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 started a family blog with our third child and once I completed a year of blogging I used blurb.com to turn it into a book. It will pull all of your posts right into a book format. Then you have pictures and text all together on the same page with minimal work from yourself. You can arrange and edit to your desire, but I’ve found it to be much simpler and happier than paper scrapping which takes way too much time with my four kids four and under.
We used Shutterfly to make photo books of our wedding to give to our parents for a Christmas present. It was very easy. You can get as involved in the creation of it as you want or you can let Shutterfly do the work for you. I’m going to need to do the same thing for my daughter who is approaching 2. We have a pink storage box with all her “stuff” and some photos. YIKES! The task is daunting. Good luck to you!
Digital would be the quickest, easiest method. And if you’re not quite ready to go all-digital, you can do a mix… for example… print a photo collage, put it on a cardstock background, add a few embellishments and done…
But… if you prefer traditional scrapbooking, I’d also recommend pre-made page kits. There’s a million different varieties out on the market (in a variety of price ranges) that are a quick way to get things documented without re-inventing the wheel.
There’s also some albums that have different sheet protector styles (in varying pocket sizes) that allow you to scrapbook whatever you want and drop in photos everywhere else. Takes away some of the pressure and they still look great!
I have the privilege of working in the scrapbooking industry as a buyer, so I’m around it all the time. But that doesn’t matter!! I’ve got a 4 yr old who only has about the first 5 months of her life scrapbooked!! The biggest thing is to find a method you like, set aside some time daily, weekly, monthly–whatever, remember that you don’t have to scrapbook EVERY photo–just the highlights, and most importantly think about your motive. Deciding WHY it is you want to scrapbook will help you decide HOW you want to scrapbook. 🙂
And… good luck!
I saw it was already mentioned but I would def. recommend Project Life by Becky Higgins easy as pie, and you can do it anyway you like or its all drawn out for you to follow instuctions if you prefer that. I too have 4 kids 3,5,7& 9 for the moment and I think this is going to be fantabulous!
Check out this website:
http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/
You will need photoshop or another similiar program. It takes a little while to learn ,but it is all the fun of a crop/paper scrapping without the mess!It is digital so easy to burn to CDs(We had a fire and I highly recommend putting pictures and pages on CD’s in a fire box.Our Sentry box worked great.)You can print them or even transfer pages to books in shutterfly ect.
There are so many fun digital sets,embellishments,stickers,ect!!And you can find many FREE. ;o)
I think that we all use our time according to our own priorties so none of us should feel bad about the things we can’t find time for because we are taking care of the things that are important. That said, I had a mom who dumped all the pictures she took(at least those she actually got printed) into a big cardboard box and there they still sit. So, when I started to feel overwhelmed by the amount of pictures after three children, I too searched for a quick, easy way to get it done. I use Story Book Creator from Creative Memories but I’ve also used Schutterfly to make a book. Shutterfly is much simpler to use but CM gives you the flexibility to print out pages that fit in CM albums. (My kids are still little so I know that they will inevitable rip pages from the books!) CM also has a big learning curve in my opinion. Good luck catching up!
I recently used Shutterfly to make a photo album of my 1 year old for his grandparents for Christmas. I liked it so much that I decided I would make a photo album for each year of my 2 children’s lives! It’s easy, fun, and there are often coupons and deals!
me too! I still have all the supplies, but not the time. I LOVE mypublisher.com
the books look like store quailty ( I get a book jacket added). If you sign up for emails they always have a coupon and are super easy to use. I do a yearly book- they save them online so if anything happens to them, I can order another. Good luck with those photos!
Simplify-simplify! : ) I would go with whatever is easiest for you. For hardcopy if you are concerned about the girls not having a book to hold in their hand. Go back to an old fashioned photo album and don’t worry about it, who you are today is not who you were then when you spent time on the scrapbooking thing although I’m sure they were lovely books.
For me? True confession time at age 50? I started a Hallmark baby book with my first baby girl, our daughter, now 28. Our second baby girl, now 25, a less elaborate unfinished one. Our third baby girl, now 21? I think I have one. For our fourth baby girl? I’m just not sure… I do have boxes of photos with dates written on back plus digital online. And ya know? None of this has ever caused any problems or has ever been hardly noticed because they understand how busy life in a functioning home is. There are just other priorities going on… Living life & loving, is more important than the little details hanging over our heads. K.I.S.S. Dorothy Moore alway said…Keep it Simple Sweetie.
Once at Hobby Lobby there was a young mom with me on the scrapbook paper aisle. She chose one and only one paper. She said she did one page at a time, but only when she had the time to do that one page. I thought she was one smart cookie. : )
The scrapbooking thing really has become out of hand in my opinion. My dd21 was going to work as a nanny for a young woman who wanted to pay her to scrapbook as one of her duties.
That’s my two cents. Hope I didn’t say too much. Just follow the Lord as I know you do, He will lead and guide. What would Jesus say? : ) Your children won’t remember much about an absence of a scrapbook but they will remember absence of a preoccupied not all there Mommy. Even now, our four dds are stay at home daughters at this time in their life. But I am often reminded to be all there, a young woman with a Mom-blog reminds me of that. (big smile)
Hugs & Blessings!
I just started diving into digital scrapbooking using Adobe Photoshop Elements. It has been wonderful. I have only used the free “kits” through Design House Digital’s website, but the pages I have come up with have been great! They really only took a short time to do. You can get as elaborate or as simple as you want as well. I have TONS of actual paper scrapbooking supplies upstairs and now I just wonder who I can sell them too! 🙂 I’m hooked. I haven’t printed anything yet, but I have seen that you can print digital scrapbooking pages on Shutterfly. 🙂