Completely new to this

Hey everyone!

I am entirely new to this hobby and have more or less, no idea what I'm doing.

Anyways, I am planning to put together a scrapbook together for my girlfriend on our 1 year anniversary. I have been collecting ideas on what I want to include as well as pictures of us I plan to put into the scrapbook. I really want to go into this with strong direction as to where my scrapbook is going.

I guess the biggest question I have right now is how long can I expect each page of the book to take? Now I do understand that it will depend on the level of detail on each page but what can I expect as an average? What have your experiences been like as far as time goes?

It really depends on you and all those elements you mentioned in your post.
Some people can scrap a page in 1/2 hour, some in days.

If you are a person who can make a decision about how you want your page to look and execute accordingly you will probably move right along.

The first album I made which was when I was a brand new scrapper it would take me several hours to complete a page - I pretty much did a page an evening. Now it can take me all day.

What size album will you be doing?

When I was working with 8x8 albums it took me about an hour to finish one page. Now I do 12X12 pages and it takes me a few hours (3-4) to finish 1 page. But when I "finish" I still think about that page and sometimes I go back and change some elements or add or completely re-do it.

There is no clear cut answer to your question.

I'm going to be doing a 12x12. Hopefully I don't end up getting overwhelmed. I'm starting to think I should allow myself about two evenings of work per page (give or take). Perhaps working for 2-3 hours a night would be a good plan for myself.

What kinds of hiccups have you all experienced in the past while working on your projects? I'm sure I'll have my fair share of them but would like to get some kind of idea as to what to expect.

Welcome

It can take me an hour or more to do a page. It depends on the mood I am in. Usually when I start a layout, I finish it the same day.

My advice is to make sure you have a enough of what you will be working on. There is nothing like being in the middle of a project and run out of adhesive or another piece of paper you were working with....and do not glue anything down until you are satisfied with the page! I think 2-3 hours is perfect. Just have fun with it! The most important thing is scrapping your story!

What a lucky girlfriend you have! That is awesome that you are making a scrabook for the her. That totally rocks! You sound like quite the romantic!

I would suggest looking through the gallery here and see what kind of layouts catch your eye - that may give you some ideas of things you would like to try!
Good luck and welcome! We would love to see pics when you get them done!

Thanks so much for all the input and advice! I'm counting on this taking me about 3 months to put all together.

I've started getting ideas together for my layouts by drawing them onto 3x5 cards. See what other people have done has already been a big help. I'm already having a great time with just that stuff. I can tell it's only going to get more and more fun! :-)

This is just a thought. You think you will always remember the details of a photo - that is not true. In time you will not have a clue who the people are or what the story is behind the pictures.

When my husband and I were engaged as teenagers I made a scrapbook for him. Lots of pictures but no journaling. Didn't think it mattered.

We broke up - for 38 years and got back together 5 years ago and married almost 4 years ago. Since we were broken up for 38 years, the scrapbook and pictures were also 38 years old.

Last year his sister was going through her mother's thing (their mother passed away about 10 years ago). It seems that Bill "took" the scrapbook when we broke up and when he went in the army he gave it to his mother to keep for him. It got lost for all these years and just surfaced.

We thought we would really enjoy going through it when it was returned to me but instead we just had questions...

Who are those people with us?

THat cake says 1st Anniversary... first anniversary of what? First Date? First kiss? Or were we holding the cake for someone else and it wasn't even our cake?

If it was our cake, where was the party? Who threw the party for us?

One at Homestead Air Force Base where Bill is carrying me on his back... were we just playing and horsing around? Were we with another couple and racing like this? Did I twist my ankle so he had to carry me?

Every picture comes with a load of questions. So disappointing that we don't know the stories anymore.

My point - journal. It's up to you and if you hate journaling, don't do it. But if you can stand it, it will make the scrapbook so much more enjoyable years down the road.

Another point for journaling... my sons are both grown now but when they visit they pick up the books and they spend more time reading the journaling and the stories than then do looking at the pictures. And anyone who picks up my scrapbooks knows exactly what the picture is about without me standing over their shoulder explaining it to them.

Just a thought.

Oh - I have awful handwriting so I type all my journaling. Its all done on the computer.

Yeah that's a good point. I really do want to make journaling a big part of this scrapbook. I want to tell our story not only through the pictures but also through words on the page.

I would really hate it if looking back on the scrapbook I wouldn't be able to remember the significance of pictures or events.

Thanks for the input!

