Scrapbooking: Plans for the Future

I've been trying to do more scrapbooking lately. I find that I only scrapbook about something big that's happened. Prime example being our wedding. I think this happens for three reasons. The first being that it's a big deal, and I obviously want to document it in terms of pictures, but also my thoughts about the event. The second is, I have a lot of pictures from big events. Third would be that big events have a story-ish line to them. I can document them from start to finish. Our wedding scrapbook goes from our Engagement to the Thank you notes we sent for coming to the wedding. Pretty easy. It could have even just been the day of the wedding.

All of the other scrapbooks I have made have a clear beginning and ending point. The first one I made was for our 2 year anniversary. The beginning was when we met, the end was what we were doing for our anniversary in 2008.

When I first started I typed my blurbs and referred to myself in the 3rd person. Now I just write "I" and write with a pen. However, since the first one I've pretty much made scrapbooks with a clear beginning and ending point. When I make them is also always when something is over; my book from Grad school was created after graduation:

I made one all about Lorelei's wedding, which was made almost a year after the wedding.

These are from our road trip in 2009. I did a better job with this one, and made it a few months after we got home.

I've been trying to think of ways to get out of that mind set that it needs to have a beginning and ending before starting. It's quite daunting to create an entire book at once. I take my time and try to focus on each page but I always seem to rush the last few pages because I just want to get it done and am sick of working on it. I also feel like working on something a few months to a year or longer after the events have happened makes it hard to remember details or how you felt about something at the time. I can't tell you how many times I've yelled to Charlie from my desk "What was the name of the mountain we hiked in ____ on _____?" Luckily he remembers every hike we've been on.


My hesitation about this is that I am struggling with where to start. I don't want to miss things, but I also don't feel like waiting. So, I've just decided to jump right in. I've decided to do two things.

1.) Make a small album held together with rings, not my typical book layout. This allows me to add as many pages as I want. I can also make them different sizes, within reason. I'm going to attempt to stick to some sort of color scheme. I think that will be easier than I am making it out to be, since I am drawn to the same colors over and over (purple, blue, and green, I'm looking at you.) I like this idea because now I can write about little things. And document more small, everyday life stuff. I'm not going to turn into someone who will have a scrapbook page about cleaning my ears or folding laundry, but I want to have pages about hikes we go on, our mini adventures with Penny; more of our daily lives than just the big huge events.

This is my first (an only) page so far. I like it. I think it's a good place to start.

2.) A "We" book. I've seen this idea before, in a slightly different format, and want to make one for Charlie and I. Every month I'll take a picture of us, and then write a blurb about what we did that month. I'm not picturing this to be a scrapbook per say, but more of a timeline/memory book. I think it will be fun to look back on in a few years and see what we were doing. I'm hoping the pictures each month can be kind of topical, and relevant to what was big in our lives at that time. I want to keep it simple, with only one picture for each page, and just a short written segment. I could easily get carried away with this, but I am hoping if I start simple I will not get out of control, and will also easily be able to keep up with it. I haven't actually started this yet, but I am planning to. Just need to work out some more detail in my head.

Hopefully by adding some posts here about my ideas and progress I will be held accountable to some extent.

Thanks for listening.

By the way, this started off as a totally different post. Maybe we'll get to that idea soon.

Lauren