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View Full Version : Moms of 2 or more, how do you do your scrapbooks?



vikivoly
06-04-2005, 12:20 AM
My plan is to have one for each of the girls first year, solely dedicated to them, but I'm not sure where to go from there. Should I do a 2nd year for Gillian (she was still an only child at that point) or just make a "family" album after the first year. If I do the family album, will they be fighting over who gets what when they're older? I don't think I would keep up with 3 scrapbooks per year. Does anyone have albums solely based on the holidays or seasons? I'm thinking an album of just Christmas from over the years, just Halloween/Fall, etc.? If you are just an occasional scrapper, what do you do?

vpalmer
06-05-2005, 12:34 PM
Assuming I was just an occasional scrapbooker (and not a 3 scrapbook per year gal as you already know!) here is what I would do. First I would only do one book per girl and stop there. I would probably not do a 2nd year album for Gillian because it would put you that much farther behind and because it might cause equity problems later on between the girls. Secondly, I would keep both a family photo album and family scrapbook; one scrapbook per year and one family photo album per year. I would probably not limit yourself to only specific holidays because after only 5 years of scrapbooking I find it difficult to make my holiday pages fresh every year. You can't be nearly as creative if your subject (the subject being the holidays not the children ;-)) is the same year after year. That being said, I would certainly include holidays in the family scrapbook but you might change it up each year; one year you might have amazing Christmas pictures and the next year they may just be so-so. It depends on the album, but the albums I use hold about 25 layouts (50-2 page spreads. I would choose your favorite pictures from the year and try to scrapbook that many layouts each year. That way you can include pictures of the girls on the playset, walking the dog, at the amusement park, etc and not feel like you are "off topic." The rest of the pictures would go into the family photo album. When it comes time to give the books to the girls later on, you could just alternate. Gillian gets the 2004 scrapbook and C gets the 2004 photo album and the reverse the next year. Anyway, that is just my 2 cents!

Have fun,

Veronica
Mom to Eva
Born 6-03

vikivoly
06-06-2005, 09:46 AM
I knew you would come up with some great ideas. :) I like the idea of the family album and the family scrapbook per year. I think that would be a great solution because I have lots of nice pictures, but not enough time to scrapbook them all. It would make me feel like the pictures weren't going to be thrown out because they are loose in a shoebox somewhere.

As far as the holiday album, well I was getting ambitious. Because we tend to take more pictures during the holidays, I didn't want them to consume the family album. I thought it might be nice to have a Christmas album, etc. to put out during the holidays that spanned from year to year. If I ever get caught up (you can stop laughing now ;)) maybe I could go back with the extra pictures and do the holiday album(s) then.

Now you say to skip Gillian's 2nd year. I understand your point, but should I just make it the family album or skip it all together and start with 2005 family? I would hate to not have an album from that year, but it would essentially be all Gillian, since Cameron wasn't around that year.

Getting caught up: Do you recommend starting with this year and keeping up to date and then going back and doing a page or two for the older albums or doing the older albums first before starting on the current events? It's more exciting cropping the new stuff (Gillian's baby pictures are really getting old) and I don't have much ambition to pull them out and work on them. However, I feel that the baby albums are really important, because those are most likely to be their most precious albums. I would hate to make Gillian feel slighted since her book wasn't complete. Where do I go from here?

vpalmer
06-06-2005, 11:01 AM
I like your thoughts behind having a holiday album. Now I want one! My thoughts on specialized albums have always been that I could rearrange my family albums later on and make a Christmas, Halloween, etc. album later on. I love the feeling of actually finishing an album and if I started an album like that now it would essentially never get finished. The good thing about using a post album or 3 ring binders is that you can re-arrange your scrapbooks whenever the mood strikes. In 10 years I may take all my Christmas layouts out of my family books and make a special album just for that.

Where to go from here is a bit tricky. I don't think you should skip 2004 completely, just make that a family album. Like you said, most of the year is Gillian but that makes it easy to decide who gets the first family scrapbook when divvying them up later on.

I think 2004 is actually a great place to start because you can lay out all your pictures for the year and pick your 20-25 scrapbook layouts for the year. What I do is once I have picked my pictures to scrapbook I drop them in the plastic sleeve in my scrapbook where the completed page will eventually go. I would say pick out all your pictures for 2004, drop them in the sleeves and you have your 2004 album 1/4 of the way complete. Then you can just take the entire album with you when you shop for paper and embellishments and look at the pictures as you shop by simply flipping through the album. You can buy all the paper and additional stuff you need for all of 2004 at one time. That way when you have time you can just know out the pages because your paper and pictures are all at your fingertips.

Getting caught up: I would say get a 2005 album now as well. As the year progresses stay caught up with the picture organization. Drop your selected pictures in the sleeves as you select pictures to be scrapbooked and put the rest of the pictures in albums. That way as soon as you are finished with 2004 you can move on immediately to 2005.

Baby albums: I say work on G's baby album before C's. I think finishing an album will do a lot for your confidence level; it did for me. Go back and forth between the family album and the baby album. Do a couple of pages for G and then do a couple of pages in the family album. That way you are scrapbooking the old pictures and get to treat yourself by scrapbooking newer pictures as well. You might have to cut down on the size of G's first year album if it is too overwhelming. Maybe she can have a first year album and scrapbook?

