Chronological Scrapbook Question

Back story - I started scrapbooking when my son was about 2 or 2 1/2 years old so I've been playing catch up. As far as his albums go, I started with his baby album, then I did an album for 1-2 yrs. old, 2-3 yrs. old....wasn't enjoying doing these albums so much, it began to feel like work. I had an epiphany, realizing that there was nothing forcing me to scrapbook chronologically....so I jumped ahead to his 5-6 yr. old album, which is stuff from last year. I'm enjoying it and I'm doing more pages that tell a story, rather than just event scrapping.

Now, my issue is......if I continue to do an album for each year, including birthdays, Christmas, swimming lessons, etc....they will all look a lot alike...I mean, how many pages of swimming lessons/soccer etc. does one need? I recently did a couple pages for his 5 yr. album that were more story based (see photo below), pulling photos from different times of the year (instead of my usual chronological pages within my chronological books) and I really enjoyed creating them....
Should I just start doing random pages? If I do that, what do I do with all the photos from 3 & 4 yrs. old?? Do I not include all the swimming stuff, soccor stuff, holidays etc. that look the same? Do I continue doing a chronological/predictable album...then at what point do I switch over to random (story-type) pages?

What do you all do? How do you scrapbook?
If you do chronological, do you find yourself repeating the same type of pages? Does that bother you?
I need help! I can't get it straight in my head, how to tackle this......

Thanks for any help, ideas, opinions!
ALison
P.S. I also do a Project Life album and the occasional mini book, planning a heritage album and a book of me so these quesions are really focused on my son's albums.....


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#1 Daddy By Kiyawinn

I don't scrapbook chronologically at all. I also don't scrap every photo or event. I just scrap whichever photos catch my eye at the time.

One thing that might work to avoid repeating the same page for chronological scrapping, is to do a through the years page for a particular event. Like, say you have a bunch of swimming photos, try just doing one swimming page with several different years' photos on that one page.

Or you could just try to vary the colors or the focus of the page for each year's common theme. Like, one year's Christmas you could focus on the kids by the tree. Another year, focus on the kids opening gifts. Throw in some slight variation to make it not feel the same, maybe.

How do you separate your albums then? Do you just fill up an album and then start a new one with no separation of years?
I guess I'm thinking of my albums in years, 2010, 2011, 2012 etc...and then wondering how to make them less chronological and more random, story based....and I feel guilty if I don't do all the holidays, birthdays, sporting events etc...
I don't scrap every picture though....I organize my photos into folders based on year but I have way too many to scrap all of them....

Alison

I don't scrap chrono, but I file chrono. I have an album for each year and special albums. If a page has photos from more than one occasion, I file it in the place for the latest photo.

That way I don't feel confined. Scrap-booking is supposed to be fun, not pressure. I don't subscribe to the "caught up" idea. I scrap what I want to scrap when I have the time and inclination to do it.

I know what you mean about how the same subjects can be a bit boring. I try to change the colours and themes to make a different focus. For example we used to take all our visitors to one particular restaurant, and the Night Safari, so I had umpteen pics all looking pretty much the same, just with different people in. It was a challenge to make the pages look different from each other. I used contrasting colours on one, toning on another, black and white photos, big, small, you get the idea. The pages don't look alike even if the subject is.

I don't scrap in order at all. My boys are 17 and 22. I've done one album each for them with random photos throughout the years. I do like to do a Christmas album each year with all the stuff we've done during that holiday season. I've done a "family fun time" album with various random photos as well as a vacation one and a beach one. Right now I'm working on a New York album. I like to keep my albums themed but sooo not in order lol. I like scrapping the everyday stuff rather than events

My thoughts on scrapping is to have fun with it and do what you want when you want. There are no rules-just enjoy it

I don't scrapbook chronologically, but I do put them in the album that way. I don't have kids but I do have topics that keep repeating themselves - multiple (professional) baseball games per year, an annual trip to a dairy farm with a corn maze. The first three years of going to that corn maze are all compiled as one set of layouts in with my 2007 pages. I don't do a separate album for each year - 2007-2010 are in one album together, with a title page at the beginning of each year.

