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 love digital scrapping and I was a die hard traditional scrapper to the point that I sold Stampin Up AND Creative Memories. Now I spend my creative time in both digi scrapping and using the We R Memory Makers divided page protectors for those pictures I already have printed. For you, if you are short on time I would do the WRM system. Go through your photos and keep all the “good” ones and/or photoshop them to be better and have them printed. then invest in your page protectors, cut, journal and add stickers and ta-da…all done.
Try 20 years and 100 books 🙂 I’m interested to see everyone’s responses because I too am very far behind.
I love to scrapbook – the traditional kind and yes, I’m behind, but I love it too much to give up! Some day I willget caught up! If my MIL with 9 kids can do it – I can too! I follow the CM power method (cropping and laying things out ahead of time) and I can finish my over-stuffed yearly album in about 48 hours. That’s just me though.
My suggestion is this: A friend of mind who has 7 kids does traditional albums for each of her kids but here’s the kicker: she only does professional photos, one two-page spread of birthday and christmas each year and that’s it. She said it’s great becuase instead of running around at sports games or concerts, she just buys the professional pic and that’s it. Total pages per year: 3-6 depending on how many professional pics she has. Easy as pie!
I like my camera and my pics a bit too much to follow that but I think the idea is great!
Hope that helps someone out there!
Lea
I would do them online/digitally….i prefer Creative Memories software, but thats just a personal preference
There are a lot of digital options that are fast, simple, easy and affordable. Studio J by Close To My Heart is one of them.
(https://christin.myctmh.com/Retail/StudioJLanding.aspx?PageId=185)
Another option is to use the photo pocket pages like this:
https://christin.myctmh.com/Retail/Product.aspx?ItemID=588
Good luck!
@Christin, If you prefer the traditional method there are some great books out there like these: https://christin.myctmh.com/Retail/Category.aspx?CatalogID=20
or these:
http://www.scrapandpapershop.com/product/Super-Fast-Pages-with-46-Photos-Vol-2/creating-keepsakes-special-issues
I didn’t read through all the comments to see if someone mentioned this but I just started using LumaPix by FotoFusion. Like you, I have fallen way behind in my scrapbooking and really want the younger children to have an album too. I am a hands on type crafter and didn’t think I would like digital scrapbooking. My sis-in-law kept telling me that I had to try it. I’ve been doing it for a month and LOVE it! I can’t believe how simple it is to craft a page – and I’m not real computer savvy! Best of all, if I’m interrupted my the children or decide it is time to go to bed, all I do is hit Save – no huge scrapping mess to put away!
Gina
I would definitely go with something easy like Shutterfly or this year I did Picaboo. I have 4 kids and I do one album per year – they get them on Christmas Eve. I just pick out the best pictures of the year of that particular child as well as pictures of them with siblings, grandparents and friends. I try to keep the cost of each around $40 which seems like a lot when you’re paying all at once but I be if you added up the money for the traditional paper kind it would be a lot more.
I too used to scrapbook with my first and always felt a lot of guilt about having all that stuff and not using it, but that was all removed when I lost all of my scrapbooking stuff earlier this year. We were moving and our storage building flooded; while I was sad about some of the stuff we lost I felt a tremendous relief that I no longer had all thr scrapbooking supplies to feel guilty about. Mom’s have enough to feel “Mommy guilt” about – scrapbooking shouldn’t be one of them.
I love picaboo digital scrapbooking. Plus their prices for printing are reasonable (and there’s always a sale). Plus its easy to sit down for a few minutes and do a page or two as opposed to traditional scrapbooking. By the time you pull out all your supplies, your time is gone.
I too was once like you… have stacks of those same scrapbooks all filled to the brim. I would go to scrapbook stores and spend money galore on paper that I just had to have and of course i had to have more than one sheet of each of them. then my husband got hurt at work and was off work for a year and a half. I decided that the money should be spent on things such as bills and food …. then i took up a part time job since he was at home with the kids. I did not touch a picture in 2 years. Fast forward to now I have sold 90% of my scrapbooking supplies at way way less than i paid for them. and I now do things digitally. I have photoshop elements and use that to crop and adjust lighting issue in pictures ect. If I have time I will put together a book using snapfish or shutterfly but usually I just post my favorite few on my blog to share with friends and family. I have had my blog printed out and this is a great way to “document” our lives and actually have the pictures ( even though only a few of them) out of the computer and in a book. I would love to have tons of free time to edit all my pictures and upload them into cute books but such is not the case. I wish you luck in your journey
This very thing has been on my mind too! I found a book called “Simple Scrapbooks: 25 Fun and Meaningful Books You Can Make in a Weekend” by Stacy Julian. I believe it is out of print. It helped me think outside of the box in a big way. She suggests different formulas to help you create doable albums. I have decided to catch up on my kids’ baby books, creating one “spread” for each year of their lives until school. Then, once they start school I am starting school books that follow Stacy Julian’s simple school book formula which is the following, made in a 12 x 12 album:
a page with their school photo, a page about school, a spread about the rest of life (family, sports, trips), and a handmade pocket page where you can insert any memorabilia that reflects that child’s year.
I plan to use Shutterfly to make chronological books for me to keep and for the kids to have something to look at now as they are growing up.