My Scrapbooking Evolution

I've been wanting to do this post for a while but never had time to photograph my scrapbooks properly. So I finally decided to do a crappy job on photographing my pages so I could get it done. Plus, I thought you all needed a good laugh. You'll see. It's hilarious.

So here we go.

I did my first scrapbook in 2003 when I got back from my trip to Italy. I was a purist, Puritan, whatever you want to call it. I refused to crop pictures (you crop when you're composing the photograph, why would you need to crop???). I refused to embellish. I wanted the pictures and the journaling. That's it. Simple. But I just felt like something was missing.

But in my defense, the pictures of Italy don't need any embellishment, right??

Then after that, I began our family album. It began with our wedding day. And goes in chronological order. What other way is there to do a scrapbook, I thought?

I added pieces of paper to make "title pages".

Then I thought I was super creative by adding strips of coordinating paper. And changing pen color. Oh, and rounding the corners. Fancy! I'm in no way criticizing the use of these things. I'm making fun of the way I used these things.

Then I started adding patterned pieces of paper.

Then paper frames. And I started cutting out pictures using cropping tools from Creative Memories.

Then I started using whole pieces of paper and adding STICKERS! My Sister Robin thought I'd lost my mind. I had always said I'd NEVER use stickers.

And here's where I am today.

Then, I started branching out to scrapbooking projects, like this mini book.

Digital scrapbooking.

My family window project

Sophia's name project

Holiday banners

But I've discovered something new from my friend Kristy. It's called Project 12. Basically it's a take off of the Project 365, where you take a photograph each day to chronicle your life. But here you pick a few of your best photos to summarize a month and do a 2 page spread for each month. Check out Project 12 here. They have sketches that give you a map/guideline of how you arrange your page so it goes faster. I'm going to do 2 , two page spreads for each month. That's as much as I can condense.

Along with that, I'm going to start a scrapbook called Special People where each member of our family is going to get a double page spread. After that, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. But I'm taking advice from Stacy Julian. She's a big proponent of themed albums instead of chronological. I still don't fully have my head wrapped around this idea yet because for me, chronological makes the most sense. But I'm tired of being behind and feeling like I'm a slave to my family album. So I'll let you know how I like the Project 12 concept, which Stacy Julian started, probably for us chronological hold outs. :)

But thanks Kristy for the info. Freedom?? Maybe? We'll see. But I like your concept of only scrapping photos you love and using only products you love (not just what's on sale).

So here we go. I'm evolving. Changing. Trying something new and a little less structured.