On National Scrapbooking Day, I won a copy of “Photo Freedom” by Stacy Julian. I was able to read it cover to cover over the weekend…as we did a little traveling…and I was so inspired.
Lately I have been looking at my albums (I use these) and have been unsure how I was going to proceed with my current system. I have an album for each of the boys that span certain ages…and when one gets full, I start another one for that kiddo. Then I just date family albums according to year. When I want to sit down and enjoy them…it is hard to choose which year, etc. And I have started thinking…it will be even harder in 10 years when there will be sooo many years to choose from. So basically that is where I was at before I got this book. I want the scrapbooks to be enjoyed. I certainly put enough time and money into them…and they need to easy to browse through. My system was not allowing that…I needed a new plan.
Stacy’s system is wonderful in that she labels her albums according to the topic…or the story told (I am big on the story told on a page to begin with so it just makes so much sense to me)…not by date. For instance, she has a “People we love” album…I have a ton of layouts that would be just perfect in that kind of album…and a “Places we go” album which is perfect for places you go as a family from vacation to church. She has a great system for how to deal with pictures from the moment you take them to getting your favs in a scrapbook. She is the mother of 5 and doctor’s wife (not to mention a big wig in the scrapbooking world)…busy woman…her system is made not to even overwhelm someone who has a very busy life.
Oh, and she is all about scrapping out of order…I mean totally out of order. Like even storing your pictures out of order!! (okay, okay…storing just a select few out of order for good reason…gotta read it!) :) Seeing the FREEDOM portion here? I am okay with scrapping out of order…I do it all the time…the reason I use 3 ring binders is because I gotta put it back IN order when I put it in an album (sooo there is a little lack of freedom in that, huh?) This is where I found freedom for even myself…a few months off? No big deal. Combining some cool pics from different parts of the same year…great! She has more than twice as many kids as I do…so she is even okay with putting teeth on a tooth fairy LO that don’t even belong to the kid she is telling the story about. That made me chuckle…and get a little squimish…like…we are taking this freedom thing a bit far! LOL
So…basically…she recommends albums that are similiar to mine…but when it comes to storing my unscrapped photos…I have some work to do! I can see how her ideas will really fix a lot of my problems…and I am excited because I can see how this system will help me make pages that tell the story that I really want to tell…when I want to tell it.
