You may remember that I've been trying to unplug on Fridays.
I slept late this morning (YAY!) and forgot to send the laptop with John as he was leaving, and didn't really think about unplugging until after the fact. I'm being gracious with myself (I'm SO not a legalist) and planning to unplug tomorrow instead. Which is fine because I have loads of stuff to get done tomorrow in anticipation of two birthdays at our house and getting ready to leave next week.
While cleaning up this morning, I stumbled across my scrapbook stuff which has (sadly) been sitting in the hallway since I got home from my retreat last Sunday afternoon.
I did remember that I promised you some pics of some of my pages.
Here's the deal. I don't like posting pics of other people on my blog without their permission, and SO many of my pages have other people in them (or info that I don't really want shared on the world wide web) so I'm posting pics of a few pages and don't laugh at all the stuff I edited. (please).
I did almost 30 pages last weekend! I finished up my 2006 family album and started my 2007 one. Almost two years behind but I'm good with that!
A word or two ten about scrapbooking:
I'm NOT a fancy-schmancy scrapper. I adopted this motto as my own about 10 years ago: Done is better than perfect. Done is better than creative. You will NOT find me spending more than 20 minutes on a page. I'm more interested in the photos and the journaling than I am the layout.
I try to get TONS of pics on my pages.
I journal a LOT. (Not super evident on these layouts though.)
I hardly ever mat my photos.
I used to be a Creative Memories consultant and I have loads of product that I need to use. I refuse to buy new paper/letter stickers/embellishments until I use at least half of what I have in my stash. (I'm afraid it's gonna take for-freakin'-ever to get to that point).
I love black pages! Especially for snow pics!
I scrap chronologically. I keep a family album for every calendar year. In 2006 I used some calendar paper I got in a kit and documented each month (see above pics). I've done this a time or two before and I really LOVE it.
Each of my kids has a baby album of their first year. They also each have a preschool album and a school album. The school album is an ongoing project. I like to work on those in the summer, but I'm behind on all of them. Very behind.
Here's my BEST tip for kids' artwork: Take a picture and chunk the Cheerio necklace or the construction paper hat. Keep only THE BEST pieces (5-8 per year) and put a photo cd in their album with the rest of their art on it. Better yet, develop the pics and make a "gallery page". (This page is from Abbey's preschool album!)
I've spent way longer on this post than I intended. Adios amigos!!!
26 comments:
Okay. Help a sister out. I lived next door to a CM consultant when we lived in Hawaii. We only had one child at the time and I was working on his baby album because I knew we wanted to have another baby soon and I wanted to be caught up. And then I found out we were having twins which freaked me out because that's TWO more albums....So I packed up all the stuff and haven't touched it since. Now that I think about it, maybe I was hormonal.
So my question: Do you only do the one family album? I stressed about having to make 4 copies of each even photo (one for each child, one for the family) so that everyone would have an album and I'd have one to keep.
Oh my word. THIRTY, really??!!! THIRTY??!! That's like a an entire book in my opinion!!
I absolutely love how you do your pages and I feel the same way you do about layouts--non-matting rebels we are!
I was mention that calendar paper...the scrappin' place I used to go sold them as 12x12 but ever since then I've never seen them again (and they closed)...do you know if they're available anywhere?? I LOVE doing pages with the month "stuff" on each day like that!
I am hoping to get some scrappity scrap stuff done this weekend myself...
THIRTY??!!! WOW!!
Mer,
You totally scrap like I do. Maybe it's because we are both former CM girls. I did a 1-year baby album for each of my kids, then do a family album for each year. The kids can fight over those when I am dead and gone -or- they can make color copies or whatever they want. I don't have time to make multiple copies of each year. I also make a separate album for each "big" family vacation that we take (exp. Disney, Mexico, etc.) and the kids each have a school years album that is an ongoing project.
I love simple layouts with lots of journaling. I use a lot of different patterned paper and really have fun with that. I love to shop for supplies, but right now have more than I can use in this life time. I have put myself on a shopping restriction -- a shopping freeze is too legalistic for me to even say out loud.
Have fun in Seattle. We are headed to Mexico in a week when our Spring Break starts. Until then we are working on the kitchen remodel project.
I scrap like you do....I do everything in order. You know how you have your calendar with appts on the frig. When the new month comes, I take that calendar down and it's the first page and then I scrap a few pages for that month. I end up with about 2 albums for each year.
I did do an album for all 3 kids....from birth to high school graduation.
and I don't do all of the fancy stuff...I refuse to put tons of money into it and I love my pages.
Cute. Cute. Cute.
I think scrappin' is best when it is just DONE. I'm so far behind it isn't even funny, so I'm super jealous of all your pages.
I'm a chronological girl, too, and I'm all kinds of stressed because of it. It just makes me very aware of how very far behind I am.
Those pages turned out GREAT Meredith :)
These pages are GREAT! I love, love, love them!!! I started scrapbooking yesterday, and I want to do nothing else but that . . . not eat, drink, sleep, spend time with my family . . . just scrap! I can't believe you got 30 pages done! I am so very impressed!! Do the kids like to go through them and look at them often?
I'M SUPPOSED TO PUT PICS IN ALBUMS????
Crud.
