To Scrapbook or Not?
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Years ago, I was a scrapbooking queen. I spent every spare dollar on supplies. I drove miles to visit scrapbooking shops and to attend scrapbooking conferences.
This was all pre-internet, too!
As our family grew, I determined that I would make sure that every milestone of my children’s lives would be carefully documented within the pages of color coordinated scrapbooks. I was a dreamer.
Yes, yes, I was.
Fast forward ten years or so. The boys, ages 13, 10, 8, and 6, each have at least one album. The girls? None. Other things have taken precedence over my scrapbooking hobby.
However, I don’t want my girls to follow the typical pattern of “the baby doesn’t have a baby book.” So, I’m turning to you for advice and input.
What would you do?
As it’s been four years since I last cropped a photo, I’m a little “behind the times” in terms of products that are available and techniques that are being used.
One of my goals this year is to do something with our photos. I figure this project is a good one to figure out.
I don’t have time for cute or elaborate layouts. I have four years of photos stored digitally. The choices, as I see them, are
- do nothing
- do my best to physically cut and paste simple designs and get my girls’ albums complete
- create my albums online via Kodak Gallery or Shutterfly
- or ?????
Any suggestions?
If you had four years and two albums to document, what is the quickest and simplest way that you would approach it?
Shutterfly books are a wonderful choice. If you’re looking for an option that includes more journaling of their stories, it’s fun to use a blog printing website!
I keep our blog as a family scrapbook, and once a year, I get it printed at http://www.blog2print.com
Blurb.com is another similar choice. Both offer coupon codes from time to time.
You just input the site address for your blog, make a few choices, and the book is ready to print. (Blurb can be a little more complicated, but gives you more choices.)
It costs me $60 – $80 per year to print it, and it allows me the option of slowly adding stories throughout the year without the mess and fuss of scrapbooking.
Each of my kiddos gets a paper scrapbook of their first year. And that’s it! 😉
I do enjoy the digital books, yet I would do a traditional scrapbook. Traditional albums can have memorabilia and your handwriting in them. Order the photos you need online then do the two albums at the same time. Just lay them out together and do similar page lay outs. If you do some of your cropping before you order the photos you’ll only have to do it once per photo!
I am in the process of doing one of these for my daughter. I scrapbooked my son’s first 2 years and then gave it up. So am trying to do something for her as well. I like that it looks scrapbook-ish and is designed by Becky Higgins. HTH!
http://www.shutterfly.com/photo-books/sweet-baby-designed-by-becky-higgins/sweet-baby-8×8-photo-book
Personally, I think that you should do a CM album for each of the girlies 1st years. (Didn’t I give you some girly pages or kit of some sort?) Keep it simple — a few pages for pregnancy & birth and then maybe 1 dps for each month. That way, each kid has one that was lovingly handmade by momma. I think that there is something special about having YOUR handwriting in the album. Then, go ahead and switch to digital if it is easier to keep up.
I so appreciate this question and everyone’s input. I’ve been thinking about this recently because I too am behind on scrapbooking now that I have five children and am homeschooling.
Thanks to the Life as Mom advice, I am putting together a household notebook with daily/weekly/monthly checklists. I have actually added “work on personal scrapbook” to my weekly list for the following reasons:
1. I love to scrapbook (as in traditional scrapbooking–cutting, mounting, embellishments of ribbons, buttons, etc.)
2. My children LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to look at our scrapbooks and see pictures of our family and friends.
3. I have all of my photos in scrapbooks up until the ones from about 3 years ago. That’s when baby #4 came along.
4. Working on my scrapbooks once a week is better than nothing. Surely someday I will catch up.
I personally am a fan of digital scrapbooking, if simply because the fanbase is SO huge, there are forums and galleries EVERYWHERE with inspiration and yes, even pages you can just plain copy with your own photos. However I believe that you need to have some skill with a photo-editing software to really make them look good. If that doesn’t interest you, I’d “shop your supplies” and do at least a first year book in paper for your girls. I wouldn’t “do nothing.” However, your girls aren’t going to really treasure this book right now — what they treasure is making memories NOW, not memories past — so write down what details you can remember and keep it safe, and go ahead and keep the fancy books on your shelf until your kids are older. Maybe they can even help you make their baby book when they’re old enough (say 11 or 12) and THAT can be a wonderful memory for them. I know I would have loved doing something like that with my mom.
If you do decide to try the digiscrapping route with a program on your own computer (such as Photoshop or something like it, with layers, a “from scratch” thing, not Shutterfly or online premade stuff) — please feel free to send me an email, I used to be a digiscrap designer and although I don’t sell my kits anymore I have several kits I created just gathering dust on my server. I’d be happy to send them to you.
hotprints.com gives you 4 free photobooks per month. They have ads inside of them but their or perforated so you can tear them out.
I would do memory boxes. Pick out or create beautiful a beautiful box for each girl and then put all your special treasures and photos in there. When the occassion (and time) strikes, add special notes and letters about how proud you are of them or how much they are growing up. Just think how much they will enjoy reading those!
I am right there with you. My oldest (5yr) is the only one that I have a scrapbook for. Did I mention that I have 4 kids? I started Project Life last year and love it! There are so many options and ways of doing it. Even digitally if that is what you are into.
I love that it only takes a few minutes to keep up with it. I have started one for this year and it is probably the best investment that I have ever made. It can be from the whole family too. Everyone can contribute. That is one of the things that I love best.
Good luck!
I’m in agreement with the suggestions to use leftover scrapbook stuff that you have…if you have enough for a whole book and won’t have to buy more. That might take a little more planning than usual. Shutterfly is a great option if you want a photo book without much journaling, and they have some great sales occasionally. You can create your book and save it to print until there’s a good sale. Creative Memories has an easy to use free software without many bells and whistles, but it will give you a book that’s as good as what Shutterfly offers with the option of journaling.