Fill in the gaps!

I am totally loving my album class over at Shimelle.com. Lately we've been discussing upgrade albums vs. chronological albums. The thought here is that there are some events that we tend to take a lot of photos and scrap many pages. When all of these pages are included in our chronological albums, it tends to skew the entire album. Basically, you pull all of the layouts from that one event, minus one or two, and put them into their own album. The one or two that stay in your chronological album show that the event occurred in that year. Add a little note to your page that directs the reader to the other album.

My main focus during this class has been Christopher's baby albums. They are a mess! There are tons of gaps. I also have 3 of them. One is a "formal" baby book/album (think firsts and milestones), one was put together by my SIL. She totally understood that those first several months were crazy and left me no room for scrap time. The third is the everything else album. It has been quite a process to go through the three albums and identify gaps. Sometimes it is a complete gap in time. Other times it is a gap in the story of the time. I've carefully gone through my photos and the albums in an attempt to cover everything I want preserved. Sometimes this might mean I have layouts in each album with photos from the same day, maybe even the same photo---but each one focuses on a different aspect.

The other albums from years beyond Christopher's first are in better form. I have more things already scrapped. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure I'll find plenty of gaps to fill--I am so totally NOT a chronological scrapper. I don't expect I'll find as many or have quite the complicated process.

Stay tuned for more to come in my ongoing saga!

From pages to albums

Yesterday a new class began for me. It started at the perfect time as I was getting "bored"---that feeling of wanting something new to challenge me. Perhaps that is the reason that I am a serial starter! Anyway...


Our first assignment was to assess where we stand with our albums at this point. Even though I feel as though my albums are a mess, I do actually have some rhyme and reason to them. For the most part, my layouts are filed chronologically. I also have "special albums"--Thomas the Tank, Summer 2007, Salem, New England trip, California, birthdays, Christmas, and pre-Christopher---you get the idea.  We aren't even talking about all of those layouts that haven't yet made it into an album.

My "album system" makes sense to me. I even know why it doesn't work well enough to allow newly made layouts to find a home---the post bound albums! I have always struggled to integrate new layouts into those albums. It gets to be a real pain (not to mention a huge undertaking) to move things around and file the new layouts. I guess it would be easier if I created in chronological order, but my creative brain doesn't work like that. My memory doesn't work like that. As a result of this challenge, I have stopped purchasing post bound albums and moved into D ring albums. They are sooo much easier with which to work.

Another part of our assignment on day one was to photograph our albums. I did that---sort of. I have albums stashed everywhere. I did photograph a section of them. I'm thinking that I need to gather them all up into one huge stack to adequately illustrate what I truly have. I'll need to do that anyway if I'm going to create a cohesive album flow.

Day two of class is all about photos--it makes total sense to me that if you're going to organize your albums, you need to organize your photos. In my mind, that would allow you to see the gaps in your stories and be able to better estimate how much space to leave in each album. Thanks to the Photo Flow class at jessicasprague.com, I'm well on my way to have my 2012 photos organized--even a chunk of 2011 photos are in process. I am still cataloging my library--it IS a process. I think for this part of Cover to Cover, I'll focus on situating those photos that are already printed. There is a loose chronological flow happening there, but not to the degree I'd like.

The albums project....

Yep, I've done it again and signed up for some more classes. This particular post will talk about Cover to Cover by Shimelle Laine. The class officially start on May 7th and runs through June 3rd. I signed up through early bird registration during Shimelle's April 13-15 crop. It was taking a little bit of a chance. The class hadn't been officially announced yet. Shimelle gave us just a hint that the class would focus on albums. I decided to go for it. Shimelle does such awesome classes that I figured I would just jump in and go for it. Boy am I glad I did! Already there is great pre-class content posted. This class is going to help me address one of my biggest problems: my scrapbook albums.

Currently, my pages are in a bit of a disarray. I have completed pages in scrapbook storage boxes, some are in albums, some digital pages are just sitting on my hard drive. I have albums that are chronological, and others that are topic/subject driven. Some are labeled, others are not. I have post bound and ring bound albums---an absolute mishmash! I don't scrap in any kind of order really--I prefer it that way. I get burnt out doing chronological based scrapping. This method of scrapping is exactly what has led to my album mess.


As far as albums, I have discovered that I much prefer using ring bound albums. The American Crafts albums are great, although I covet the We R Memory Keepers albums. All of the albums I have purchased in the last year or so have been one of the two. I have easy access to the AC albums and they cost less. These are the ones that I have the most of, although when a coupon and access permits, I will spring for WRM albums in the future.

The funny thing is that my completed pages hardly ever get looked at. It's a combination of things really. The biggest issue is the lack of a true system to my albums. I've worked on this a little and have a very basic foundation that, in the long run will work for me. At present time though, this foundation needs to be adjusted, tweaked, and to some extent overhauled. I mean, what's the point in preserving the memories if the pages/albums just sit there?

My goal in this class is to come out the other side with organized albums that are easy to add to, look at, enjoy, and keep organized. In addition, I want to KNOW what I've already scrapped and where the holes are that need to be filled. I don't want boxes of photos and digital folders of unprinted photos---I want albums full of pages that showcase the photos with words that tell the stories.