Organising a scrapbook? Tips please!

[Bagpuss]

I've bought an 8x8 scrapbook and want to fill it with pix of my daughter, who's now 8. I then plan to do a similar one for DS, who's now 4 (but will probably be 8 by the time I start).

I have two things I'd like your advice on please:

Question one:
Do you think it's best to make a chronological album, that I can add to, starting with pix just after being born and moving on? The advantage I suppose is that I can keep adding to it. The disadvantage is that I might find it a millstone and feel it's never "finished".

Or should I do "themes", eg beach, Christmas, garden, climbing trees, with various pix of DD at different ages. The advantage of this, I suppose, would be that I could get rid of lots of pix in one go, wouldn't be repeating same girl, same tree, different year etc. But what if I took a better tree pic later on? It's a worry.

Question two:
Journalling question this time: Should I do "this is Kate blah blah etc" or "this is you blah blah".

Advice please, from all you expert scrapbookers!!!

Helen

[jen9853]

The best advice I got when I was starting, was start with the most current thing: like the most recent birthday/holiday/vacation, then work backgwords to the older stuff... you can always re-arrange stuff in the album later. My Mom did a scrapbook for me for my 19th birthday (when scrapbooking was still pretty much in it's infancy) and she did both, chronological and theme's, and it looks good that way. Granted, the book is literally about 4 inches thick! ;)

For journaling, I would use "Kate blah blah blah" instead of "You blah blah blah". That way when she passes it down to her kids/grandkids/whatever, it'll make sense and they'll know who it is.

Have fun!!!

[luvdisney]

I have been pondering this same question for awhile and have decided to do an album of my favorite pictures of each child. That way I don't have to worry about any certain order. I am just choosing all the favorite pictures and doing a page about each one and the story that goes along with each picture. Each of the pictures has a reason why I love it and I think it will be easier to journal because I have more to say about it.
My kids are 17 and 14 though, so I have more pictures and that may be why I am not so eager to start an album of their whole life. I have already done baby/ photo albums of their first three years too.
I don't know the possibilites are endless. LOL
Good Luck!

[CardFanatic]

I've been scrapping for several years now. I kind of have mine chronological. This is how I do it...

I organize by seasons. So, evey scrapbook will be in order... spring, summer, fall, Christmas, winter... and around again.

But within a season, nothing is in order. I either go by theme (all the summer birthdays for example will be first) or whatever fits with 1 page layouts and 2 page layouts... sometimes I just try to get 2 one page layouts to cooridinate by colors.

Hope this makes sense.

[Catty526]

When I started to scrapbook I did everything in chronological order and then I moved to theme albums. I suggest that you do a one scrapbook for every year or 2 or how ever many you need. This way you can do it in order but also have themes throughout the book. Hope this helps!!

[3girl'smom]

I do both. I have a chronological one with just a couple pages per year and then I have theme ones with just silly pics. Each daughter has her own books that they decide what to put in. Those are pretty random, but also my favorites. I just make sure I journal the pages so that I can remember when they were from. For me, the point of the books are to enjoy. I don't stress about whether or not they are in any sort of date order. I also tend to use the top loading books so that I can move pages around as I add more events or if I get behind. I found when I started that if I worried to much about putting things in chronological order I would never have gotten to actually scrapping. Have fun!!!!!

[PrairieStamper]

I'll answer the journalling question first.

I always write the journalling as though I am telling someone -- anyone -- the story about what happened in the pictures. I look at journalling as my opportunity to tell the story, even when I'm not there. So it would be, "Kate was 3 years old when we went to the zoo in the neighboring city. She really enjoyed having her grandparents come with us." HTH!

As for chronological versus theme ... I have all my scrapbooks (about 12 of them -- and counting!) in chronological order, but I don't create them in chronological order, if that makes sense. I scrap whatever pages inspire me at the time, and then I insert them into the books chronologically. To me, it's a story of their life, so doing it any other way doesn't make sense, but that's just me. But if I could only work on things in order, I'd never get it done. I don't want to feel like I HAVE TO do a particular page just because it's up next. Also, there are situations that come up where you have to scrap out-of-order. (For example, for my DD's fourth birthday, a friend took pictures at the party, but didn't give me copies of her pics -- which were MUCH better than mine -- until TWO YEARS after the party! If I hadn't worked on those pics out of order, I could have never put them in my book.)

I hope this all makes sense!

[1hotauburnmama]

I have several theme albums, baby books, school days, Christmas, vacations, ABC's, they are in chronological order. I am way behind though, I will have to do miscellaneous albums to use all of the pictures I have.

[Bagpuss]

Wow! Thanks for all the advice - I guess I've learned there are no rules to scrapbooking.

