My Scrapbooking Page

I was introduced to scrapbooking years ago by my very dear friend, Cindy. Looking at her albums I was amazed, impressed and absolutely convinced I could NEVER create the same quality of album she had. I had never seen such works of art in PHOTO ALBUMS!

Now many may have come here expecting to see pages from my albums so I hope you aren't disappointed there aren't any. Lots of people are putting samples of layouts and personal pages up on the web these days. Looking at some folks albums can make you feel like you just can't do it, that it's too labor intensive, or that you have to be a gifted artist, or have perfect handwriting! NOT SO! If that's how you feel then you have missed the real reasons for (and the tricks of!) scrapbooking. I hope these pages will help you discover them. This page is meant to encourage, assist and inspire others to try their hand at one of the things I enjoy most...scrapbooking! So you won't find anything fancy...just practical ideas you can use to get you started. (Believe me...you'll be looking for fancy stuff in no time...but first you just gotta start!)

Now I will confess that Cindy taught me well and I am what many have dubbed a "purist". I don't consider that an insult by any means. Cindy was a consultant for Creative Memories at the time and really helped me understand archive quality preservation of photos. So the "purist" side of me doesn't venture far from Creative Memories products. Yes there are many other companies out there doing similar things but I am happy with this company, it's products, it's consultants and it's commitment to family and photo preservation. No I do not work for them! *L* Matter of fact, they don't even know about this endorsement! When Cindy first shared this with me the company was just getting started and used the term "From shoebox to showcase!" This was over 10 years ago and I will now confess that some (maybe even the majority) of my photos are STILL in boxes!

Part of the reason for that is, I felt every page I did had to be a WORK OF ART! This meant I spent ALOT of time doing intricate lettering, drawings, and more for each page. I find it a great way to stay creative and express myself through yet another an art medium. But it doesn't help me get my pictures into albums very quickly. So while I still enjoy doing this to some degree in each album I am changing this thought slowly.

The second part of the reason is summed up beautifully by this little diddy!

I am learning to TRY not to include EVERYTHING EVER DONE by EVERYONE in my family!

I'm just not there yet! *L*

(I have actually heard my daughters say (okay maybe scream...) "Oh no! She's gonna want to put this in THE album too!")

~HOW I LEARNED TO GET PAGES DONE~

I have a wonderful consultant who keeps me accountable to getting pictures on pages. She drums it into my head "Just get them in the album...fuss with it later!" (I'll elaborate why later.) She also taught me a method from Creative Memories called "Power Layout". It's how I got my husband's album done as well as getting our oldest daughter's album up to date. (Her senior pictures were in her album BEFORE graduation day!) I use an adaptation of it to do all my album planning/organizing now. Here's a general idea of how it works.

Creative Memories albums come with 15 blank pages giving you a total of 30 sides. They recommend you don't place more than 30 pages (or 60 sides) in any album due to stress on the straps, pressure/weight on photos, etc. (See their site for more info on this or call a consultant in your area.) Each premiere album comes in a box that obviously holds pages of that size. I use 12x12 mainly. Inside my Power Layout box are 30 white (same as actual pages) heavy-weight sheets similar to posterboard. The idea is to place these "pages" out side by side (I have a dining room table large enough to do this on ~ thank you Bugs! but have also done a modified version on a queen sized bed.) Each blank piece represents a page in your album. Consider the top left hand side to be "Page 1", the next in line "Page 2", etc. all the way through to "Page 30" at the bottom right hand side. I like to place mine as they would appear in the album...in other words Page1 is by itself, Page2 and 3 are side by side, 4 and 5, 6 and 7, etc. Page 30 would be a single page by itself also. Doing this allows me to plan 2-page spreads or to coordinate pages that will face each other. If I am not using whole page protectors I can plan for any other protectors I might need (for instance: if a newspaper article if going to face against a photo I can plan to cover it properly).

Begin to place pictures on the "pages" as you want them to appear...of course you aren't adhering them to the pages yet..this is just a mock-up of your album. You can include stickers you want to use on that page, papers, any memoribilia, die cuts, etc. I even write notes or sayings, etc on "Post-Its" and add that to the "page" so I don't forget them once I actually am completing the album.

Once you have this all laid out begin to pick up each page and stack the sheets one atop the next. Work from "Page 1" to "Page 30" keeping "Page1" on the TOP! Now simply place the pages with pictures et al in the box! Now you have your entire album planned out and in order!

If you can continue to work on it go ahead...but if not, it's easy to store until you can. No more having to go back and reorganize time after time. It's easy to make changes or add items as you go along. You can do this and store as many albums as you need to as long as you have a box and enough sheets for each one.

This has helped me to organize things in correct order as I have the bad habit of not writing info or dates on the backs of my photos as soon as I get them back from developing. Doing my daughter's album this way I could tell which picture went in which order by simply looking at her aging in the pictures. It was easy to tell I had forgotten pictures when one had her in diapers and the next had her riding a bike! I just moved the pages around until I had it right. Another advantage for me is it helps me to limit what goes into each album. I know immediately how many pages I have to work with and can decide which items I really want to include. I can also plan what items I need to purchase and jot them down; saving time and money by using what I already have, and not purchasing duplicate items.

~WHY YOU NEED TO GET PICTURES ON PAGES~

~LAP SCRAPPING~

~MY CURRENT CHALLENGE~