Help! 400 pictures and what to do next?

Hello - Last summer, I was fortunate to have my nephews stay with me. This summer, I am going to spend the time putting together THE SCRAPBOOK. I have about 400 pictures and various momentos of all the places that we went to. Needless to say - I have no idea where to begin or what products to order. I read the responses to the survey on 8.5x11 vs 12x12. Is it safe to say that I go with 12 x 12 and LOTS of paper? Is there a better way? These books will clearly be more pictures than momentos, but I would like to be able to embellish a bit and thus do not want to go with standard photo albums. For purposes of planning ahead - excluding the embellishments, approximately how many pages am I looking at? As you can see, I really need help with the basics. Thanks in advance for all of your suggestions!

Hello AnAunt!

Welcome to the site! You have really opened a can of worms! I hope you are ready, cause you are going to get all the advice and feedback you have ever wanted, and them some! I am sure that everyone will be eager to help you in any way we can!!!!

It sounds like you are just getting started. Do you have a local scrapbook store? If so, I would really recommend taking a basic scrapbooking class, just to help get you oriented to what all of this is about. Once you get more info, you will be able to come up with more specific questions.

I also really recommend a book called "Marvelous Scrapbook Makeovers" by Creating Keepsakes. I found it to be a real help in figuring out the how's and why's of it all. It teaches how to use colors, how and when to crop you pictures, how to make the readers eye flow through your pages, etc. I found it very valuable. Also, keep in touch with the site here. You will get a lot of ideas, help and encouragement. Everyone on here is great!

Happy Scrapping!
Nikki

Well, do you plan to use ALL 400 photos, or just the best, or the best 200, 100?

How many pages in the album would be determined by how many pictures on a page you'll be putting, which is sometimes determined by your style, and how much you crop off the photos. I use 12x12 and probably *average* about 4 photos per page, depending on the embellishments or the style i'm doing. If i'm doing "CM" style i can usually put about 5 pictures. If I do a modified CM (more embellishments) it goes down to 4, and then if i get into the letter templates, paperdolls, etc. I can only squeeze 3 pix and some journalling.

If you use 75% of the photos with 4+ pix per page, you can probably plan on 50-70 pages. That's a good size for most albums. I wouldn't put much more than that in one book. If you have LOTS of pictures, maybe you can use the extras for an 8.5 x 11 album for their mother.

Good Luck!

Hi, there,

I would also love to help you! I have lots of books and materials of scrapbooking.
I have few books done on 12X12 and also 81/2 by 11. Let us know a little bit more about your project, and we will be glad to help.
Where do you live?
Do you have a Michel's store near by?
They have free demos and begners classes.
Best Regards,
Sandra D. (Baltimore, Md.)

------------------
Sandra Regina Mendes Dieterle

When I first started scrapbooking, I spent one whole Saturday afternoon with just the pictures. Put on some good music, or a favorite old movie that you don't really have to watch as background and dig in. Separate the pictures into groups... different things the boys did, chronilogically, or whatever other idea comes to mind. Anything that doesn't fit, just put aside... there will be more ideas as you go along, but this will give you start. Are you doing one book for each? Then separate those. This should give you some smaller groups to start with. Pick one and decide which pictures to use. Save the others for a collage, or another idea. (Don't forget to save some for yourself... the best part of scrapbooking is enjoying looking through the books!) Begin to crop down the pictures, and then find a page or sticker or something you like to go with the pictures... this is how I usually start a page. Once I have something I like with them, then the rest can be put together. Have Fun!!!

Well, first you will need to organize your photos. If it were me, I'd probably start by organizing the photos in piles by month first. Then break down each month by the events that occurred each month - for example: say in June you had your the arrival of your nephews photos, BBQ/picnic photos, swimming photos, trip to a bowling alley photos, etc. Expect to be able to fit 3-5 photos per page depending upon how much cropping you do. If you have 10 great photos from a particular event, then I'd recommend doing a two-page spread. Slip each group of photos into a page protector. If you think of a great title idea, find the perfect stickers or paper etc. for those photos, then you can stick it into the page protector with the photos. If you have extra photos from the month, then you might consider doing a "June" page and include a few photos depicting the various activities that occured during the month.

Good luck - I think your book will be great! It is a hard project but it will be so worth it!