I think I'll go for the third-person journalling - it makes more sense for future generations, like PrairieStampers says. Also asked DH about this and he said the same as his grandmother confused him no end with the captions in her photo album, which used both methods at random!

I'm still wavering on the chronological vs theme aspect... but am currently in favour of chronological order.

It seems the main thing - from all your excellent advice - is not to sweat too much about it.

So when are you all coming over to help me? ;)

[kardulove]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hemeynell

So when are you all coming over to help me? ;)

I'd love to, but am still recovering from my jet lag and besides, I haven't run out of chocolate yet!

[kardulove]

I'm no expert in scrapbooking but I'd go for the chronological way. I like the suggestion to work on the photos you have now. You can always work backwords (in time) but I think it's less intimidating and stressful to use photos you have now and when you have time go back a few years, rather than start when DD and DS were born. Seeing as DD is 8 years old it would just be too daunting a task (for me!) to start when she was born. Hope that helps and wish I could come and help!

[Bethhartley]

I do mostly chronological but that's just how I think about things....usually go f rom one holiday to the next within a year then other random fun pics mixed in between each holiday...(Ie. the trip to the zoo, birthdays, my son's first story told outloud when he was building houses with books from the library....) But, then I have started a few theme ones too. I did a first year book for each child. And, my son, whose 4, and eventually his brother, whose almost 2, spend a week with their grandparents each summer. My mom is an avid scrapper so takes lots of pics of their week spent with them. So, I scrap each years pics in a special book for my son aobut his week spent with grams and gramps. I hope it will be a fun keepsake for him and all his memories he had with grams and graps....especially when the day comes that they will be gone. I know I'd have LOVED to have that of the times I spent with my grandparents.....
Whatever you do...it will be RIGHT for you and wonderful memories of the kiddos. and fam.....ENJOY!!

[Mahloumel]

From reading published scrapbook layouts, I'd gotten the impression that everyone journals in the first person ("here you are blah blah blah" and then a bunch of stuff about the emotions of the journaler as they were taking the photograph). I'm relieved to see that most people here seem to journal in what to me is a more natural way, as if you are telling the story to anybody, and leaving out the bits about your secret hopes and dreams for your kid that you had as you photographed her eating ice cream. Sometimes I wonder how much of a publication bias there is in scrapbooking, and whether published layouts reflect what real-life scrapbookers are creating or want to create.

[Bagpuss]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mahloumel

From reading published scrapbook layouts, I'd gotten the impression that everyone journals in the first person ("here you are blah blah blah" and then a bunch of stuff about the emotions of the journaler as they were taking the photograph). I'm relieved to see that most people here seem to journal in what to me is a more natural way, as if you are telling the story to anybody, and leaving out the bits about your secret hopes and dreams for your kid that you had as you photographed her eating ice cream. Sometimes I wonder how much of a publication bias there is in scrapbooking, and whether published layouts reflect what real-life scrapbookers are creating or want to create.

I agree with all of this. Some journalling I read in magazines is just too syrupy for British tastes so a while ago I decided not just to scrapbook the good bits. Ok, some bad bits are best forgotten, but I didn't want to sanitise the truth. So far, among others, my 12x12 scrapbook features DS being attacked by wood ants and a beautiful picture of both kids looking like they adore each other, with a reminder in the journalling that the pic doesn't reflect the whole truth! I'm going to do the same in the 8x8s, but I think I'll leave out the pain of childbirth and stitches in the birth pic!!!

[kraftingkk]

Just start!! You can always rearrange later.Getting the pictures on a page in a way that preserves the memories is the most important thing! Start with what you have in front of you and don't worry about continuity, perfect order, etc. Just start!!

kk

[Mahloumel]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hemeynell

Some journalling I read in magazines is just too syrupy for British tastes so a while ago I decided not just to scrapbook the good bits. Ok, some bad bits are best forgotten, but I didn't want to sanitise the truth. So far, among others, my 12x12 scrapbook features DS being attacked by wood ants and a beautiful picture of both kids looking like they adore each other, with a reminder in the journalling that the pic doesn't reflect the whole truth!

Cool! This reminds me of a layout I saw where the highlights and lowlights (?) of a year were summarised, each on half of the layout. Now that I am thinking about it, this could be a great layout to include in a scrapbook about a child, where if the scrapbooker is going to organise chronologically, at the end of each year there could be a page divided into two or three, with a brief list of milestones, happy times, and not-so-happy times.

