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How To Get Your Scrapbooking Up to Date

I am bound and determined to get my scrapbooking up to date while I’m on vacation.  I used to be an avid scrapbooker.  I even sold Creative Memories for a time.  Not only was I an avid scrapbooker, I was obsessed with staying up to date.  Hub used to joke, "She already has tomorrow scrapbooked."  And that wasn’t too far off the truth.

But since I’ve discovered blogging, my scrapbooks have become sorely neglected.  I am making it my mission this summer to get my scrapbooks caught up, and I’m going to share with you my tips for staying on top of it.  These tips only work if you actually take the stuff out and work on it, though.  I’m just sayin’.

1) Lower your expectations. The goal is to chronicle your life, not show off your ability to paste tiny scraps of paper into a sophisticated work of art.  In fact, I’d go so far as to say that too much enhancement is a distraction and a detriment.  So, for the sake of your gorgeous pictures AND your sanity, keep it simple.

2) Take fewer pictures.  Seriously.  Our kids are the most highly photographed generation in the history of the world.  And the more pictures you take, the more you have to sort through and edit.  Lately I’ve been intentionally taking fewer pictures, and it’s amazing how much easier it is to go through and pick out the ones I want to buy.  Which is the perfect segue to #3…

3) Throw pictures away.  Yes, I know it feels wrong somehow, but if you’re not going to use ’em, TOSS ‘EM.  (Or, give ’em to your kids to "scrapbook".  My kids love to work alongside me with extra stickers and papers and my discarded pictures while I’m working on my albums.) 

There is no reason to keep extra pictures around, cluttering up your living space.  And with everything digital nowadays, you can always reprint it if you regret tossing it later.  And the fact is, you do NOT need to put every picture you print into your album.  When in doubt, leave it out.  You will probably never remember it.

4) Be selective.  This goes along with #3, but again, you don’t need 150 pictures of your daughter’s birthday party in your album.  You can keep them on your computer if you want to see them.  But in your album, try to keep each event to one or two pages.  It’s more enjoyable to thumb through an album when you have captured the highlights of each event.  No one wants to look at 10 pages of Christmas Day.  (Not that I’ve ever used 10 pages to scrapbook Christmas Day.  AHEM.)

5) Go digital!  If, like me, you want to flip pages of a book, you can even print out your digital masterpiece.  Darla inspired me to try making an online photo book when I was Twittering one night about wanting to get caught up on scrapbooking.  I’ve seen those before, but I have SO many scrapbooking supplies from my days as a consultant that I thought I should use them up before going the digital route.  But the other night, I sat down with iPhoto, and I started with January of 2008, and I made a photo book of the first half of this year.  I will add to it and order it at the end of the year.  I can’t wait to see how it turns out!

I still need to catch up on 2007, and I’m going to do that with my Creative Memories supplies while I’m on vacation next week.  When I come home, I should have everything caught up!  I can’t wait.

So are you a scrapper?  If so, how do you keep up to date?  Or do you?  Ha!

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37 Responses

  1. I managed to get my 18yod baby book (thru about age 5 or so) finished the night before her graduation open house. LOL! Hello, my name is Theresa and I’m a scrapaholic. :o)

  2. Yes, I started digi scrappin because the pages go so much faster especially since my pictures are digital anyways. But do you think I’m caught up? No way! I even bought a printer that prints 12×12 pages! I really need to make the time for them!

  3. I’m not a scrapbooker. I’ve used KodakGallery in the past to make an album and found it really easy to do.

  4. I just made my first photo album on Snapfish and it was so easy and turned out great. I will never go back to cutting and pasting again. The only disadvantage is you can only include photos – – all the ticket stubs and programs from my kids events need to be filed elsewhere. (I keep a accordion file for these items – but trash the majority of them)

  5. I don’t scrap. I have friends that keep trying to get me into it, but it is just not my thing. I might do a digital book someday, but that is the closest I will get. I just don’t want to spend free time doing something that would feel like a chore to me.
    I do love looking at other people’s scrapbooks though.

  6. Thank you so much for this post. My son is almost 4 and I still haven’t finished his baby book! I’ve recently been more motivated to work on it, but at this point, I feel overwhelmed. I like your suggestion to take less pictures and also just throw the unused ones out.

  7. I am a scrapper. I have some albums that are up to date – holiday albums, & baby books for both kids. Our family album…. I just reached July 2005, so I’m a little behind!!

