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?
I have never been a scrapbook-er. I have many friends who have been or are and it has never appealed to me although I love to admire their handiwork. Sometimes, I make a digital album (like for our recent “Great Western Vacation) for our coffee table or for another reason. I use Walmart or Shutterfly. I highly recommend digital albums or scrapbooks. They have tons of choices, they aren’t that expensive and they are less time consuming. BUT that doesn’t mean they don’t properly and beautifully showcase your wonderful memories. They do exactly that which is what scrapbooking is all about anyway!
I was a CM consultant for 10 years (that was 2 years ago), so I have shelves just like your picture. As an experiment, I did an entire year’s worth of digital pictures over Christmas break, using CM’s Storybook Creator software. Took me 30 days to do an entire year’s worth! That’s 75 pages! Still 12 x 12, still embellished, but done digitally. No mess, and I felt just as accomplished when holding the digital book as the traditional one. Software is well worth the money. I’ve made cards, calendars, etc., and exported them as JPGs to whatever photo site was offering me the best deal, not just CM. I still do traditional for, say, school albums, but besides that, I’m digital all the way, baby!
I scrapbooked for about a year and a half while Peter and I were dating and then engaged. I got one book completely done and part of a second one and then the wind went out of my sails and I haven’t touched the books in over 11 years. I’m all for Snapfish doing the work for you – the point, afterall, is to save and share the memories. It doesn’t matter if you spend hours cropping and pasting or if it comes in a neat, pre-bound book. You still spent the time to show your kids/family that they are special and worth remembering.
Well, after 14 years, I still am a “scrapbooking queen”! 😉 In fact, I have made it into a small business for myself for the past 6 years. That said, I still do books full of traditional layouts, I do digital books on occasion & I have taken to another method also which I use for things that I want to document, but don’t want to spend a lot of time on. I use this method for Christmas pictures each year, vacations, birthdays, etc. – usually things that I have a lot of pictures for. What I do is kind of a cross between a photo album & a scrapbook – I take a photo album with 4″x6″ slots and for many of the slots, I simply slide the photos in. For other slots, I may put journaling in one, or a title in one. I take a couple of the photos & trim them down to 3.5″x5.5″ and mat them on colored cardstock or patterned paper. I may add embellishments , I may not. Another option is that they now make predivided page protectors for scrapbooks with different configurations & sizes (I am currently doing a book like this also) where again, you are sliding photos into protectors, and adding as much or as little “scrapbooking stuff” as you want.So, especially if you already have tons of pictures that you have already printed out, my recommendation would be one of those 2 options. If you don’t , then the digital is a great option too!
I used the free Creative Memory Digital program. LOVE them. Because I digitally did my daughter’s this year and due to lack of time, I created a photo montage of our 2010 set to music…I’m choosing that option again for next year as well. onetruemedia.com
Shutterfly is easy because you can upload your photos, chose your layout and the put the photos in the book for you. However, I prefer Picaboo. I have books from both companies and the Picaboo books are more “heirloom” quality to my way of thinking. A little more work, and perhaps a little more expensive, but worth it in the long run. I love digital scrapbooks-and anyway, isn’t it all about the photos?
I felt the same pull, I scrapbooked before children and now that I have kids I don’t have as much time to do it. I have done the snapfish books (usually free ones I have codes for.) In December I went with my mother to a crop and worked on more recent photos, and I loved it!
I am looking at this year and I want to scrapbook again. I am using the “use what’s in your pantry” way of scrapbooking. I have been re organizing my supplies (remembering what I have along the way) and jumping back in. But I’m not buying anything new! I want to use what I have and other than printing out photos (99 cents for 99 photos at snapfish) I’m not buying anything else…when I’m done and I’m done, and I hope I end up with some nice scrapbooks.
@Melanie, I’ve been approaching my scrapbooking with the “use what’s in your pantry” philosophy, too… and it’s been both challenging and rewarding forcing myself to use all of the supplies I’ve long since invested in!
I recommend Shutterfly or going digital, but I highly recommend doing SOMETHING. It dawned on me that late last year that my children were missing out on the photos and memories that I took of them because I didn’t build in time to scrapbook. It’s ok to do something creative and make time for it (appointment with yourself) if it will bless your family. I finally finished up a Disney album from 2005… My son could barely remember the trip. I don’t want that to happen again. So I’m trying to build in time and my children love looking at themselves and each other in the albums. How you do it is a preference, just make sure you have some way to bless your children with those memories in a tangible way. As a homeschooler, could you build it as a family project? My niece and sister in law go to retreats together and make her album together. Your daughters are young, but that may be an option some day 🙂 my 2 cents. hth.
I have 6 kids, ranging in age from 18 months to almost 12. I created paper scrapbooks for the first four kids, finding a natural stopping point at Kindergarten age. Then for our most recent two kids I made shutterfly books for them online. My almost 4 year old has 3 completed Shutterfly books and one that will be done for her in May. The digital books are perfect for “catching” up. You can create them quickly on the computer and wait for a great sale and then buy them. I love that if they get torn or destroyed, then I can simply order another one exactly like it. Not so with the paper ones. I love my older books, but the are cumbersome, heavy, prone to tearing easily even with page protectors and one of a kind, therefore can NOT be replaced. I wish I had been able to do digital with all the kids.
They way I scrapbook after they turn 5 is I create one homeschool yearbook with a compilation of all of our family highlights, field trips and fun stuff. I take some time through the year working on pages so it’s not overwhelming. I’ve posted many of the pages I made for our yearbook on my blog if you want to see some ideas.
Some moms were just having this discussion on Monday while the kids were playing! I have tons of supplies, only a partial book for myself done and totes full of stuff. I would recommend going digital and doing an online book. I am trying to go through my stuff now to put in boxes so we can actually go through the stuff and look at it!