You can get the scrapbook done in 3 months with no problem. The main thing is to be organized! Have your pictures organized in the order that you want them to be in. You can even create your journal cards while you organize your pictures and get all journaling done before you even start adhering your layout. Once you have all that figured out organize the color or theme of the products that you are going to use. You can even organize the papers in the order that you would like to use them. I actually wrote a great post about assembly line scrapbooking on my blog. You can check it out and see if that helps you at all is well.
http://wp.me/p2E66M-aF This is the link that will take you to that post directly.

Good luck and your girlfriend is very lucky to have you creating a scrapbook for her!

Sketches are a great way to start! And they make putting a page together very easy! You can get a lot of pages done in a quick time. Not at first, but you will get faster as you get going on it.

Two suggestions:
Use a three ring album binder. This way, you don't have to mess with posts! I HATE post albums. If you mess up and place your photos out of order, you have to take the whole album apart to move one layout back a page or two. With the ring bingers, you open the rings, and move your pages around. When I start an album, I have a general idea of where or how I want my pictures to go, but there is always those layouts that I do that I want to add, or didn't find in time. No problems...just open it up and add it!!! I love the We R Memory Keepers ones.

Also, JOURNAl, JOURNAL, JOURNAL. This will mean more to her than anything else. Because it will be in YOUR words to her!!!!

I made a scrapbook for a boyfriend one time...and i would be super excited if my boyfriend made one for me!!! I know when i made one for him it took me four hours per page..sometimes five...and you have to be smart and make sure you dont leave evidence that you are getting crafty so she wont start questioning you!!! I have pics up here too

Thanks for the link Beth! I will definitely be referring to that post as I get my stuff together.

I will do doing my scrapping in a room in the house that we don't really ever go into or even have a need to go into. On top of that I will be keeping stuff put away in that room so even if she does happen to walk in, she won't necessarily see anything I've been up to.

Also, I need to come up with some kind of cover story for when I am working on the book. She's very inquisitive by nature. When she asks me about my day I have to have something that more or less fills the gap of time.

This is turning into quite an adventure! :-)

What a great gift to give your girlfriend!
I have no advice on a cover story but good luck!

I use scanned copies of pictures for all my pages. I find it helps me to put all the pictures I think I will use into a MS Pub document and then add a text box for the journaling. You can do this in any publishing program or even Word. But it is really helpful to look at all the pictures together and plan the sizes and which ones to include. The journaling changes until I decide where and how I am going to use the pics and then I can print it for the page on whatever cardstock works. (I don't like my handwriting, so all my journaling is computer printed. But it is very nice to have handwritten journaling...a more personal feel.)
Your girlfriend is very lucky!!!

What an awesome boyfriend you are! She will be thrilled to see what you have done for her!

Everyone has made some really good points. Journal,Journal, Journal! Take a look through the gallery to get an idea of what exactly you would like to shoot for - clean and simple, vintage, playful, etc. Try to figure out a color scheme you want to use beforehand and that will make it a little easier when you are shopping. It's great that you are already sketching out your ideas on index cards. This will save you some time. There are also sketches available in the gallery and on some blogs to help motivate you too.

I am sure you won't have any problem completing the scrapbook in 3 months. Post pictures of your layouts when you complete them!!

To be honestly I'm not all that great with colors. Any suggestions on picking out color schemes? Should my scrapbook have color theme throughout to link everything together?

Also, what are some other ways I can connect the pages to each other? I mean, I don't want it to feel like a bunch of individual pages just thrown together.

I do not use a color theme throughout the book. I go with what works with the pictures and memorbilia.

If several pages are from the same event I tie them together - I'm doing a 5 page Everglades that ties together. But other than that my pages are individual.

They may have Easter which has its own colors and then 4th of July with those colors. SOme with clothes I really want to emphasize by coordinating my papers or flowers that are so pink I have to use pink paper with them.

I like them individualized and only tied together if the theme is the same.

I don't care what colors I picked to do my colors and theme, there will be some pictures that just don't work. ANd I love to use Christmas papers for Christmas and Easter papers for Easter - travel papers when we travel. Its just fun to me.

One way I like to connect pages in an album is to use what is called "stacks" or "collections" of paper. It has several different patterned papers that all coordinate. That way you can use different papers on each page, but they all flow together. I've linked a few below. You can find Die Cuts With A View stacks at JoAnn's stores if you have one near you also.

Wonderful ideas.

Thanks for the recommendations on the collections Judy! Those will definitely come in handy :-)

What a cute idea!