Need advice on how to get started

[eeyoreland]

Hi. I'm not new to the Disboard, but I am new to the scrapbooking board. I have collected scrapbooking supplies for years (and years, and years). I did a pretty basic scrapbook for DD29 when she graduated from high school. Then I started a scrapbook for DD now 15 when she was little. Well, I think I've made it up to age 2. I'm overwhelmed because at this rate, I'll send her off to college with about 10 scrapbooks and that's not what I had in mind. Plus, I'm now looking at catching up 13 years. I feel like I want to start over. Those first pages are awful. I'm not overly creative, but I know I can do better. Probably even just because I've collected so much nicer paper over the years. I'm looking for suggestions on how other people scrapbook their children's lives. I think what I'd like to do is three scrapbooks for her. One with vacations because in her 15 years, we've probably taken eight trips to Disney, one trip to Germany, and a trip to Colorado. Then I'd like to do a figure skating scrapbook. It probably won't be huge, but she's been figure skating since Kindergarten and has done quite a bit of competing and ice shows for which I have pictures. I think I'll be okay with those two. But it's the third one. The birthdays, the holidays, the school days, the fun at home, etc. Again, I'm looking for some tips on how and where to start, what to include, how to weed out the pictures. I apologize for making this so long. Hopefully you are a patient and experienced group and can come up with some good ideas for me.

 

[LindaBabe]

How about a 2 page spread per year, with just the highlights? Birthday, Christmas, her role in the school play, first day of school, with her best friends, her favorite s if you have a photo of her with them/it, recital, whatever fits.

If it were me, I would pick a two page pagemap that held many photos, and use the same map for each year. The title would be the year. For the photos, if it was a 10 photo map, I would pick the 10 best or 10 highlights from the year - one photo for each. The journaling would be a simple list - 1 - 10. I would decide on a unified color scheme, font, embellishment set and use the same thing throughout the whole book.

Easy. Fast. Done.

 

[123SA]

How about a 2 page spread per year, with just the highlights? Birthday, Christmas, her role in the school play, first day of school, with her best friends, her favorite s if you have a photo of her with them/it, recital, whatever fits.

If it were me, I would pick a two page pagemap that held many photos, and use the same map for each year. The title would be the year. For the photos, if it was a 10 photo map, I would pick the 10 best or 10 highlights from the year - one photo for each. The journaling would be a simple list - 1 - 10. I would decide on a unified color scheme, font, embellishment set and use the same thing throughout the whole book.

Easy. Fast. Done.

THis idea is AWESOME!

 

[pjlla]

How about a 2 page spread per year, with just the highlights? Birthday, Christmas, her role in the school play, first day of school, with her best friends, her favorite s if you have a photo of her with them/it, recital, whatever fits.

If it were me, I would pick a two page pagemap that held many photos, and use the same map for each year. The title would be the year. For the photos, if it was a 10 photo map, I would pick the 10 best or 10 highlights from the year - one photo for each. The journaling would be a simple list - 1 - 10. I would decide on a unified color scheme, font, embellishment set and use the same thing throughout the whole book.

Easy. Fast. Done.

I love this idea too!

If you feel like you have way too many pictures to utilize this idea, perhaps you could even find those special page protectors that fold over and do a 3 or 4 page spread per year! I sometimes do this for a special event. If I find a pagemap that I like, I will flip it or mirror it for the third and/or 4th pages.

Unifying the colors, etc would be an ENORMOUS time saver. Then... when you are feeling a bit more caught up and under control, then you can worry about going back and "re-doing" any of your past work (although personally I wouldn't worry too much about that) or doing any new special projects! ...........P

 

[Cheryllynn74]

When my mom started scrapbooking I was already grown so the amount of pictures she had was scary. She picked the ones that meant the most to her and made one scrapbook. She then handed off all left overs to me and I have used them in my own scrapbook. She also saved some and made a beautiful christmas album that she gave me as a present one year. Don't feel you must scrapbook every picture. My friend does this and is often overwhelmed. She freaks out that I routinely whittle down an event to just a few pics and tosses the rest away. If you can't bear to toss them, tape a large envelope to the inside back of your album and slip your extra pictures in there.

