Monday, November 5, 2012

11/05/12 - Weekend Highlights

My weekend was busy....
busy organizing!!
I decided to tackle a project that I had been avoiding for a long time: organizing my scrapbook layouts.

I have a stack of albums and a stack of layouts.

 




 
Of the albums, some are filled, some are partially filled and some are completely empty.
The layouts are in an unprotected stack on the top shelf of my scrap space in my office. They are like that because despite having bought albums in the past I actually don't like placing  my pages in them. I don't scrap chronologically so placing layouts in albums means having to constantly rearrange the albums.
I recently inquired from a friend and fellow scrapper, who also doesn't use albums, how she stored her layouts and this is what she suggested:

 
I ordered 2 of them for starters. But I didn't want to waste the albums I had already bought so I decided I would use those too. Once I decide this, I established a goal.
My goal was this:
  •  FILLED albums - leave as is or make minor changes to them based on what layouts I discover thru my sorting
  • PARTIALLY FILLED albums - fill them, again making minor changes to them based on what layouts I discover thru my sorting
  • EMPTY albums - assign a category to them and fill or at least start the "fill" process
  • LAYOUTS - Give them a home either in an album or a plastic 12x12 container
As you can see I had my work cut out for me!

First thing I did was look thru my albums and layouts and try to come up w/ categories based on what I took pics of the most.

A pic of my sorting process:


Here are the categories I came up w/ (I came up w/ a lot!):
  • Vegas*
  • Baby/Toddler Pics 
Joseph*
Madison*
  • Professional Pics
Joseph*
Madison*
  • Birthdays
Joseph *
Madison *
  • School
Joseph *
Madison *
  • Disneyland *
  • Knotts Berry Farm *
  • Pumpkin Patch *
  • Halloween *
  • Christmas *
  • Hamsters *
  • Dogs *
  • Cat
  • La Jolla
  • Me - Book of Me
  • David
  • David and Me
  • David and Madison
  • Me and the Kids
  • My kids together
  • Summer
  • My Nephew/My Nephew w/ my Kids
(The stars indicate that I already have albums for these categories.)
I plan on buying more albums just because I would like to have at least one album in each category.
However, once I have filled each album, I do not plan on buying more. The excess pages will be placed in the plastic containers and the plastic containers will be categorized as well.
I found that each album only holds 20 pages.  However, I was able to place loose pages at the end of each album in order to fit more. Thos pages are not in page protectors, but I figure as long as they are in an album, they are protected.  I don't find it any different then the layouts being loose inside the plastic boxes.

I was unable to meet my goal, however I made a lot of progress (see pic below)!!!
This is a pic of the layouts that still have no home:

Big difference from what I started with!

And here is a pic of all my stuff organized:

 
Couple of things I learned throughout this process:
  • I'm glad I only have 2 kids (LOL!)
  • Not all 12x12 albums are "true" 12 x12. Some fit my layouts just fine, others I struggled w/ and once in, I wasn't able to lay my pages flat while viewing them.
  • Not all adhesive is alike.  Some of my layouts fell apart as I was sorting them or trying to place them in a page protector. This included items from manufacturers that were self-adhesive.
  • Date stamp really is my friend.  While trying to re-sort my kids' baby albums, I couldn't figure out which pics went where! The reason was because a lot of the layouts didn't have dates on them and that was due to the fact that the pics, especially my son's but some of my daughters, didn't have a date stamp on them. In the end I guess-ti-mated.
  • I will probably never be completely organized! Because I am not a chronological scrapper I will probably be needing to re-organize those albums over and over again! But I will try not to stress myself out to much about it.  I don't plan on re-organizing the baby albums though. It will take me the rest of my life to scrap all the baby pics! So those I will keep as is and place any future layouts in a container.
As I stated I didn't completely acheive my goal but I came pretty darn close! And, now that I have categories, when I scrapbook, I can slip my pages into any applicable albums and /or plastic containers right away instead of just having them placed in a stack, unprotected.
I'm happy w/ what I accomplished and as long as I am mostly organized, I  think all will be okay. Afterall, my kids loved looking at my albums when they weren't organized...they just enjoyed seeing the story of their lives being told, and in the end, that's what's important!!

Oh, one last pic - this is the first layout I created after the organization process and it felt great placing it into a "home" as soon as I was done w/ it!

 

"5th Grade"
 
Thanks for stopping by!

 


       

3 comments:

  1. Good for you girl... I am so proud of you!! I know it can be overwhelming and it's awesome that you did it!! I loveeeeeeeeeeeee your lo!! I love love love love the colors and that shoe strip is sooooooooooo fun!!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. One of my least favorite chores... but it feels so good when all the layouts have a home. Good for you!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have always scrapbooked chronologically, so my layouts always have a place to go. I wouldn't know what to do with them if I didn't have an album for them! :)

    I also had trouble with an adhesive not holding on some of my older layouts. I ended up having to go through several albums and re-adhere everything. So frustrating!! :)

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for all your comments!!! They really mean a lot to me!!!

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