Where do you begin scrapping each trip??

[mikamah]

It's time for me to come out of scrapbook lurkerdom. I have been visiting the scrapbook pages, and absolutely love everyones pages, but haven't been able to start my own book. I've done a little scrapbooking, a mexico trip last year where we stayed in one resort, and never left, just did beach and pool, and a scrapbook of last summer, with many little trips or functions. I just took my son for his first WDW trip and took over 600 pics, and narrowed it down and printed out about 400, but I'm overwhelmed and don't know where to begin. Do you most of you go day by day, or park by park? The characters were a huge hit with my son and we did a couple character meals, mvmcp, the hotel pool. Do you just start making pages, like I could do some character pages, and once you do all the pages, do you then put them in order in an album? Hopefully once I sit down and start, I'll be addicted. I have two scrapbooks, and many disney papers and stickers to start with. Thanks for any advice you can give me. Kathy

 

[Mickster]

I know it is rather overwhelming to start. I usually scrap chronologically, but with WDW I break it down into sections. One for where we stayed, one for each park, one for where we ate. That sort of thing. The key for me is to group the pictures together in a way that makes sense to me. There is no right or wrong way. Whatever makes you happy!

 

[Lisa]

I think you are on the right start based on the fact the characters were a huge hit for your son. I would do my layouts based on the groupings you have; the different characters, the character breakfast, MVMCP, and pool pictures.

Doing the first page is always the hardest to me. One year I solved that problem by doing a calendar of the month we went on vacation for the first page. For the day we left, I put an airplane sticker in that date block, then I would write in which parks we went on whatever days, I put a frown face on the day we flew home, and LOTS of snowflakes on the day we came back, and journaled how much snow we came home to. With large blocks of dates that are outside of our vacation, I would cover up those blocks with a picture of DH and DD at the airport or embellishments or other stickers that fit in. I also did a sun with paper rays (the rays were made with long strips of orange and yellow paper) in the upper part of the page.

I find when I sit down and group my pictures, either to chronological order or by grouping, the layouts often fall into place.

You don't have to do magazine perfect layouts each and every page. I think we often feel it must and then we get stressed on where to start. With that in mind, just have fun and enjoy the process of doing a scrapbook to preserve your great memories of WDW. Whatever you do, it will come out great, and your son will love it.

Now, go on, get to work!

 

[TPCShauna]

I group my pics for Disney trips. For our 2005 trip, I did our resort, Pleasure Island (with Adventurers' Club pics mainly), each park in general, MVMCP, a general parade section because I had TONS of pics of them, and a dining section. I didn't do a special character section because we didn't have that many character pics outside of the other areas so I just put the character pics with the specific meal/park.

I found it really daunting to start my album as well until I just picked my favorite area and dove in. I scrapped the whole trip completely out of order based upon where my scrapping took me. This works especially well if you have a top loading album and can scrap on cardstock that you can put in order later. It's a little bit more difficult when you use CM albums like I do.

Just as an FYI, my cover page was one of the last things I did. It took me a long time to develop my concept for it and I LOVE it now.

Good luck with your album!

 

[Michele]

I can't get away from scrapping chronologically. I usually start with an itinerary page. Then just move on in the order things happened.

 

[loopner67]

I usually scrap chronologically, but for Disney, I scrap by park. I also separate out the hotel pictures and any restaurant pics (usually character meals). I agree with Mickster that you should organize the pictures in a way that make sense to you. Try to think about how you'd like scrap the pictures. What sort of layouts do you want to do? Sometimes, you'll end up with misc pictures and you can scrap them by "land" within a park or just general pictures from a certain day.

The best thing to do is have fun with it! Good luck. I just scrapped 34 pages from a 2006 trip and I'm only halfway done.

 

[beasleybear]

I also scrap chronologically. I do a cover page, then the hotel, then I scrap each park in the order we did. (Or, if we did Downtown Disney first, then that's first.) Special events like character meals get their own section, too. within the park they're at, if they're in one.

My last page is usually souvenirs. If I don't have a pic of the souvenir from the trip itself, I take one of it at home. T-shirts fade over time & things get lost, so it's nice to have a record of them.

Good luck and happy scrapping!

 

[NEDisneyFans]

I took my first trip to WDW with all of my "in-laws" in 2004, and just finished up the gift albums for everyone else last summer. . . we went back Feb '05 and March '06, cruised on the Magic in Oct '06 and are headed back to WDW in a few weeks -- I can't wait to start on OUR books!

I've given it a lot of thought, and am planning to do a separate book for each park, a combined book for the water parks & mini golf, and separate books for where we've stayed and character dining. Some layouts will have photos from different trips (have to do "Splash Mountain" EVERY time!), others will be complete over one trip. (I got a bunch of khaki 12x12 post-bound albums and refills on sale at JoAnn's last year, so the books will coordinate while having unique cover designs.)

Since we don't have kids, I didn't want to do a separate book for each year. This way, I can add pages for new attractions, and before-and-after layouts if there've been major changes over the years. I collect maps each trip and plan to put them in the back of each park's album for 'historical comparison.'

I'm going to CKC-Manchester, NH in May, and my goal is to have all my photos sorted ahead of time, and finish at least one album at the crops!

