I’m getting this question a lot:
What do you do with your travel pictures? Do you do a photobook, photo album, layout? Please tell me because I don’t know where to put all the pictures I take in my travels.
(Taken in the Big Bear Lake, CA area where we recently went for a family reunion.)
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It’s an excellent question and on a lot of our minds … so let’s talk about it.
I’ll tell you what I do (you’re going to get a healthy dose of my personal scrapbooking philosophy) and I invite you to share what you do with your vacation/travel photos. Everyone needs to do what feels right for them. Do what works for you, not what you think you “should” do because you’ve seen so-and-so do it that way. Let’s just share ideas and inspire each other, right? Right.
WHAT I USED TO DO. For years and years and years, this was my system: After traveling somewhere I would add that trip to my list of layouts-to-do. It was right there on my handy-dandy list right along with birthdays and holidays and momentous occasions and school pictures and … you name it. Anything and everything I wanted to scrapbook went on this list. I’m an organizer. That’s what I do. When time allowed, I would get around to creating those layouts, one at a time. This layouts-to-do list was always long and I never felt like I could get where I wanted to be, which is current.
WHY THIS NO LONGER WORKS FOR ME. I have this innate need to feel like I’m on top of my pictures. As a lifetime scrapbooker, I was finding it impossible to keep up with my wishful thinking of countless layouts. I wanted to play with my kids instead of spend gobs and gobs of time putting layouts together. I enjoy the art – don’t get me wrong – but it can be oh-so-time-consuming. We all know it. So my list got longer and longer and I wasn’t actually doing any scrapbooking with our pictures — travel and otherwise.
I evolved in my philosophy and approach to scrapbooking. I evolved to a place that is do-able. Realistic. Fun. Focused. And my pictures? I’m scrapbooking them. My list? I’m so over that.
WHAT I DO NOW. Pardon the shameless plug, but I have two words – Project Life. This is how it works for travel pictures: We go somewhere. We come back. I go through our pictures, narrow down, and organize them in our iPhoto library. And then … I choose one picture per day to represent our travel. I add that to our ongoing Project Life book (I personally prefer the digital version). Those travel pictures receive equal treatment to every other picture that goes in our book. That amazing hundreds-of-years-old building we saw? Just as important as Crew learning to feed himself, Claire lining up her stuffed animals for a tea party, Porter losing a tooth, the vegetables we pulled out of the garden, the friends we hang out with.
The little stuff in life is just as important as, if not more important than, the big stuff. It should all be included in telling our life story.
WHY THIS WORKS FOR ME. I am a practical woman. Like really, truly practical. I try to do what makes the most sense and feels right. So for me – for our family - we now have our pictures and stories actually being recorded and preserved in a format we can enjoy, instead of making a list of scrapbook pages I’d like to do “someday”. If you see me in person and ask about it, you’ll have a hard time shutting me up because I am that passionate about the system and its ease and its flexibility. I want this to help so many people (scrapbookers and non-scrapbookers alike) because it has helped me.
WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF THE PICTURES? I knew you’d ask. : ) We took a lot of pictures on our recent trip to Finland. After narrowing down, I have exactly 573 pictures that are now stored in iPhoto. Will I scrapbook all of those? Of course not. Would that be nice? Sure. Is it realistic? Heck no. There are thousands and thousands of pictures in our iPhoto library that aren’t being scrapbooked. I’m over it. Sometimes we browse through our pictures on the computer. Sometimes we incorporate our favorites into our home decor. Sometimes we share random pictures with loved ones. Sometimes we make iMovies with the pictures. There are so many other ways to enjoy photographs outside of actual scrapbooks.
ABOUT THAT LIST. Going back to what I said about “do what works for you” — I do realize that there are many of my readers who are true-blue-traditional-layout scrapbookers. I love that. For those of you in that category who are also list-makers and who would be interested in keeping an ongoing list like I mentioned (because it works for you), I’m happy to share that list format again:
So … what works for you?
Tags: big bear lake, philosophy
I am doing the Project Life, on my 2nd year–did 365 last year, and am loving it. When we go on vacation or have something that needs more than 1 picture a day, I just add in a 12×12 page in my 365 or Project life album. So, if we go on vacation for a week, then there is an extra full page scrapbooked in. That works well for me, and the albums have been big enough (thank you Becky) to accomodate a few extra pages.
Thanks so much for answering my question!! I was so excited to see that you took the time to write so much about travel pictures and what to do with them. I am truly inspired by your knowledge and experience in this wonderful hobbie. And the idea from Jen Taylor is wonderful!!!
Thank you both!!