Veronica
Mom to Eva
Born 6-03

aim
06-07-2005, 02:04 PM
Now I only have one child right now but here is my plan

I have don/will do a baby scrapbook for any and all kids - it will be from birth to about 18 mo. This is a book for my child to keep

I have ongoing family albums that have some of the same baby events as in the baby book -not a total redo of the baby album but more focused on what I really want to remember and my feelings These albums are for me

For each year of my childs life from age 2 on I will do a set of year in review layouts - about four pages and a letter detailing that years milestones, acomplishments etc. I will do one of these for each child and then when they turn 18 they will get this scrapbook

That way I have my family albums (they can fight over them when they pry them out of my cold dead hands:) ) and they still have their childhood memories to enjoy while i am still around.

Amy
mom to bennett 1-14-04

vikivoly
06-07-2005, 10:48 PM
That's a good idea and not so overwhelming. Also, since I have girls, I'm hoping they'll be into scrapbooking when they're older and they can do their own albums.

spencersmommy
06-09-2005, 06:59 PM
Good question! I just finished Spencer's 1 st year (2 full albums!) and have started a family album. I plan to do a big album for baby #2, plus start a new one for Spencer that will be from age 1-? I will put layouts that feature the family in the family album, but if it features one of the boys specifically, I will put it in their own scrapbook. For example, I just did a layout on "summer" that featured Spencer and his best friend. That'll go in his album, but the 4th of July page from last year that i am currently finishing will go in the family album. Does that make sense? I hope that works out! I just read an interview with Lisa Bernson (Creating Keepsakes) that asked her how she did it, and that's pretty much what she said. You can read the interview at creatingkeepsakes.com. :-)
Good luck!

macassi
06-10-2005, 06:19 PM
Take with a grain of salt, because I'm about 4 years behind but here's my plan:

Each child gets a "first year" album
Each child gets a "school years" album starting with preschool. I plan to do about 2-3 pages per year so that I can get through the all the years. Potentially, I see myself needing a second album for highschool.
For Christmas, I put all the photos we receive from other people on a two page lay-out/collage along with our family letter and picture that we sent out. Okay, so maybe it's three pages or so. That's our holiday album. Cute to track the growth of our friend's kids over the years.
The rest goes into family albums.

Lynnie
06-13-2005, 03:04 PM
and how inspiring to know that I am not the only one a *little* behind !! Boxes and disks full of photos, but nary an album in sight... but I did make a collage for babyboy#2s room this weekend(ok, so it took 14 months...) and bought some more paper for the as of yet non assembled scrapbooks.

On average, how long does it take to make a 2 page layout ?? and about how many photos do you put on each page ? and how do you decide what non holiday specific themes to put in ? do you just get ideas from looking at other ones, or do great pictures just call out to be a theme ?

And, dumb question, but i always aim too high, get overwhelmed, and end up doing nothing... for the photo albums, do you just assemble the photos in a book with those clear pages in which you insert photos, or put them on a page where you can write too ? Just pictures is good, right, and then you don't need to stress over placement and what to say, etc, but they are there for people to look at. any suggestions for the albums themselves ? I have the scrapbook stuff, but need to get some albums too.

and then, maybe i will get around to picking up my WEDDING ALBUM before my fifth anniversary this december. oy.

vpalmer
06-15-2005, 09:26 AM
On average, how long does it take to make a 2 page layout ??
I would allow about 2 hours for a 2 page layout. Start out simple. Complicated layouts can take a lot longer!

and about how many photos do you put on each page ?
This of course is due to personal preference, but I use 12x12 paper and usually place 3-4 pictures on each page. I would say a good average is 7 pictures per 2 page layout. 3 pictures and a title on the left page and 4 pictures on the right side of the page.

and how do you decide what non holiday specific themes to put in ? do you just get ideas from looking at other ones, or do great pictures just call out to be a theme ?
Two ways:
1) I see Eva doing something really cute and I grab my camera and start shooting. It is so much easier to know as you are taking pictures that you are going to scrapbook. That way you can be sure to get enough varied shots to make you scrapbook page interesting.
2) I get an idea for a page and then take pictures for that page. I may think, I would really like to get some pictures of Eva playing with bubbles because that would make a great page. Then I take pictures based on that thought.

And, dumb question, but i always aim too high, get overwhelmed, and end up doing nothing... for the photo albums, do you just assemble the photos in a book with those clear pages in which you insert photos, or put them on a page where you can write too ? Just pictures is good, right, and then you don't need to stress over placement and what to say, etc, but they are there for people to look at. any suggestions for the albums themselves ? I have the scrapbook stuff, but need to get some albums too.

For your album simple is better. Don't worry about journaling or anything is a photo album. Just get the pictures in there. For the scrapbook, simple is also better. Personally, after 5 years of using post bound albums I have switched to a binder style with the clear sheet protectors. You create your page on colored cardstock and drop your page in the sleeve when you are finished. You can easily add more sleeves or rearrange at will. Here is the album I am using. I am on my 4th album of this style and I love it!
http://www.craftpizazz.com/products/60215

Veronica
Mom to Eva
Born 6-03