I organize my page kits and completed albums chronologically. I try to scrap as chronologically as possible, but I let myself do other pages if the mood strikes...

as far as scrapping the same thing over and over... I actually have several events that I scrap the same way every year on purpose. I change up the papers and embellishments, but since it's an annual event, I try to take the same pictures for it and use the same title and even journalling. (ie 5th Annual blah blah blah 6th Annual blah blah blah)

This was probably my hardest decision to make about scrapbooking, especially when it came to my kids--I have 5. I started out doing pages for every event, which often meant 5 different pages for each Christmas, Easter, Halloween, etc. Realizing first how hard that would be to get and keep caught up not to mention how boring....I decided rather to do only the pics that were really good and/or inspiring. I mean seriously how many pics opening presents do we really need. Now I do do a page of each kid each year for Halloween because those are fun and a different costume each year. But several of my kids are older and don't dress up now anyways. Plus I thought are each of the kids going to want to take 10-20 albums with them??? Probably not.

So here is what I decided to do. I do the really good pics of each kid when it inspires me to do but put them in their own albums chronologically. I also keep some for my own albums. But I do each kid a separate school album with all the school pics, activities and sports. Then have my own theme albums...wedding, vacation. This system might work well for you since you do the project life anyway and have all the important stuff for the year recorded that way. Then you can have several years worth of the really good, meaningful stuff in one album for your son. I think looking to the future that is what will work for me anyway.

Plus one thing that I do if I really feel like a lot of pics from one event do need to be in the albums is make a photo collage...I can get a lot of pics in to one or two collages. I have been doing that with some of my DD high school events. She takes a lot of cute pics with her friends that I will put some of the best ones in collages and put them in her school album. It takes away the guilt of felling like every pic needs to be scrapped!

i scrapbook chronologically. i print out pics and scrap them when inspiration hits. if i don't get to those photos, they are still in the right place in the book.

for other stuff like school, sports, vacations, they have their own book. in the 'main' book i have a note referencing the themed book so people know to look at it, and that there's more.

this way i don't have so many pages on one topic taking up all the space in my books.

hth

I scrap chrono but also do separate albums. School albums are separate, birthday albums are separate (my DGS has 7 so far), wedding albums are separate and the baby albums are separate. Everything else gets in chrono albums. I keep an excel sheet that lets me know the date of everything else. So if DH wants to know when and where, I pull it up on the computer and go to the album. Should anything happen to me, personal albums are theirs and the others can be easily divided. Should I get stuck on a pic, I just go past it and work on another. Nothing the same on my pages - I love looking through galleries and getting ideas.

Thank you to all for your input so far.....
I really don't feel the need to scrapbook every picture. Its just that I feel a wee bit guilty for some reason if I don't include certain events (Christmas, Halloween, swimming lessons, soccer etc..) Like if I don't scrap them, no one will know they happened.....
I also realize there are no rules.....I'm just trying to figure out what will work for me.....I feel like I'm at a crossroads in the way I'm scrapping and/or putting my albums together.
It is difficult for me to wrap my brain around how to transition to a more random way of doing things
I currently have a book for 2005, 2006, 2007, and have started 2010...... I only have one child so our family life is just the 3 of us currently....his books are our books, so to speak
My son's books contain all our day trips, camping trips, sporting events, holidays etc......
My son's birthday is in December so I've always started the books with his birthday, then Christmas pages, then the rest of the year.....if I want to make his books random, where do I even start?

Alison

I can sooo appreciate how you feel. We don't want to miss a thing and wish we can include every pic of every event/function. I too only had one child (my beautiful son was 20 years old when I lost him). He is the reason I started scrapbooking because I wanted him to have as many memories of his life to share with his own family one day. Everyone LOVED my son (Devin). He was funny, charming, caring and compassionate. He also had a absolute Love for Life and a great passion for music and boxing. With these descriptions of him, I am making several albums. They will include many pics, but not necessarily in chronological order. Just great pictures of him.

I am also going to make an album of him and his pets (Rex-our dog and Shelby-our cat). Oh how he loved them. Again, these albums will not have to be in chronological order, but will be filled with many beautiful pics and memories and a lot of journaling.

The best thing about scrapbooking is there are no rules. They are your memories and you scrap how and what you want, when you want. No time frames...

Taylor

What about putting all good pictures in traditional albums but only scrapping the ones that you really feel are special? Then everything is documented but you can still make certain memories special.

