How I Organize My Scrapbooking Albums

This past week, I received the below note from a reader. Since scrapbooking is getting to be a popular hobby for many people, I thought I'd just answer her question in my blog. This way, others with similar questions could see the response.

LETTER FROM MICHELLE

Maria, I just read your most recent article about scrapbooking. I am so impressed by the organization of your supplies in the photo. I love scrapbooking too!

I am trying to decide how to organize my family albums. Do you use different colored albums or stay with one color? I use Creative Memories albums. I have albums for vacations, Christmas, and a continuous chronological family album.

I'm running out of colors and am trying to decide what to do. I would most appreciate any help you can offer. I love receiving your newsletter every week. It is extremely motivational. Michelle

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MY RESPONSE

Michelle,

Thanks so much for your note. It's always wonderful to chat with a fellow scrapbook enthusiast and I truly appreciate your compliments on my newsletter!

As you probably saw in my photo in the last article, I too use Creative Memories albums, exclusively.

Here is the organization system I use with my albums:

1) Blue: Trips, Vacations and Outings (We do one 2-page layout for most day trips, and as many 2-page layouts as it takes for more involved vacations.)

2) Purple: Amanda (exclusively photos of our daughter, Joe and me. Each album covers one year at this point.)

3) Green: Family and Friends (photos of family members besides us--grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.--and friends.)

4) Red: Christmas (I started with our first Christmas in our new home and add on every year.)

5) Purple (Light): I also have a purple album in a lighter shade for Halloween. (I started with Amanda's first costume ever, and add onto it every year.)

I always try to use colors that don't go out of style, so I can continue to use this system I've created into the future. I also have all of my albums imprinted on the cover and spine for identification using Persona Imprinting--the printing company that is affiliated with Creative Memories.

Hope this helps. Happy scrapbooking!

Comments

[allegra]

Scrapbooking and the resultant glut of products for such a useless hobby is an astounding look into the vapid emptiness of some women's lives today. Some day many years from now these piles of mouldering garishly decorated crap will gag some sociologist.
Go volunteer, teach a kid to read, bake some bread, anything useful to create true memories, stop addictively arranging little bits of paper no one will ever look at again.

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NOTE FROM MARIA GRACIA:

Wow, what an incredibly rude comment. First of all, anyone who discourages someone from doing something they love to do, is definitely not my type of person.

Like thousands of scrapbookers out there, I do volunteer, read to my child, help neighbors in need, etc. etc. In fact, scrapbookers are some of the most lovely, compassionate, loving people out there!

Scrapbooking is definitely something I completely enjoy. It's not about arranging scraps of paper. It's about collecting and storing years of wonderful memories. So many of my family members and friends enjoy looking through my scrapbooks now, and I know my daughter will treasure these albums for a lifetime. I love looking through scrapbooks that others have created.

Perhaps you need to re-examine your life, and determine what you can do besides judging how others invest their time and making rude comments to people. Perhaps you should spend your time building people up. That would be time well spent, indeed.

[Jennifer Hardesty]

Maria,

I loved the information you gave to this reader! I have been a Creative Memories scrapbooking consultant for almost 10 years and have given much of the same information to my customers over the years. Personally, I use our Mahogany/Red album for all of our personal family photos and memorabilia. All of the children, have a different album commemorating their first year of life and subsequent four birthdays. Then, each of our children have their own school albums I make using their school colors. Also, I strongly encourage scrapbookers/album-makers to let each of their children have their own album and materials to scrapbook with. It is awesome to see how children view their own life in a scrapbook. Sometimes they remember things the same way, but most of the time they put things in their albums, we wouldn't have even thought about. Thank you for writing this wonderful article and promoting CM!

[Patti]

Kudos to you for words well said, Maria!

Along with looking at photos, etc., of people, places and things in the (maybe) not so distant past, there will come the day that a lot of the people in those photos will have passed on. What better way to record "history" for the future family members that are just a gleam in their parents' eyes right now.

Enjoy it for those of us who don't do the scrap booking hobby, and keep up the good work with your blog. I, for one, enjoy it very much!

[Carol Lindberg]

Maria,

You had such a wonderful response to the person who obviously knew nothing about the great joys of scrapbooking and memory keeping. I have documented treasured memories that I would have forgotten without writing them down--particularly priceless things my 3 1/2 year old little boy says and does.

Just yesterday, I was filing some papers (belatedly) and noticed a comment that I had written & dated on the back of my checkbook several months ago. I had completely forgotten what my child said and was so thankful I had written it down (and now filed in the correct place). He said, "Mommy, God didn't make me to be a fragile thing". I asked, "What did he make you to be?". He replied, "A real man".