  8. Ok, so you sound just like me….

    i’m now going the photobook route. it’s better than nothing….

    and i’m also going to make each year of my blog into a book on blurb. That way all this chronicling of our lives is SOMEWHERE other than on the WWW.

    (And I’m printing two of them… one for each of the children, so that when I die, they won’t fight over who has my memories or theirs… there’s one for each)

    …. as if they are going to WANT that stuff… lol

  9. Well, since I own just about everything Creative Memories makes, sold, has, dreamed of making, and I have closest full of cases, boxes, file boxes, rubermaid containers, and photo boxes, along with an album for each of my kids, 6 for me, you would think that I was an AVID scrapbooker-keeper. BUT, alas, I AM NOT! I would like to be-it’s not that I don’t have the stuff…it’s that I just feel like I’m not creative enough to do it and or I don’t make the time to do it! And when I pull the stuff out, I make a MESS of my house and don’t do anything else! It’s been a FEW years since I’ve done anything with it…like maybe hmmm 10 or more!
    Hope this answers your question! LOL

  10. I am a total scrapbooker and have not done it for months. Your husband’s joke about tomorrow being scrapbooked? That USED to be me. I’m hoping once school starts to dedicate one day a week to getting back on it.

  11. Used to be an avid scrapbooker and frequent attender of weekend getaway Creative Memories events. I totally miss those weekends of wine and scrapbooking.

    I do it all on Shutterfly now. The quality of the books is amazing. Yeah, there aren’t little doo dads and sticker thingies and my actual handwriting isn’t there. But I can still tell the story just like I wanted, it is WAY cheaper (i.e. you don’t have to print the pictures AND buy the scrapbook and all the pages, etc.) and it gets done.

  12. I’m a scrapper, but I just can’t see me going digital. I like doing it all myself. I’m a full year behind, but I’m working on trying to get caught up. I love my days and weekends when I go to crops with friends.

  13. I used to do a lot of scrapbooking but have not had as much time lately. This is my goal too.

    In fact, I, too, used to be a CM rep! LOL

    I just got the Memory Manager software and the Storybook Plus software from CM and it has changed my life! Seriously this is the best stuff ever and if you are going digitial you must check it out! 🙂

  14. I’m so wanting to try digital scrapbooking. I love the scrapbooking part as well… but well, I’m so on the computer more than I am with my table and scrapping supplies these days.

    Now if only I can figure out how to do my mending online… 🙂

  15. When I moved to Mexico with only 4 suitcases in January ’07 I was forced to leave 95% of my scrapbooking supplies behind in the US. And since supplies are few and far between here (and EXPENSIVE!) I pretty much just quit for about 10 months. Then, last fall, I discovered digital scrapbooking. It’s so much quicker and there is such a wide variety of fun supplies right at your fingertips. It’s become a bit of an addiction, but I just love it! It was so nice to be able to have a book depicting what my life is like here to show to everyone when I went back to the States to visit last month. Everyone loved it!

    Be sure to check out my scrapping blog: https://sassysimpsonsisters.blogspot.com

  16. I love to scapebook, but who has the time. NOT me! I have heard the new digital pages are fast and easy. By the way, I do #3 all the time, then I pull them out when I need an hour to work and have the kids scapebook a page for themselves or to give to someone. It’s a great way to get rid of unwanted pictures and the kids have a craft to do.

  17. I’m so far behind with my scrapbooking, I’m starting to panic about it.

    I just finished my son’s baby book. (He’ll be 5 in October.) I’ve decided that I’m only going to traditionally scrap that first year. After that, it’s all digital for me. I’ve done about three digital books (via Shutterfly) for my daughter’s scrapbooks (I’m much more current with her), and I’ve really loved how fast, easy and beautiful they are. If I’d had the digital option a few years ago, I would never have invested in all the paper scrapbooking stuff, frankly.

  18. I am a total scrapbook ho!
    Do I ever get to do it?
    Not with a 2 yr old who is into everything.
    I can after he goes to bed at like 9 at night but then I am too tired to drag my stuff out.

    Good luck with getting to it!!!!!

  19. Oh how I miss my scrapbooking days. I havent even started a book for my 9 month old and I am still on the 1 year old book for my daughter who is 3 and a half. Just writing that is making me twitch. I really want to go digital so that I can stay on top of it, but the fact that I also own most all of CM products ever made and the fact that I do on occassion still get to the CM getaway weekends (1x per year), I think I will try to stick with traditional scrapping. This post has inspired me to try harder to schedule time to do it.

