I started my blog in February 2009, which is when I began taking a lot more photos. When my husband and I got married in June 2009, I wanted to scrapbook our married life.
I started in Fall 2009. Three different sizes of scrapbooks and countless pages that I’ve had to redo later, I’ve finally arrived.
First Scrapbook: 9×11 Sleeve Scrapbook
I started in 2009 with a 9×11 scrapbook thinking I was smart – 9×11 pages were cheaper than 12×12 pages! Plus the scrapbooks themselves were cheaper.
Old 9x11 scrapbook.
But.
Hardly anything fit on the page and the sleeves warped. My layouts weren’t formal: free-form cut pages, no straight lines, lots of missed space.
Warping pages!
It took almost an entire book to do 2-3 months. Clearly, this was going to cost me money if I needed to purchase several books a year. How would I store them all? 10 years of marriage could mean upwards of forty scrapbooks. Plus, the unorganized layouts were not working.
So I switched.
Second Scrapbook: 12×12 Sleeve Scrapbook
I thought I was smart by “upgrading” to the 12×12 book.
But, the 12×12 pages weren’t much bigger. I still had problems with warping and clearly, my layouts were not doing much better: I was still free-form cutting and things didn’t look nice.
12x12 book: not working either.
Only four pages in, I decided that this was stupid. I needed a better system, but what was there?
And then Natalie rocked my scrapbooking world.
Current Scrapbook: 11×14 Scrapbook, No Sleeves
Natalie introduced me to the 11×14 scrapbook. I realized my old school habits from high school display boards could be put to good use – use a paper cutter and straight lines.
So much more space opened up! With no sleeves, there was no warping!
Look how much more space I have!
I set out to redo all of the pages I had done in the 9×11 and 12×12 albums.
My new paper cutter also has helped clear up space and let me scrapbook faster. I love that cutter.
Note: make sure your layouts work properly in your scrapbook. I had to redo 10 pages because I didn’t leave enough of a margin for the pages to turn properly!
Making sure to leave enough room for the pages to turn.
Subjects
Finally in the evolution of my scrapbooking, I started carefully arranging things by subject. I plan each month so my photos flow together. Sometimes there will only be one or two photos in a category, so they share a page with other categories. I use labels to separate everything that I make out of white paper and dark ink.
Labeling categories.
If categories need more than one page (like our garden last summer), I try to make the design consistent across both pages.
I love having everything so together and organized!
We’ll see how much more may layouts change. I hope, for my sake, that it doesn’t involve having to redo anymore pages. I’ve redone enough!
If you want to track my progress, follow me over at Oregon Kaisers. Thank you for reading about my process!