As far as transitioning, maybe start making a "random" album now, then finish you the year album you're currently working on then go strictly to random once you've finished the year?

I scrap the pics that catch my eye. I put anywhere from 1-5 pics a page. Sometimes I do several years on one page and other times I do an event per page. Depends on the amount of pics I have to choose from.
I am still working on trying techniques and other things so I am far from knowing alot about scrapping. Just throwing out how I have been doing my pages.
Good luck

My scrapbooks are chronologically in order, but I don't scrap them in order. I have 2 boys, ages 9 and 13. The first year of my oldest sons's life is done, and then he became mobile, and I quit. I'm playing catch-up also.

Each boy has his own book. If both boys are the main subject of a picture, I scrap it twice. I've found I'm more in the mood if I scrap something really recent, then go back and do an older one every now and then. I also figure this way, I'm current, and if I can get an older one done here and there, it's all good

I'm also very strange in that the pic has to "talk" to me. I can't just sit down and pull out a random pic and do it. I find myself flipping through my pictures until something just jumps out at me.

I've been considering this very issue. I'm also a non chronological scrapper but have chronological books. And someone else mentioned printing pics, putting them in the album, then scrapping as inspiration hits. I do that.

I started scrapbooking after my kids left home, so for them,each have a book for their early childhood, mid years and high school. easy peasy

Now, I have a granddaughter. Her first year, I did 3 books! Okay, can't do that every year...so, I'm thinking she gets a year book, with events representing each month. Feb won't always be Valentine's day...unless its a special Valentine's. kwim?

I also do the Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas, so Christmas is taken care of...and seperate albums for vacations and pets.

• mjmone Said:

This! I have a 4 month old so his first year will be very chronological etc. But for the other 2 books I'm working on (wedding & honeymoon) they aren't so strict to the order of things. I think doing one based on the important events in a month or year is how I want to focus on it. Of course whether that will happen......we will see

I don't do chronological. Like others have mentioned I scrap by the pics that "call me". I have an album I call my "Hodge Podge" album. Anytime I finish a layout I put it in this album for safe keeping. Once I have a number of similar layouts or ones that may make a good album together I pull them all out and put them in their own album. Also I have project albums, like my high school years, my dads memory album, etc. What about just listing those similar things in 1 or 2 layouts, adding a current picture with it and put that at the beginning of the album. Then continue throughout the year with your other layouts?

I am also a chronological scrapper and I do feel bored sometimes (especially with Christmas pictures, which I always have a ton of and they all seem the same to me). However, like someone else said, I try to shift the focus every year. Now that I have many years with tons of Christmas pictures scrapped, I don't feel the need to include everything anymore. For example, most years, I do a family portrait, a page of present-opening, and another winter page. I am thinking about skipping the present pictures this year because we had cute cookie-baking pictures and I plan on doing those instead. If you want to stay chronological, but not get bored or do too many pages, one year you could, for example, scrap a picture of your son in the pool one year, him standing by the pool smiling another year, the whole swim team the next, etc., so they are at least not the same pictures. You can do the same thing with your papers/embellishments (blue water theme one year, bright colors the next, etc.) Hope this helps -- you just need to do whatever feels right to you.

Ok, thanks everyone for your suggestions and explanations of what you are doing!
I *think* I've figured out what I'm going to do...at least I'm going to try something and see if it works.

I am going to make up a Christmas album...I decided I'm going to pull the Christmas pages out of my son's albums so far and put them in a separate Christmas album. That way, I can include layouts of getting our Christmas tree, trimming the tree, baking cookies etc..I may even add in some of our favourite Christmas recipes and things....

I am debating on making up a "things we do" album to put in our annual camping trips, trips to the zoo etc...not sure about that one yet.

I purchased a book to put all his school stuff in. I homeschool so there are always photos of homeschooling field trips, art projects and some of his actual school work that I want to save!

Then, I'm going to try and do more story based pages for my son's actual album but I'm not sure how to handle the couple of years that I skipped over yet...there just aren't that many real stories from when he was 3 and 4 yrs. old....I might combine them into one book....
His books will also include the sports that he does as he gets older and halloween, stuff like that....

Again, thanks to everyone! You really helped to get a couple things clear in my head
Alison