Alicia

BTW, did I mention I'm a bit compulsive?!?

 

[rlovew]

I too have a seperate book for each park and then one for Christmas at Disney and another for resorts and I may begin one on dining but for now it is combined with where we stay. We don't take long trips and my pictures are already mixed so I don't know if I could pull them apart into trips if I wanted to, some trips we have lots of pictures and others only a few. Part of this is that we are FL residents and go up for weekends about once a month. I have been taking pictures at Christmas at each park and hotel and I have enough of those pictures to fill its own album.

 

[Fran98765]

When I did paper scrapping I also sorted by park, event, resort, character dining, character meetings, etc. I always had an intro page, then did pages on each park and mixed things like parades. One year I had a "Parade of Parades", pics from parades at all 4 parks (was 2000, so Epcot had ToD). Since getting the digital camera, I have found we take hundreds more photos, so that makes more pages and more events. I have specific pages just for Wishes and each parade now and the other shows and rides sometimes get their own pages as well.

For each adult trip, I have written lengthy trip reports/memory stories. I finish up each scrapping for the trip by scrapping the printed trip reports. I match some of the things going on in the stories with coordinating stickers/embellishments.

Now that I digital scrap, I try to follow similar guidelines for consistency, but I also find that I can scrap just a single moment as well, in addition to all the other stuff I'm scrapping.

Basically you will just have to start and jump in somewhere and find what style works best for you. Try to highlight favorite stories and memories from the trip, they will spark memories down the road and will give you some joy on reading them. It will also help your children remember the trips, especially if they are quite young now. No matter what direction you choose, it won't be wrong! You will be sharing treasured memories for your kids and that's never a bad thing.

 

[Yzerbear19]

I usually start with whatever pictures I get printed out first. This time its probably going to be AK, MGM, or Epcot since those have less pictures to print than MK. I'm holding off on the character pages until I get my photopass CD because a lot of our character pictures are on it.

I'm going to do mine by park since we parked hopped and chronological order would be difficult. I'm also going to do a separate book for all the characters we met.

 

[pjlla]

Just adding my 2 cents worth.... I am a strictly chronological gal. It's just me.... the way I am... a bit anal I suppose. I scrap my trips just as they happen, day by day. I keep a detailed journal while on the trip and then I match up the journaling with the pictures and keep things moving along that way. So far I have done two trips that way and will do our 2005 Southwest/California Disneyland trip that way also.... but I am considering "venturing out" in the future.

Do whatever seems to make sense for you. I think I would go a little nutty and get confused if I scrapped out of order. But that is just me.

BTW, Lisa, I would love to see a picture of your "Calendar" page. I am just finishing up the albums for our 2004 trip and I always do my opening page last, so I am looking for ideas. I love the sound of yours! ....................P

 

[Lisa]

BTW, Lisa, I would love to see a picture of your "Calendar" page. I am just finishing up the albums for our 2004 trip and I always do my opening page last, so I am looking for ideas. I love the sound of yours! ....................P

I'll see what I can do. I'll take a picture of it and try to post.

 

[mrp4352]

For me, I prefer chronological - but if I find there's a day or two where I didn't take a lot of pictures, then I'll group by park/resort/DtD. Actually, I've found myself doing that more over the last years. I've tried not to take the 'traditional' pictures, but somehow that means I've been taking less pictures...

I tried the ABC once, but that ended up being such a struggle, that for trips, I'm staying far away (however all my nieces get their own book when they turn 2).

 

[nicurn]

I kind of skip around because I use a D ring binder so I can just put the pages in when I get them done. You could always do an ABC book too with all the characters. that might be kind of fun. maggie

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

I kind of skip around because I use a D ring binder so I can just put the pages in when I get them done. You could always do an ABC book too with all the characters. that might be kind of fun. maggie

Holy Toledo!!!! Your back!!!!!! Oh how I missed you!!!!

To stay on topic! I have an ABC book for extra photos, and I scrap by park for each trip, it's to confusing to keep up with which days are where. I can't go by clothes because I take 1/2 of what we need and do laundry. So reds shirts may be for 2 days. We go on long trips too so it gets really confusing.

Welcome Alicia!! I may be going to CKC Manchester too. Maybe we'll run into each other.

 

[mikamah]

Thank you all so much for the great tips. My first page was going to be our countdown pics- we took one each month for 7 months before our trip. I think I'll start with that. But on the other hand a page with a pic from each park sounds like a nice idea for an opening page. I think I need to jump in and start, like many of you had suggested, and then it will start to fall in place. I do have the albums with the 12X12 sleeves, so I can put the pages in any order.

Loopner67- you've helped immensely knowing you have 34 pages, and are only half done. I think I was feeling I had so many pictures I want to keep, but need to fit in to 2 albums, but I don't. I can make 6 albums if I want. It is my sons first disney trip, and I want to remember every minute.

Thanks again everyone for the help. I'm sure I'll be seeing you around this board.

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

My latest first page from our April 2005 trip. Ignore the little piece of paper on the tag, I blanked out DS6's name.
ETA: ignore the messy counter too, you didn't see that. LOL

 

[nicurn]

I like that. maggie

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

I like that. maggie

Thanks!