Q&A

The more pages you complete, the further behind I feel. How did you get started?

Getting started is the hardest part. Typically I start out going through my pictures that are on the computer. Fortunately, I already had most of the 2008 pictures that I needed to finish that album printed. If you don't have the pictures printed, take a day or two and go through them. Think about possible themes as you go through them and write the themes out on a list. I have my pictures in folders by themes/events on our computer to make it easier come scrapbooking time. I'm OCD!! :) It takes time to organize them when I put them on the computer, but I've learned that it makes it faster when it's time to print the pictures.

I've also found that if I take the pictures off the camera more frequently it makes the sorting process quicker. Many times, (like after this July 4th weekend, for instance) I took the picures off the camera Sunday night and put them directly into a July 4th folder. Now my card was clean and ready for Monday when we went to a bounce house with the girls. I will take those off the camera tonight and put them in a "Bounce House" folder. My mom waits until she has 300+ pictures on her card before taking them off, and I find even that overwhelming. But, to each their own.

My process for choosing what pics to scrapbook is fairly simple. Every picture goes through a weeding out process, and there's more than one weeding out so that I end up scrapbooking only a few of the pictures. (To me it's overwhelming and very expensive to print everything and then pick and choose pictures to scrapbook.) The first weeding out happens when I choose the pictures I want to upload to Wal.greens. I don't upload every picture. The second weeding out comes once the pictures are uploaded. I look at the pictures I've uploaded and then only some of those are actually printed. And then the last weeding out comes when I'm actually scrapbooking. Sometimes I have grand ideas, but once I actually get to scrapping, I either can't fit them all on the page so some get put aside in the "photo box", or I completely choose not to include the theme in the album altogether.




Did you pick out your pictures first and then search for a theme?

Most of the time I have a theme already in mind when I print my pictures (mainly b/c I've already put them in folders in our pictures folder on our computer). But there are times when I don't have a theme in mind. In those cases, like when some pictures are just too cute to exclude, I have them printed and figure out a theme later.


With your girls albums, are you going in order or are you skipping around?

Yes, I'm going chronologically. I've always done it that way with every album I've done...it just makes more sense.

With our baby album there are definite pages that will go in the album...the nursery, baby shower, meeting for the first time, first smile, first solids, rolling over, sitting up, pulling up, walking, baby faces, bath time, first friends, teeth, colic (for Chipmunk's album), dedication, a picture from each month on a 2-page spread showing how much they have grown, etc... There are other firsts that will be grouped together on an "Other Firsts" page...finding her feet, drinking from a sippy cup, standing alone, first jelly sandwich, blowing kisses, etc... Obviously, that page won't be chronological, but the rest of the album will be.

In the end, it's your album, so you have to do what is easiest and makes the most sense for you.

These were great questions!! Thanks for asking!! Feel free to ask any qusetion you have, and I'll answer as best I can. :)