[Donna Cook]

Getting started is a great idea, that's always the hardest! Start some pages with recent photos, as someone mentioned.....it doesn't have to be perfect and organized right off....see where the spirit leads you....it could be like a book of short stories....then as you progress, you can reorganize pages by theme or chronology...or season....or by the date you made them and watch your scrapbooking progress!! :cool:

[stampin_sher]

I just started my sons books they are ages 27 and 22 so for me it had to be theme and looks really good. If I had started though when my kids were young then I would of done it the other way.

They already have scrapbooks that have their news clippings, certificates, ribbons in which are in chonological order so for the photo scrapbooks I did the opposit.

[hjordan]

I decided to have one scrapbook for each child (a spread for each year of their life) and family scrapbooks (a spread for each year).

For the kids scrapbooks I took the advice of seasoned scrapbookers and started with current. I went with a 12x12 album and only do one spread per age of child. I then went back and filled in the previous years. The beginning of the book has intro spreads (a dedication page, pages for mother and family, father and family, town we live in) and I also do spreads for milestones (baptism, graduation). I decided that when the children go out on their own I will give them "their" book and they can fight over the "family" books when I am gone.

For the family books I keep them chronological (starting in Jan) and will scrap almost any event (from making lasgna to disney cruise). Another piece of advice I try to adhere to is journal as detailed as possible. Include names, places and dates. The books are a work of art but they also serve as a historical record. Make sure you do not crop out all of the background scenery (a car in the background may be very interesting 100 years from now!).

Hope this is helpful and good luck!

[Margaret64]

I've been having the same questions. One thing I can't seem to decide.... Are the scrapbooks for me or for my kids? Other than their baby books - maybe up to age 5, I can't see making duplicate books for each. Then again there are many activities in which only one participates. Do you have continuously going: hers, hers and theirs?

I like hjordan's idea. One concise book for each child and then the family albums.

Inquiring Minds Want To Know... what do others do?

[veramats]

It's always intimidating to start from scratch, but here's what I do.

My photos are stored chronologically, so it makes sense for me to scrapbook in that order. I do work backwards, though to avoid feeling overwhelmed.

Since you're looking at 8 years of photos, though, I like the idea of themes. But, if your photos are stored chronologically you might end up spending so much time going through 8 years of beach or holiday photos.

Maybe you could do a dedication page that states your purpose for making the scrapbook. That will help you stay focused on your goal. A purpose might be, to pass on to future generations, a collection of your favorite photos of your DD, a chronological account of your family life, etc.

Your dedication page will dictate how you journal. If this scrapbook is for future generations then you would write in the third person: "Kate's third birthday, best friends Susie, Jen joined us ....

I hope this makes sense! My biggest downfall is making things more difficult. I keep everything chronological to save time and it helps me remember dates and events better too.

Good luck!
Vera

PS Maybe you could your DS's along side at the same time. If you're scrapping Holiday '01 for DD, might as well do the same for DS. The pictures will already be out and you could use the same paper and stamps etc.!

[Soni B]

IF YOU HAVE PICS ORGANIZED AND IN ORDER THE CHRONOLOGICAL IS GREAT...YOU CAN RE WATCH THEM GROW ALL OVER AGAIN...WHAT I DO IS ONE ALBUM A YEAR OF MY GRANDCHILDREN COMBINED IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER...THEN I HAVE ONE ALBUM FOR MY SELF CALLED GRANDMAS FAVORITES..SO SOME ARE DUPLICATED , OTHERS ARE NOT. IF I MISS A PIC THEN INTO MY FAVORITES IT GOES I USE CREATIVE MEMORIES ALBUM FOR THEIR ONE A YEAR SO IT IS NOT EASY TO CHANGE AROUND...BUT I REALLY LIKE THEIR ALBUMS... JUST MAKE YOURSELF HAPPY...AND THE REST WILL FALL INTO PLACE..

[ScrappinGoodTime]

As for journaling, I consider my scrapbooks my way of passing on my "voice" of my interpretation of the pictures and events. My girls will always have their memories but I think it is fun to share my thoughts with them, this is something they will treasure long after I am gone and can pass on to generations to come.

As for book, do what comes naturally. Sometimes a theme works and sometimes its nice to just have a book that shows the "true nature" of your child, so have fun.

[NavyWifeArmyMom]

I have 8 or 9 "albums in progress." Each of them is a theme (Grandchildren, Christmas, Travels, etc.), and within each the photos are chronological. I have a heritage album that I finished and gave to my brother. It is as chronological as I could get it - went back to the late 1800s.

I must confess, I am not very good at journaling. I do great captions for my photos and manage to get in names and dates, but after that, I don't do very well. I need to work on that particular skill. I also need to get back to working on my scrapbooks instead of spending all my time of my cards!!