Sunday, May 24, 2009

Album Organization. . .



FINALLY. . . I believe I have figured out a system for storing my finished scrapbook pages!!!! I have been a student of Stacy Julian's Library of Memories Class for the past few weeks. I have followed along pretty good, but it is hard to keep up when there is so much going on!! The class ends next week and I will no longer have access to the lessons! I really wish they would give us a couple of extra weeks to get caught up! But, I guess it would probably NEVER be enough time!!!

Anyway, through her class (as I have discussed in previous blogs). . .she has taught us how to set up a system for organizing, storing, sorting, and scrapbooking all of our photos. . . and also housing all of the layouts!

So, today I moved some of my older layouts around and labeled all of the albums I have. . . the label holders are CTMH and are wonderful!!!!!!!

This is how I have my Albums Labeled. . . Places, Family, Seasons, Fall, Halloween, Christmas, Holidays, Brady's Birthday, Celebrations, Brady, and Easter. . . whew. . .that seems like A LOT of albums!! And the thing is. . .I am ready to place a BIG order for more albums, so I can have my Library completely set up!!! Do I need more albums right now? Probably not yet. . .but I know I will need some more in the future and I am not a very patient person!!! 97% of my albums are Close to My Heart. . .and for the ones that are not CTMH, I plan on switching them over. I have been lured into the good sells Hobby Lobby has had on Albums in the past. . .the problem is I can definitely tell the difference in quality!!!!! Now, maybe it is just the brand I picked out and not all are like this. . .and maybe it is just because I have them side-by-side to my CTMH albums. . . BUT I can tell a difference!!! Most of my albums are linen. . .which I really like!! I love the variety of colors. BUT if you want to splurge a little, the CTMH Leather albums are wonderful!! I have the English Leather and the Black. . .both are so beautiful and rich looking!!! They would look great sitting on a coffee table. . .full of your favorite or most recent layouts (an album I plan on adding very soon!)

Here is a breakdown of the kind of layouts I have in each Album (this is different than Stacy Julian, but I did base my organization off of the ideas that she taught!) Click on the picture above to see it larger!

My Places Album: RIght now it has pictures of us at the Park, at a Water Park, and an Amusement Park. It also has layouts from Family Vacations we have taken recently. I plan on having a special Vacation Album one of these days. I will also put layouts about our home or my Parent's home (etc...) in here.

My Family Album: This is an Album I know will be divided up soon. Right now it has layouts about Myself and Brady, Dad and Brady, Cousins, Family. . .any layout I have done that shows a family relationship. I pulled one of my Grandfather at Easter stealing candy before the Easer Egg Hunt had even began. Believe me, I had plenty of Easter Layouts. . .I decided I wanted this one to go under a Grandpa Tracy section in my Family Album. I also have the birth of my nephew in here and special relationships Brady has with his cousins. . . just to mention a few.

My Seasons Album. . . RIght now it has layouts that are specific to a certain season. . . winter, spring, and summer. . . I am sure one of these days that each season will probably have its very own album. . .like I have done for Fall. We tend to have A LOT of Fall pictures with the pumpkins and everything going on. . .so I went ahead and gave it its very own album!

Holidays. . . here I will keep layouts of special holidays we celebrate. . . I have Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Valentine's Day in here so far. Easter, Halloween, and Christmas each have their own album. We have a huge Easter celebration and hunt each year at my Aunt's house, of course there are endless celebrations and traditions with Christmas, and I love the idea of having a special Halloween Album (something Stacy Julian has) and since Halloween is such a big deal to us with Brady's birthday and all of the pumpkins we grow!!!

Celebrations. . .my side of the family loves to celebrate. . .anything and everything!! My husband thinks we have a party for everything. . isn't he funny?? But we do like to get together!!!! This album will house layouts documenting those get togethers. . .from birthday parties, to family dinners, to weddings, and other special occasions. . . both with family and friends!

This fall I will be adding a School of Life Album since Brady will be starting Pre-school. . . each year I plan on doing 3-4 pages on that school year's activities and adding it to the album. Hopefully this will be a nice and easy way to showcase his educational experience!!!

I also plan on adding a Things we Do album. . . for sport's pictures, Mizzou games, life on the farm, around the house, and other things we enjoy to do!!!

Obviously, a lot of these layouts could overlap in which album they could be placed in. Sort of like the Easter picture of my Grandpa Tracy. I could have left it in the Easter album and that would have been just fine. It was taken at Easter and he is eating Easter Candy in it. BUT. . . I wrote about how he has such a big sweet tooth, as did his Mother, his son (my Dad), and myself. And it described a bit of his personality. . . .SO that is why I decided to move it to the Family Album.

This has been a bit of a journey for me. . . one that I am still on. I believe I have the frame work in place for a system I am going to LOVE!!! I just can't wait to fill my albums up with pages. . . I kept thinking OH. . .I can put a page about this here and a page about that there!!! Before. . .I would some times stick my pages on TOP of my albums, because I just didn't know where to put them!!!! And I must confess. . .at one time I had over 50 layouts in a pile in my cabinet, because I just didn't know where to put them!!!!!

Year by year scrapbooks aren't for me. . . I know some people love them. . . and I like them on a mini-scale. . .but not for the majority of my books. In the event I have another child, I think this system would work well for incorporating them into it. I don't plan on duplicating every event for scrapbooks for both of my children. . .I know people who like to do this, but this just seems like a big chore to me!! I don't want scrapbooking to seem like work! I want it to be FUN!!!! They will have an album all about them (or two or three!) and a school album! The rest of the layouts go in the designated albums.

I know some of you have been interested in how I organize my albums. . . I am sure I will tweak this a bit from time to time as I see how it could work better! I am sure my Library will expand and I will add new Albums to the mix. I really like the Theme Albums. . .I like that the colors usually coordinate (but not always!), that I can see change over time, relationships are present, and that I am not searching through piles of scrapbooks looking for a particular layout or picture. If I want to see a Christmas picture. . .I just open the Christmas Album. . .if I don't remember what year we went on a particular trip. . .it doesn't matter. . .I just open my Vacation album!!!!

Please let me know if you have any questions about this. . . I am happy to share!!!

3 comments:

Leslie said...

I am very impressed. I keep mine in a box.

Darcie said...

I'm impressed too . . . you always make me want to retool the way I scrap.

Christina said...

Great job getting all organized!!