Scrapbooking Projects

1. Regular chronological albums. These started when Joel was born and there are already so many I’ve done and I can honestly see having about 100 of these by the time my kids are grown. These are the ones that are easy to tote around and work on when I’m visiting and the kids are playing.

2. Baby books. I’m done with Michael’s and Callie’s. Joel’s isn’t like the others, so I’m making him one like theirs, which will be a negative-finding, reprint-ordering nightmare, but I like a challenge.

3. Special albums. I’ve made one for our wedding (and the fun leading up to it), our honeymoon and one for our 2000 trip to New England.

4. ABC albums. I started these little 7x7 albums for the boys and put doubles and stickers on each page to correspond with a letter of the alphabet. Ask me how many times they look at them and if Callie’s is anywhere near done.

5. Tutu album. My mom bought a couple of albums from me when I was a Creative Memories consultant and now I’m filling them with pictures of her and her grandchildren. I should have the first one ready for her by her 97th birthday (she’s 58 now).

6. My favorites album. This came about when a friend gave me a top-loading album, which I don’t normally use. I didn’t want to waste it, and I had too many doubles that were too great to make into squares, so I tediously went through all my doubles and picked out my favorites. The challenge comes again with the advent of the digital camera in our house … now when I get things printed through CVS or Winkflash or whoever, I have to keep in mind: do I need an extra of this for the Tutu album? Eva’s baby album? For my dad’s fridge?

Yeah, I know, how many hours am I spending on something that could so easily go up in flames or be destroyed by a flood or that my kids may someday accidentally throw out of a moving car window. But I love looking back at these albums even if they don’t care much about it. But as I get caught up, I see them wanting to know when things happened, and I can show them not only the pictures but also journaling of things we said and how we felt at the time the pictures were taken. Not only am I LIVING life to the fullest and making memories worthy of lots of photos, but I’m carving out moments here and there to put them into albums I can enjoy for years to come (that’s the plan, anyway).

PLEASE comment … do you love scrapbooking? What projects are you working on? How far behind are you? If you are all caught up, know that I hate you, Bree Van de Kamp Hodge.

Or … do you despise scrapbooking? Dismiss it as a waste of time? Prefer to spend time LIVING life and MAKING memories rather than pasting them down and adding captions?

Anyone out there besides Sarah in England scrapbook?