You are so creative and talented. I never have had a hankering for scrapbooking so for now all of Neeley's stuff gets dumped into large plastic bins until I can get myself organized enough to care any more about it. :)
Ronnie is in Colorado Springs until April 18th. They hiked part of the way up Pikes Peak early yesterday morning (I believe they started about 5 am) as part of their morning PT. He is going to post some pics on Monday since he left his camera in their school house. He is in the Army and in the JTAGS school there, not actually on post but in another location. He is really enjoying it there, we just wish he had more time to do the fun stuff. He works on his college classes in his hotel room on the weekends and gets caught up on the other things he doesn't get to do during the week.
I was just telling him a few days ago he should call y'all to catch up. :) We didn't make the promotion list this year so he is E-6 for another year and we are moving to Germany right after this school year is over. We will be there for 3 years! Wow! :)
I love, love, love being able to keep up with everyone this way. It's so much fun but way too addictive. I'm off to (hopefully) gets tons done around here today.
Talk to you soon!
these pages make me want to go back in time and keep a calendar for every month of our family's existence! what a great treasure...
and your books are beautiful,chica. somehow, I knew that would be true.
30? I bow to your scrapbooking prowess. One of the reasons I've done some digital books lately is that I get so caught up in the sticker/LO thang. I then remember what I told my customers when I was a CM consultant: Adhesive, cutting tool, black pen. (Or white/silver pen on colored pages). Really, that's all you need. The splashes of color are nice, but in 50 years, no one will give a rip about a sticker. They will, however, want to know the story behind each picture. Kudos to you. What a legacy.
BTW, how do you edit off folks' faces and bodies and words on the page? Freaky. In a good way, of course.
Ok, Mer, your handwriting is beautiful! It totally makes your pages. I just can't seem to write a straight line anymore. LOL
I scrapbook like you do, but mostly when I have uninterrupted time, which I hardly ever have. During the hurricanes of 2004 (we had three in a month's time hit us directly) I was able to catch us up on all my albums. Have I done any since..........UM NO! LOL So you can see I'm behind too.
I do like the calendar for each month. That's cool. I was given the CM fridge frame and calendar pages this past December so I am doing that on my fridge. Hope to do 'something' with them in an album? Hmmmm
Love the art work suggestion! I also have one of the KidWorxx art portfolio for my daughter. That's cool too. :)
BTW, thanks again for the prayers. I am feeling somewhat better but still need my Father's hand.
Have fun this weekend!
I love Abbey's art page. I don't scrapbook, but I really need to do something about all the kid art under my bed...
You are an amazing scrapbooker. I did a first year album for both kids, all fancy like. the rest are pictures done with a corner rounder...until that was too much. Then they were just cropped and glue in!
Oh, you make me want to get back to scrapbooking. I think I've only done one page since we moved 2 yrs ago.
I scrap like you do. Has to be chronological. I have a baby one, toddler one and school-age one.
I put a lot of pics on a page like you do, also.
30 pages is a lot! It sounds wonderful to get away for even a day and only scrapbook with no interruptions!
I really enjoyed seeing your pages. The I-Hop one is my favorite. And you are very beautiful! The picture of you on the side of your blog is small, so I didn't realize quite how beautiful you are!
Oh, I got a pizza box from a pizza restaurant and had my son decorate it and all of his artwork & important schoolwork would go into the box. We had one per year, until I started homeschooling! They don't take up much room.
Wow, thanks for the brilliant idea about the artwork! Why didn't I think of that???
I think your pages are awesome! I too, like bunches of picture and journaling...it's about preserving the memories, not being published in a magazine!
And I so love the idea of taking a picture of the kids artwork...why oh why didn't I think of that!!
Great job! and kudos on 30 PAGES!
THANK YOU!!! What a wonderful idea of taking pictures of the art work. Troy has just started his first year of pre-school and the fridge, folders, bulletion boards and anywhere else I can find to put it!! Love the idea of the taking pics. You are so smart!! ;)
Great Job on finishing 30 pages!!
Those were fun days at SFBC when we would scrapbook together!!
Have a WONDERFUL Spring Break!!
I'm going to go crawl under a rug now, actually I'll just go crawl under my huge stack of dusty pictures that are waiting for that special "someday" when they get to go into an album.
Those are beautiful treasures! That's just the motivation I need.
I started scrapbooking but couldn't get into it, too much for for me I guess:) I love your pages though and it makes me realize I should do something~my kids are growing up with all their pics on the computer!
I am new to the blog world. I am from Shreveport, La.
So glad that I found your blog. Hope you will come by and visit me.
Teresa
Love it! I tend to end up doing the whole digital "Shutterfly" books because it takes me FOREVER to decide how to do the pages. They are quick and easy and I can automatically order duplicates for the in laws, etc. I do still occasionally do individual books for the kids though-just so they have that "homemade" feel; but I kid you not, it takes me almost a year for each one...maybe I just need to go to one of these "weekend" dealies and focus entirely on it.
I am in awe.
Those turned out great!
Wonder if it will inspire me to get out that dusty box of scraping materials that I've collected but NEVER used. hm....
I'm guessing, not until the kids move out:)
...yours are definitely inspiring though!!!
Yeah. I so don't scrap.
You have inspired me to get my scrap booking tools out again. I love your pages they look fantastic!!!
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