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?
another vote for ‘digital’ scrapbooks/photo albums. It is SO.EASY! You can do a little at a time & save it; you can often get it fairly cheaply (free shipping, % off…or even FREE – they’ve had groupons for shutterfly books in the past!) and I don’t have to worry about little pieces coming unstuck/unglued and having alittle person accidentally ingest them. 😉
I started feeling very behind in my books, to the point that every time I went to work on one it felt like a job trying to catch up with all the photos. One of my goal for this year is to just relax! So with that in mind I’m looking at my scrapbooking different this year. 1. Scrapbooking is mommy’s time to relax! 2. It’s does not have to be done in order nor does the album have to be finished this year. 3. I will not buy supplies this year with the exception of glue.
Shutterfly, without a doubt. I switched over 4 years ago. (And caught up on the baby’s book pretty quickly) It’s easy to download and they have options to simplify the process or if you want more control over layouts, etc you can choose the other option (forget what they call it). For me, it is the only way to go. I like shutterfly better than Kodak, snapfish, etc. They have had the best photo quality and the books have held up well.
I see you have CM scrapbooks — I personally NEED to touch and create and it is my favorite company to scrap with. But what I do for my photos is keep a chronological family album and then do Shutterfly or Snapfish (or one of the many companies) for themed events (youth group ski trip, girl scout camping trip). Plus! I wait for the specials that offer a free book and you only pay shipping (keeping it frugal!)
I agree with Misty — print your pictures (again when specials are offered!) As a wise friend says “Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be jpegs!” My daughter loves to scrapbook her own albums (she started when she was about 7 or 8). It is great quality time spent together!
I love picaboo digital photo books. I have made one each year for the first three years of my son’s life and am working on my first for my younger son. That program allows you to change the layout in any way you want and also offers dozens of premade layouts. I group like photos to tell mini stories on each page and then the last few pages tend to just be favorite snapshots from the year that didn’t fit anywhere else. I was recently able to purchase a groupon for $25 for $100 worth of books so I made four books shipped for a total of $27.
See you use Creative Memories. 🙂 Awesome quality. Their digital books are great quality, too, but very pricey. I’ve found a good alternative: Mixbook.com It’s an online digital scrapbooking software (nothing to download) and they have a ton of content there already, so you don’t have to buy ANYTHING until you’re ready to order your finished book. Also, if you decide to go with real software like photoshop or CM’s Storybook Creator Plus, you can upload finished pages to Mixbook and have them bound into a book. Quality is on par with CM’s, stitch-bound (Shutterfly’s books are glue-bound. I spend $100 there on one for my daughter and it came apart in 6 months) and VERY high quality. Prices are very reasonable (better than Shutterfly) and they often have sales. Just my 2cents.
print your favorites and do it the old fashioned way, put them in an album. then, as your kids get older, let them make their own albums. scrapbooking does not have to be expensive. it is more about getting the picture in the book and journaling the memory. but just a good ol’ picture albums brings back lots of memories and times together. i am also learning that you don’t print them all, just the good ones. this saves a lot of cash. walgreens runs great deals for 9 cents a print, then you can print a few at a time. have fun!
There are a lot of suggestions here so I’m not sure if this was brought up or not but I really like the collages that you can do through Walgreens. While this isn’t the traditional scrapbooking or even digital scrapbooking it is a great way to have all the pictures of a certain event/holiday on a page. I have done many of these collages for myself and my family and everyone loves them. You can do as little as two pictures or as many as 20. You can look at them every day and still see something you didn’t see last time. I could look at them for hours. The other great thing is that Walgreens has sales on these or even times when you can get them for free 🙂
I use shutterfly. I find their program to be the easiest to use (I’ve used them all), plus they seem to have better deals more often. I did my first one several years ago when they were giving away a free one and I was hooked! Now I keep my photos loaded on the site and create books when I have time. Then when they have a deal (before xmas or Thanksgiving they had a buy 1 get 2 free deal) I put on the finishing touches and order. This keeps me from getting too far behind and allows me to get in on the deals without staying up for 48 hours straight to finish up! The books are great quality and if I want more than one copy (one for each kid, say) then it is easy to order a second copy. I highly recommend going high tech and selling all the scrapbook supplies to the retired or no kids people!
I, too, am a “scrapbooking queen”. I have started 4 “first year” albums and finished almost all of them..Then, each of our 4 children has a “birthday album”- 2 pages a year showing the normal stuff, etc. Each child also has /or has had an abc album begun for them..but I still have tons of photos that “live” on our computer. I have very limited time to scrapbook, but I love to do it! I have also involved my oldest daughter in it. We have way too much stuff and are looking to go thru it and then USE IT. Eventually. Hugs to you, my sister Scrapbooking queen!