The rules helped keep me engaged, energized, and most importantly, allowed the habit to become sustainable.

After the habit was established, then I was able to bend the rules. Some have fallen by the wayside. Others have been replaced. If life gets busy, or I feel the creative blahs set in, then I will make and follow a few more rules temporarily until I feel better about my stick-to-it-ness ability.

Daily Pages Resources

Related Articles

Responses

  1. Thanks, friends. I reread what I wrote since it has been awhile, and it still rings true. Even though my Daily Pages are digital right now in my new season of life, my process is the same.