All About Albums

I seem to be in a cleaning house phase. Maybe it is the after effects of LOAD213, or maybe it is just the right time. At any rate, I've been in the mood to organize and think about my scrapbook space.

This month for my One Little Word challenge, I am taking action. I knew right away that I wanted to finally address the problem with my scrapbook albums.

Up until 2009 I kept chronological albums. This totally worked for me. I scrapped until the book was full and then I moved on. I used post bound albums, which was very challenging if I ever needed to add a page, or change the order. I actually loved this one brand, and bought as many as possible before they went out of business. Eventually I needed a new album.

Then I found three-ring albums. Hooray! I love the ease of movement and the flexibility. Even if the two pages don't line up right next to one another, I still love the overall ease of the three-ring binder. I fell in love with We R Memory Keepers, and I have a wide range of colors.

Then, I took Finding Photo Freedom with Stacy Julian. Rocked my world. I stopped putting pages into albums and created a giant stack. I re-sorted pages into different categories, and I lived that way for two years.

During that time I thought a lot about my albums, how I enjoyed them, how I liked to look at them, and what might work. I also took Shimelle's class, Cover to Cover. Slowly I was coming to a place that I felt more confident would work for me.

In the end, I think that I am more of a chronological scrapbooker. I scrap what I want, when I want, but I file the pages in chronological order. That works for me. I like how the story flows. And, I know where to find a specific page. I think that with only two people in the family, separate albums just didn't make as much sense.

So, I took all of the pages out of the albums they had been loosely organized into albums and the stack of un-filed pages and I started putting them in chronological order. One thing that I learned right away was that I was terrible at dating pages! As I went through each page I tried to date everything and remember when things were happening.


Here are two pictures of this process in the midst of the work.

After I sorted and filed everything I went back through each book and looked for missing pages or stories (a la Shimelle). This was actually a lot of fun, and I remembered things that I had forgotten. I found this very satisfying.

Now I have a list of pages to create, I have to work on title pages, and I am trying to decide how to use the different colored albums that I have. Still trying to figure that out.

My system isn't perfect. There are some pages that are more about me (31 things class) that just don't seem to fit in the regular album. I might create a special album that will house these types of things.

Now, I'm going to play along with Noell Hyman at Paperclipping and finally finish my 12-12-12 Yearbook! Seriously only a few pages and the cover to go. Perfect inspiration for that album!

How have you organized your albums?