  20. Oh you described my situation perfectly. It if weren’t for the darn blogging…

    I need to get back to my albums, or my third is not going to have anything by which to remember her childhood. I did do a book through My Publisher for the first half of this year, and they did a great job. I was really happy with it.

  21. I heartily agree with the “TOSS IT” remark. I have junk photos taking up space I need to get rid of. Also, I really need to get my order in for printing and/or a digital book – but that would mean sorting through thousands (THOUSANDS!) of images on this here laptop.

    Sigh.

  22. Good luck…I totally catch up during vacations/breaks. There’s just no time otherwise. You need to share your progress in a post after your vacation. 😉

  23. I haven’t scrapbooked in soooo long! I want to host a night for friends to come over with any scrapbooking or photo sorting supplies they have. We could all share our stuff, try to get a little done, enjoy a night away from the kiddoes, and eat some goodies!

    I’ll try to schedule one in September, maybe.

  24. Excellent tips! I totally think it needs to be pared down too. We get a little carried away. Not me. But others. I also just learned how to spell segue.

    I used to keep our digi photos organized online into folders and kept a junk folder for the leftover pics. but I haven’t printed photos in probably 2 years. The kids got a hold of the old fashioned, printed variety of pics and they LOVED them!

    But to print? On paper? GO to the store to pick up? Oh, the sweat and tears. I don’t know.

  25. I agree scrapping fewer pictures helps me keep up. For the year in review page I use pictures I didn’t use in my layouts and make a digital collage and print it out and put it on a one page layout.

    Happy Scrapping.

  26. Oh, I am a scrapper. And, I’m terribly behind. I’m a year behind on each of my older kids, actually almost two years behind on my oldest. The baby is six months today and I’ve yet to even buy her album. But, I’ve started doing a power layout of my son’s second year. Like you, I’m determined to get caught up.

    I wholeheartedly agree with number one. But, I think you have to determine your purpose for scrapbooking. For some, it is truly is an artistic endeavour. So, perhaps they don’t need to fret about not being caught up. That is not me. For me, it is to tell our stories, so I’m following the K.I.S.S. principle.

    Thanks for the inspiration. I’m actually getting a chance to scrap with some friends tomorrow.

  27. I’m a CM drop out as well. When Amanda was born, my CM rep lived on my street. Once a month she had crops at her house. It was a great time for me to get away from the new life of a SAHM and be a person.

    I scrapbooked all our past vacations and kept up to date with our family life and with Amanda.

    When I moved away, I just stopped. . . .

    I love your tips though. You’re right about the pics. When I load them on my computer, I even try to scale them back then.

  28. Good tips–for the REAL scrappin’ world. a agree the most important thing is to get your favorite pictures, along with some journaling, maybe a doo-dad or two–keep it simple and do-able. The fancy pages are beautiful, but…

    I still try and scrap, but I also like to do digital books.

    One tip, on a trip or for a special event, buy a fun children’s picture book or cook book, souvenir book, etc. and scrap a few pictures and journal your memories of the trip/event at the front of the book. (Does that make sense?)

  29. I’m a scrapbooker & like you my pages have went WAY down since blogging. I actually started my blog to track my scrapbooking, but that changed very quickly, lol.

    I’ve never been caught up, but now I am so far behind. I really need to get back into it. I did a few pages the other day that were super quick from a school kit. Usually if I can get a few pages done, then I will start to pick up a bit.

    One thing I do to make scrapping quicker is use sketches. Then the layout plan is already done, you just have to match up papers with pictures & plug it all in.

  30. I too am very far behind, but use hubby’s “guy weekends” to get caught up. I keep my events to two pages, except for trips. Then I normally do mini albums.

    I wish there was more time, but I think I might try a digital scrapbook in the winter. I love the look of them. And so easy!

  31. I LOVE to scrapbook and do so every chance I get. As a matter of fact, some friends and I spent most of last week scrapbooking. But I had decided I’ll never be caught up. I was current for a while, but once I went from one to two kiddos, I fell behind miserably. Part of my problem is I buy and collect stuff more than I use it! But I’m working hard to get somewhat current. Maybe it will happen some day. I can’t bring myself to do the digi scrapping though, I like to “get dirty” when I scrapbook, and it’s very theraputic for me to cut and paste and all that jazz!

  32. I’m like you, scrapping has gone on the back-burner since I started blogging. I am WAY behind. I like what you said about keeping it simple. That’s what I am going to have to do too to get caught up.

    Thanks for the tips!

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