And most important, don't stress so much about your early pages. In the early days of scrapbooking, techniques were different and supplies were limited. I think it shows how you progress in this craft to be able to compare your work. Also, pictures may be hard to remove and get damaged in the process.

 

[MazdaUK]

I find it very hard to let a picture go - its harder with digital as the c****y ones don't get printed Sometimes I have an odd pic left over which I can't bear to chuck, so they eventually move into my large powersort box with the back-up CDs/negatives (depending on age!). Sometimes they come out e.g. if DS10 needs to take a baby picture to school.

 

[eeyoreland]

How about a 2 page spread per year, with just the highlights? Birthday, Christmas, her role in the school play, first day of school, with her best friends, her favorite s if you have a photo of her with them/it, recital, whatever fits.

If it were me, I would pick a two page pagemap that held many photos, and use the same map for each year. The title would be the year. For the photos, if it was a 10 photo map, I would pick the 10 best or 10 highlights from the year - one photo for each. The journaling would be a simple list - 1 - 10. I would decide on a unified color scheme, font, embellishment set and use the same thing throughout the whole book.

Easy. Fast. Done.

What is a pagemap?

 

[LindaBabe]

What is a pagemap?

Page maps are sketches. There's a book by Becky Fleck. She also has a website with free page maps http://www.pagemaps.com/

Then there are http://www.scrap-maps.com/which has it's maps sorted by the number of photos they hold.

Also, once you have scrapped your two page spread, you *could* put your extra photos in divided page protectors behind the scraped pages. WeRMemory Keepers makes them.https://weronthenet.com/productsx/products/products.aspx?page=pageprotectors.htm

 

[eeyoreland]

Page maps are sketches. There's a book by Becky Fleck. She also has a website with free page maps http://www.pagemaps.com/

Then there are http://www.scrap-maps.com/which has it's maps sorted by the number of photos they hold.

Also, once you have scrapped your two page spread, you *could* put your extra photos in divided page protectors behind the scraped pages. WeRMemory Keepers makes them.https://weronthenet.com/productsx/products/products.aspx?page=pageprotectors.htm

Thank you! I'll check those out.

 

[funkychunkymonkey]

Depending on where in Wisconsin you are I may be able to reccomend a good crop that has lots of fun and infromational people. I stopped by with a freind and WOW!! what I learned!

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

sticking to a color theme for papers will make things go faster too. Pick like 4 solids and 2 patterned papers and just rotate those colors around.
My wedding album was pale yellow, white, grey and black. It went sooo fast, I loved it.

the first thing I would do it take stock of the supplies you have. Pitch everything you won't use, don't like etc. If you want to redo the pages you have done with fresh materials and so the album flows, do it! My first scrapbook was our first Disney trip and it took 2 years to do. My style changed so much in those 2 years and I get frustrated because I can tell which ones were my very first pages. I'm to lazy to change it though. LOL

Then take stock in your photos. Since you want to do a chronological album (which I find easy to do) sort your photos. You know you want to do 3 albums so divide your pictures into those 3 groups, you can probably do this pretty quickly. It will be less overwhelming when you have everything divided.

Photo Triage (from Simple Scrapbook, A simple guide to easy organization)

4 places:
1) file for scrapbooking
2) permanent chronological storage
3) An envelope to be mailed away to relatives
4) the trash

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

Oh and the albums for my kids are:

school - 2 page layout per year with fall and spring pics, report card, and a writing sample and/or drawing

growing up album - random pics that don't go into the big family album, includes sports.

singleton Disney trip - only have DD's album but we are taking each of the kids on a trip by themselves. Those are going to be ABC albums.

 

[mommyoftwinz]

I started scrapping when my kids were 4 so I didn't really feel like going back to do a baby album, I already had them in an old fashioned photo album so I left them. I have since begun a school book for each of them with a two page per year layout. That pretty much covers class photo, art project or letter of some sort and halloween or christmas party photo. I then have an album for Family Christmases and winter shots and another birthday album with two pages per year so that covers her growing up.

I recently started making an album for my daughter of mother/daughter moments and her growing up, first time riding a bike, first lost tooth, etc. I just started at where she was and I didn't go back further as I will have plenty to keep me busy. I guess it's just whatever them you'd like go with it. Have fun and good luck.