Plus, journaling about how much I love and cherish my family is so uplifting for them. One of my favorite (and sad) CM stories is from a consultant who made a special album for her 5 year old daughter around the time that her second baby was born. The consultant wanted the 5 year to know now much she was loved and cherished and how special she was, particularly since the new baby was coming.

Fast forward about five years-the consultant found her daughter's special scrapbook under her pillow or noticed that it was missing from the bookshelf and asked her daughter about it. As it turned out, mean girls at school had been constantly telling her how ugly/stupid, etc. she was. The now 10 year old said that she knew she wasn't ugly/stupid, etc. but she couldn't bear to talk about it. So she cried herself every night & read her special album to help her get through this terrible time in her life. Albums are so powerful.

For several organizational tips (not that you probably need many!), I use the CM Memory Manager to store/edit my digital pictures and then send them to be printed. I also love the Picfolio template in MM which makes creating that album so fast. If you haven't tried the Power Pallettes--they are so incredibly faster for a traditional album.

I keep my printed pictures that aren't yet in albums in the CM Photo Boxes. For my memorabilia, I also set up files that I label CM January 2007, etc. (a separate file for each month/year). If I go on a trip, sometimes, I will also set up a file for the trip (i.e. New York City-June 2007). So my memorabilia has an organized home until I do my scrapbooks.

I also try to quickly think to the future regarding what would be meaningful. For example, this month, we're going to four different musical performances for kids we know & love. I will file the program in my memorabilia file which will help in my journaling. But I probably won't include the actual programs in my own scrapbook.

Thanks for your great website & newsletter!

[Tonya]

I also use Creative Memories albums. But I also make a small tag to hang on the outside of my album, like a bookmark, with the details of that album. For Example, Vacation 1995. I decorate it with ribbon and charms.

[Cate]

I had to laugh when I read Maria's post. I do almost the exact same thing with my albums, also exclusively Creative Memories!

Our family albums are in Navy (or Indigo, the new color, I believe).

Each child has a baby album and then toddler/school albums in their own color (denim, purple and pink).

Each daughter's extensive dance album is in black.

Vacation albums are sand-colored, or appropriate for trip (recent visit to Williamsburg, VA was sage Kaleidoscope, very colonial).

Christmas is--of course--red with any associated Christmas patterns, if available.

I keep a "color key" in my scrapbooking folder, just in case I forget...

Also, each child has a FileMate with one slot per academic year. All memorabilia, including schoolwork, goes in there. Even if it never makes it into a scrapbook it's in a safe, easy-to-find place.

Happy scrapping, everybody!

[Carol Lindberg]

Tonya-What a great idea to make a book mark to identify each album. I'm using the Creative Memories Persona to label some of my albums. But I have older albums for which the service is no longer available & I'm going to use your idea!

[Shannon O'Dell]

Making albums (photo or scrapbooks) is an American tradition. I have worked in historical collections and museums for thirty years and can attest to this. As historians and anthropologists, these volumes are a goldmine as we conduct research on the lives and interconnectedness of families and individuals from the past. Please continue and don't be discouraged by people who think this is a waste of time. It is a very creative activity, worthy of many artistic media. Just make sure you add information about yourself as maker and when you created the album.

[Kristi Adams]

The story of the little girl who read her mother's encouraging comments from her special book really says what this is all about - encouraging, inspriring and remembering.

I've started a "love notes" album for each of my children. Each year I write a love note to them about how they've grown and what they've accomplished and what I've noticed in their characters. It'll be interesting for them to look back at age 18 or 25 to see that some characteristics they still carry were evident at age 3. I want them to know what we noticed about them even at a young age.

Also, my children love looking through their baby albums or other pictures, and they are able to remember many details from past events because we continue revisiting them through our albums and talking about them - otherwise many moments, comments and funny phrases would be forgotten.

Note to CM enthusiasts: I've created and ordered a StoryBook (digital album), and it was terrific. It was a very quick and easy way to build an album - great for gifts!

[Irene]

I have made many scrapbooks for my family and other relatives. I have noticed the benefits especially now when I do not remember faces and incidents as much as I used to. My 24-yr. old daughter loves to look at her albums and reminisce with friends. My husband does the same. It also traces our family tree for our two kids to remember. When my daughter was born, I used it as a "tracker" and put her birth certificate, report cards, etc. and other necessary info into the album, which made it easy for me when she started going to school and we had to give copies of her birth certificates and other records. I used the same brand of album and color for my husband's ten finished albums. For my daughter's and son's,I used different albums, basing it on the photos that went into it, i.e., baby album for baby photos, etc. I like making separate albums for my kids so they can take it with them when they finally get married and have kids of their own. For any album I make, I usually have copies of the 12x12 pages and put them in albums--esp. when I have to give the original album away. That way, I also enjoy them. They look just like the original!

[Melissa Norris]

I saw a link to this post over at Craft Critique today (www.craftcritique.com). Great information!! Keep up the good work!!