Done. Finished. Finito!
I started working on this book back in September. With the added fun of settling into a new home, multiple craft projects, blogging and still keeping my day job, I managed to finish it in under a year! For that, I’m pretty proud of myself.
What’s next? Right now it’s time to clean and purge. My immediate ritual is always to clean and straighten my workspace and go through leftover materials. Expect a couple of posts about that. Coming soon, I’ll be starting work on my wedding scrapbook. I’m putting a lot of thought into it right now and have to make a lot of design decisions up from which I’m not used to doing. It will certainly be a growth exercise!
Speaking of growth, I’ve learned a lot over the course of this book. Using up the rest of my 35mm photos and making the transition to digital has opened lots of new creative ideas. I’ve also become more mindful of what I include in the book and more comfortable with the fact that I don’t need every picture I take or every keepsake I collect in the book. I’ll share some more thoughts on editing later.
Most of all, I want to thank you for following along! Sharing my pages with you has really forced me to hold my designs to a higher standard. There were a few times when I couldn’t figure out what to do with a layout and wanted to take the easy way out. Knowing that I was going to share it online later was key in helping me wait until the right idea came along, even if it took more than a week staring at a page!
While I have grown, I’ve remained true to my style of scrapbooking. I’m more convinced than ever that my type of scrapbooking is the way for me, even if it isn’t the most popular. I really enjoy the comments from those of you who tell me you use similar methods! Actually, I really enjoy everyone’s comments. I read every single one of them!
More cause for celebration – this is my 100th post!
Onward!
You can visit every single one of these layouts by heading to my layout page.
Almost Never Clever 
I’ve been one of those who view your posts often, but rarely leave a comment – – must change my ways! Anyway, congratulations on your various accomplishments and your 100th post. I appreciate your creativity and the great ideas.
Aww, thanks Brooke! It means a lot!
Many congratulations are in order here! I love how you displayed all the pages at once here– a very cool way to show them all off. It is also a great way to see how consistent (and lovely) your style is.
I can’t wait to see what you do with your wedding album!!
Thanks! I can’t wait to see YOUR wedding album!
Just out of curiosity, how did you make the photo collage to display all your layouts? Did you make it manually, or did you use a template or something else? Thanks 🙂 (Wedding album layout photos are imminent! I am just trying to figure out a good way to display them on the blog!)
Manually – I’m not that talented 🙂
I scanned them all, exported them via Picasa to make them much smaller and easier to work with, then pasted them all onto a blank jpg in MS Paint. As you can see, it is one picture and the pages aren’t individually clickable (and you can’t zoom very well because I didn’t upload a large copy of the final product).
You could do something similar but to make them larger and easier to see, consider making a long vertical collage with 3-4 layouts per row. I did a version like that but I ended up deciding to use the one with 8 per row. If you want to see it, let me know and I’ll email it to you.
Ahh, as soon as I read your comment, I realized I was WAY overthinking this! Sometimes I tire myself out 😉 Thanks!!
Anyway, I just finished the collages and my posts will go up starting tomorrow (hopefully!!)
What a great post! Love seeing all the pages in a collage. Very cool. Ah, cleaning and purging. One of my favorite parts of scrapbooking! LOL. Best of luck on the wedding album. I’ll be checking back in to see your progress. 🙂
Thanks Tammy! Yes, it is kind of weird but I really enjoy the purging process. I think it’s because it’s one of the rewards for finishing.
Congrats on 100 and finishing up the scrapbook!
Thanks Danielle! I love your new site and was VERY impressed with your drawing skills.
Great post, Nat. Congrats on finishing and on your 100th post! I don’t get here as often as I’d like, but I always enjoy it when I do. Your creativity is inspiring and it’s nice to see what you’re doing w/all those photos.
I know what you mean about getting rid of photos; we were cleaning out the garage last weekend and I came across a photo album of college pictures from our Rally Comm retreat, various parties, a trip to Hawaii, etc…and I thought “what am I really going to do w/these photos?” For now the album is up in the attic with all my others but SOMEDAY I will figure it out. And when that time comes, I’ll know where to turn for ideas!
The blog has really developed nicely and I think it’s wonderful that you’re spending time sharing your ideas and methods with your followers. Keep up the great work and good luck w/the wedding album!
Thanks for the kind thoughts Sarah!