I often wonder how other scrapbookers can put together layouts so quickly when it takes me days to finish one.
I finally realized my process is very different and part of it has to do with the way I handle supplies and photos:
I only print and cut what I need at the time I need it.
It’s interesting to see how others work. It clicked for me when I saw this post about cutting lots of letters out on the Silhouette. Scrapbookers will often spend time putting together embellishments to access later.
The same goes for printing photos. Other scrapbookers will often send large sets of photos to print, will store them, and then will go through the printed photos and select which ones to use for a layout. This is a great post from Simple Scrapper about scrapbooking roadtrips. I noticed that it suggests printing the photos first and then figuring out the layouts second.
I only print photos after I decide to use them on a layout. I only print what I need. There’s an argument to be made that printing at home is more expensive than ordering prints. However, I don’t print excessively and only print when I’m sure the photo is exactly what I want.
I don’t like having extra things around. I like the feeling that I’m only cutting up what I need, only printing what I need. It may take me longer to make an individual page, but I don’t spend a whole lot of time acquiring or refining supplies. I wait for the page and the supplies to speak to me.
My way isn’t necessarily better, it’s just different.
I sometimes think when reading Danielle’s blog that I’m not that Eco friendly. Maybe I am and I just don’t know it!
Almost Never Clever 
I always print photos first. I wonder if this is because I became a scrapbooker during the film era and you didn’t have a choice in the matter? I am a lot better at selectively printing photos than I used to be. I still don’t use all of them, but don’t have nearly the excess. I also use my extras for layouts for my daughter’s album or give them to her to make her own pages.
I started to scrapbook in the film era as well. I finally finished all my 35mm photos a couple of years ago. I thought it was going to be tough switching to digital in terms of my creative process, but I really like it. I like being able to control the size of the print for what I have in mind for the page.
Nat, just like you, I prefer to cut as I go. I have discoveres that, whatever I do in advance is wasted time and supplies. The only thing I can do in advance is the journaling. I “pre-journal” and save it in the computer. Then I can review, edit, or (what most frequently happens) add to that original text. In that sense, it makes me ecofriendly, but to be honest my main concern is telling the story as close as I can recall it using words and pictures. Everything else is so secondary to me…
Interesting to hear that someone is the same way!