Album Organisation–Part 2

I decided to split this post into two parts as I thought it was a bit long to read all in one go!  So here is my new system:

1. I am going to make separate albums for my 2 CHILDREN. These albums will have photos where they are on their own and where the place isn't so obvious. It’s not always easy to journal about these photos (partly because they are so old) so these albums are going to be visual and technique driven. I already have 1 album more or less full for each child.

Here are two good examples.  They are both from long ago classes, so are more embellished than my usual style.  But I love them!  Looking through the albums as they are now I can see that they already capture a great sense of the joy my children have bought throughout the years!

 

2. Other photos of us as a family will be in FAMILY Albums, this will include ‘Things We Do’, and ‘Places We Go’ and includes divided page protectors. It is quite easy to add pages as and when I feel like it.

 

3. BOOK OF ME I did do the ‘Everyone Has a Story’ class with Shimelle, and I’m calling that album finished, up to when I turned 50. Might do a part 2 later on! I have other mini books and albums that are BOMs too. I have also done my early childhood photos, so I would like to do my later childhood and teenage years. Here’s one of my all-time favourite photos!  That’s me sitting between Uncle David and Dad at the motor racing back in about 1960!  How cool are they?

4. I have quite a few photos of me and DH on our own, so would like to do a ‘STORY OF US’ album. I have done our wedding album, which I’ll show you later.  Meanwhile no STORY OF US is complete without pictures of Merlin!

 

5. I am also going to make a FRIENDS AND FAMILY Album, with pages about our families and friends. I envisage doing some ‘upgrade’ albums here, eg my parents, and some friends we used to go away with when we were in our 20s. At the moment I have 1 album nearly full with both family and friends.

This is a really old page showing when we took baby Nicholas to meet his 2 great grandmothers. 

6. I am going back and scrapping older family holidays, as upgrade FAMILY albums. These I am doing with divided page protectors and 12 x 12, and using old holiday diaries and memorabilia. I am loving doing these, such happy memories!  Here’s a double page spread from a holiday in Weymouth back in 1997. 

7. I have found a few pages which are just of places, so will have a ‘PLACES’ album, but this will be for the one-off pages with no people in them, for example this double page spread of Worthing:

 

 

8. Finally I have LOs of things I have done re gardening and craft, and these are going in a ‘HOBBIES’ album. I guess this is a passion album!  Here’s another Shimelle style layout

 

 

I have a slight anxiety about whether I should go back to annual albums (since 2005) and take out pages that fit better into these categories.  For example, I have pages in there that are ‘10 things about you’ for Nicholas and Lucy.  But the above albums are mostly about the 1990s up until 2005 (My children were born 1988 and 1991), and some of my earlier albums are Creative Memories where it is too difficult to remove pages. So I will leave them as they are for now.

My other anxiety is what to do with pages that ‘cross over’ between albums, eg, a day trip with my parents. Should this go in the Parents section, or the Family album? I guess I will just have decide on this dilemma on each separate occasion. Actually, this is going to be less of a dilemma now than it was for LOM.

I can’t wait to get started! In fact, I have already done a second page on a day trip back in 1998 to ‘tell the story’ better. It will be so easy to add pages in as and when I feel like scrapping them, but also the albums will tell our story.  I love that I have now taken the time to write this down and I can go forward from here. Hopefully this system will better tell our story and make more sense to us.

P.S. While looking for the photos for this post, I came across other scrapbook pages that are in ‘finished’ albums.  So I think I’ll write a Part 3 and show you those, if you are not too bored!  I’ll be back soon.