Big Box of Wedding Stuff – Part 2

Right before I started this wedding scrapbook, I organized and showed you the big box of stuff I’d saved from the wedding.  I’ve scrapbooked the wedding.

You know what that means.  The box’s time has come.  It was the hard part and the easy part.

On the one hand, I was itching to clear out the box because I didn’t need the stuff in it anymore.  On the other hand, I spent hours hand making a lot of crafts in that box and am attached to them.

I had to keep reminding myself of the all important rule:  what doesn’t make it into the scrapbook goes buh-bye.  The important stuff is in the scrapbook – that’s the point of the scrapbook.

A lot of what I got rid of were duplicates of things already in the book – extra favors, programs, table decorations, etc.  It was still hard but I did it!  I kept the rest of our response cards so I can make them into notecards.  I also kept extra invitation envelopes to use with other stationary.

It’s all gone.  Thrown out, recycled, reused, repurposed.  I’m really glad to see that empty box.

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Big Box of Wedding Stuff

We are almost clear for takeoff on the wedding scrapbook.

As I did with my last college scrapbook, the first order of business is to go through the big box of stuff.  All of my wedding stuff went into 2 boxes and I haven’t looked through them for 5 years.

This is the first step because it helps me get a feel for what I have for the book. I took over all the horizontal space in my home office and put everything into piles (engagement, bridal shower, etc.).  I get rid of anything I can’t believe I saved I don’t think I’ll need.  Why did I save the envelope that each card came in?

I make a list of all the categories of stuff I have, then carefully place everything back in the box in reverse chronological order.  I got it down to one box!  Progress already!

The Big Purge, Part 2

I’ve finished my college scrapbook and gotten rid of extra pictures.  It’s also time to go through and throw out any keepsakes I didn’t use.  Remember my box of keepsakes?  You can catch up on how I organize my box of keepsakes to work on a new scrapbook here.

Even though I keep a ton of keepsakes, I don’t use all of them.  Sometimes I decide an event isn’t worth scrapbooking.  This happened at times with my college book because I thought everything in back then college was oh-so-important.  Sometimes I saved too many items from an event.  I used to include everything but am more critical now about how something will fit on the page.

I make sure to go through the box when I’m nearing the end of the book to make sure I didn’t forget something.  I keep everything I didn’t use until the end of the book, even if I’ve already done the layouts from that event.  Just in case!  Sometimes I like to use bits and pieces of keepsakes from the entire album at the end for some wrap-up pages.  I’ll consider turning some of the keepsakes into embellishments like Tammy does in this post.

But after all of that, it’s time to say goodbye!  I recycle as much as possible but everything goes.

Freed closet space is like magic!

The Big List

How do I know I’m near the end of my scrapbook?  The list told me.

I think many scrapbookers keep some sort of list of layouts they want to do.  While I don’t plan out exactly how many pages I will do, I like to have a list as a reference for when I’m ready to move on to the next page.

I made this list when I started the book.  I go through my box of keepsakes for the year and write down every possible event that I could scrapbook if I wanted to.  I go through all the pictures I have from that year and add to the list.

Will I scrapbook everything on the list?  No.  It just helps writing it out to make sure I don’t miss anything and so I can look at the big picture to see what’s important.

I type my notes (trust me, I will lose them otherwise), and keep them in a document stored online in the cloud.  I can access my list from anywhere in the house or even at work (not that I would look at it at work . . .).

Just like a handwritten list, the best part is crossing off items as I go along.  The end is near!