Finishing Albums

Do any of you have a problem finishing albums? I'm really good at starting them, but not so good at finishing. I am trying to finish our 2008 vacation album, and I was excited about it for quite a while, but seem to be stuck halfway through and not so motivated to finish it. I'm anxious to start another project (my 4 kids' albums of their lives which I haven't started and they are 21, 19, 16, and 15...an overwhelming, major undertaking!), but won't allow myself to start anything else until I finish this one.

I have found myself staring at the rest of the pictures from this trip and not doing any scrapping at all. I'm torn between trying to make every page a "masterpiece" with everything "just right" or just making some simple pages and getting it done.

Should I force myself to finish this album before moving on, or should I work on multiple albums at once? I'm afraid if I do that I will just end up with a bunch of unfinished albums.

What do you do in this situation??

I work on multiple albums at once. Another thing that helps is not to scrap every single picture you take. Make a layout or two and then put the rest of the photos in these kind of page protectors.

I work on different albums all the time. I used to worry about finishing an album before I started another but I realized that I get tired of working on something & if I change to something else, my scrap mojo stays creative & fun. I will not feel as creative with something I have been working on for some time. I feel I get way more completed switching back & forth. Cause I would do like you & just not scrap. Scrapping is supposed to be fun!!

I agree . . . it was very hard for me to accept that I didn't have to scrap every picture I had. I also have many projects going at the same time and found that I scrapped when I was "feeling" a certain LO and when I forced myself to finish something, it never really felt right.

I'm still working on scrapping my kids' pictures, too, and they're 17 and 14. I also have a started, but no where near finished, album of my childhood/school years.

Good luck!

I also have several albums going at once. Some, such as my wedding album, I am taking my time on and I only scrap a photo for it when it feels right. And I am only doing highlights, the rest are in a leather album. But I am making myself finish my Europe album from 2006 before my DH and I go on vacation in February. So I have been using challenges and sketches to make it a little easier to get motivated to scrap those photos. But I have mixed in other pages for other on-going albums to keep everything fresh and exciting.

I have trouble finishing albums, but what I do is select only the photos I want to scrap, put them in order and then scrap away. That way I know how many I need to do and where the "end" is. You don't have to scrap them "in order" either. I just scrap whichever of the selected photos appeals to me at the moment. I did scrap in order for my father's memorial album because I wanted the pages the coordinate, not something I do with every album.

I have trouble doing an album with just one theme. I like to mix and match different occasions in one album, because I get stuck if I'm trying to do it all the same. My albums aren't color coordinated or chronological, though. I just scrap whatever photos I want whenever I think of ideas for them because I'm random that way.

I can't focus on just one album at a time. I'm all over the place with my scrapping. Out of 33 albums I have maybe 4 of them done. I'm just a very random scrapper I guess.

i have "finished" albums, the year ended. but seriously, that is now i finish an album. i dont worry about the last page being a great culmination of things, its simply the precursor to the next book.

I have many albums going at once. This used to frustrate me b/c I felt like, by the time an album was done, the pics were so old I didn't want to share them with people as much anymore. So, I came up with a new system a couple of years ago:

I actually print all of my pictures and put them all into my albums (chronologically) using divided page protectors. That way, even before I've done any scrapping at all I can still show my "photo albums" to people if I want. Then, as I want to scrap certain pictures, I take them out, scrap them, put the layout into a regular 12x12 page protector, and add it into the album where it belongs chronologically. So, my albums are always a mix of scrapped pages and divided protectors with photos, but at any time I can still enjoy the album.

I currently have the following albums in progress: general family albums, vacation albums, wedding album, my childhood album/book of me, 52 weeks album (similar to Project Life). I finally finished my 3 children's baby books!

These are the supplies I now use for ALL of my albums:

• KellyLeigh Said:

That is a terrific method! Thanks for sharing. I intend to do the same.

I've been really good about finishing my yearly albums for the past 30 years.

Eversince my children have gone and take their own pictures, I've been slacking. I have this idea that I have to have ALL of their photos before I can finish. Well, that is never going to work.

I have to give up the idea that I can get ALL good pictures of them. They don't send them to me in the proper form (jpeg).

Lord, help me accept this.

I haven't scrapped a whole themed album yet. I have only been scrapping for about three years now so I am a youngster in the scrapping world. I scrap the pics I am feeling when I sit down to scrap. Therefore my scrapbooks have pics of my children when they were 3 and 8 and the next page might be 8 and 13. The books don't flow chronologically, but scrapping what I want when I want to helps me keep the creativity flowing. I also do not scrap every picture of a certain event. I pick a few pics that capture the story I want to tell on my layout. So my advice would be to take a break from your vacation album and move onto something else for a while..... You'll end up going back to it and making beautiful masterpieces I am sure.

You're supposed to finish an album?

I don't scrap in any particular order so when the album is full, it's finished.

I'm not a big fan of working on multiple albums at once, but I do it anyway if I have an album that moves up in priority (usu. b/c it's a gift that has to be done by a certain time).

I do, however, sometimes find it tough to get back into the original album I was working on before I was interrupted.

Working on one album at a time makes me I just canNOT do it. Okay, well, I can, but I don't like to. I get burned out VERY quickly when I only work on one album at a time. I find that working on several time periods/subjects in my scrapping to be much more freeing for me. Also, I feel more inspired.

For those reasons, I really don't have any fully completed full-sized albums (outside of gift ones which number about a dozen at this point). Well...wait, I think I have 3 -- my Girl Scouts one, my wedding one, and one for a class I took in Sept/Oct at Big Picture Classes.

In your situation, I'd really just put the project away, do what I feel motivated to work on, and come back to it when I felt more into it. But before I put it totally away, I'd be sure to write down notes about what I'd want the journaling to be.

I scrap as I please... so I barely finish a layout and start another. It's where my mood takes me, sometimes I find a new piece of cardstock that I have to use, other times I will go back to unfinished layout and finish it when I have the right tool. Forcing yourself is limiting your creativity, just stay organized and it will be finished eventually... also with scrapping it's the journey not the destination. I love scrapping because it's a hobby with no deadlines for me.

I scrap whatever I feel like doing at that moment and when it's done it goes into the album it's supposed to go in. The only finished album I have is our wedding album. The other ones that are full aren't really finished, just full.

I plan on still doing it this way when the baby is here. Her layouts will go in her album, just the same as our vacation pics will go in that album. I have much too short of an attention span to keep working on the same thing over and over.

I finish all of my smaller albums for specific occasions, but I also don't think it matters. All of my larger albums are random. I have one for me, one for my son and one for my daughter of random pics... So when I do one of their photos on a layout I'll stick it in their album. When it's full I'll start a new one for them.

I have sooooo many albums started and not completed ... especially holiday albums... but like others said it is easier to keep your mojo if you scrap what inspires you at the moment.. All my LO's go into my albums in chronological order but they are def not scrapped that way. Eventually one day I will make those LO's that will finish the album. If I was you I would move onto some photos that are inspiring scrap them and then come back to the album you were originally working on. Good Luck and remember scrapbooking is supposed to be fun and not a chore!

I just finished my Vacation 2010 album and yes it was very difficult to finish. But I put myself on a spending hault I couldnt buy anything else until I finished it. It took me since June 2010 to just like 3 days ago to finish. Now we are fixen to go on vacation again. So here I go again. Good luck ....it will get done. But it ok to move on before then too. Until you get back inspired.