We also do what Jen Taylor does!!! Go Jen! When we have a birthday or special event in the family I do a digital layout [you could do a traditional paper layout as well] and tuck it in the album within the week that it happened. Works really well!
Thanks Becky for sharing what you know…and opening it up for others to comment!
Blessings,
Alicia
I do one digital photo book per year and then I do a seperate photo book for each vacation we take. Our long weekend trips go in our yearly book. I only do a seperate book for our week long trips. That way I can include a majority of the pictures. In our yearly books I also include a few snapshots from our week long vacation.
I do the exact same thing! Go Rachelle! It works perfect for me too.
This is my plan too – we’ve just taken two big holidays this year and to ensure the photos don’t get lost on my computer or digital photo frame, I am going to print up a photobook for each large holiday. Of course I still have a POTD from my holidays in my Project Life
Where can you print up a digital book that will let you fit a year’s worth of photos in it? I take alot of photos and I’d love to get a ton of photos into one book and print it up for every family member.
I saw Shutterfly has one that will go up to 1000 photos but I want more than that. Am I being unrealistic or is this available anywhere out there?
if you have over 1000 and cannot fit all in one book, divide the year in half or quarters and make books accordingly.
Lately I’ve been moving into having those photo album/scrapbook hybrids – divided page protectors to quickly file and sort my photos (the ones I deemed worthy to print in the first place – not EVERYTHING gets printed). Those photos that I LOVE will get the traditional scrapbook treatment. Those divided proctectors with pictures and 12×12 protectors with layouts all go in the same 3 ring album. Done. No guilt.
I do also buy cute 2-up photo albums for some vacations. Photos from the trip go in there – I might put a little effort into dressing it up a tad (a tad!), but the most important part of scrapbooking is the pictures and memory recording. That’s it. Not the techniques or the number/time investment of embellishments, so those take a major back seat for me.
I do plan to someday work into doing the family albums digitally, but keeping the school albums and baby’s first year albums (using Becky’s kits I bought!:) traditional (since they will include extra memorablia and what not).
I L-O-V-E this movement in the industry by the likes of Becky Higgins, Stacy Julian, and others to SIMPLIFY and to let go of the unrealistic notion that everything needs to be scrapbooked. I needed to start thinking like this 10 years ago!
For our most recent Florida vacation I did like you did and picked one photo that was my favorite thing of the day and added it to my Project Life album. Since it was a special trip I also plan to scrapbook some of the pictures and I bought a nice Disney photo album for the rest. In the past I usually just bought an album or I used a photo book maker and put all or my narrowed down favorites in the digital book instead.
I love the traditional scrapbooking but I just got so behind! I can’t keep up with it because of time and motivation. Project Life has been very helpful because I have a place for everything from random daily photos to special moments! Plus it’s so easy that I do get the layout completed every week!
Something else I did with Project Life (because I love it so much) was to buy 2 additional kits. I used these for ALL of the pictures that were waiting for a place to go! I narrowed down what would fit for each event into a weekly layout. Now all I have to do is journal and add in any other memoribilia I kept and it’s done! There is no way I would have ever been caught up! I still have other printed photos that need a place but I’m waiting for the new kit, I think 3 albums that are identical on the outside are enough! I’m so glad you created this!
Forgot to add that I’d like to do the family albums digitally for the ease of use and small space they take up (when printed in book form), but with school/baby albums being still traditional, I would still get that physical, made-by-hand experience with a relatively smaller number of photos to deal with.
Since I take way too many photos on vacation to scrap, I make a simple digital book (I use Shutterfly) and then the pictures can be looked at by anyone in the family anytime. I will traditionally scrapbook a few of my favorite pictures and put the layouts in the family album.
I did 365 last year and to be honest there were a few weeks that I didn’t get a picture for everyday. If you look at my album there are some two page spreads that include 2 weeks instead of 1. I used the extra page protects to add in an additional two page spread for our vacation and for Christmas morning. My original plan was to do a few traditional layouts and add them into the book but with a busy life that never happened and I am ok with it. Now when I do traditional scrapbooking it tends to be themed mini albums which let me express my creativity instead of just accomplishing a task on my to do list.
Good response Becky. Shameless plug? I think not. Here’s my story. I have just rec’d Project Life, and am currently using it for my 365-POTD for 2010. It’s working great, and I have completed 3 months in a very short amount of time. I’m talking a couple evenings! The hardest part (literally) has been finding the time to go pick up more photos that I’ve ordered!
I find myself (with TONS of scrapbooking supplies) thinking, “hmmmm – why don’t I just use Project Life for all of my pictures?” I’m contemplating combining the POTD idea w/ Ali Edwards “week in the life”, and summing up important events of the week on a two-page spread (not necessarily a picture each day.) Not sure about that yet. All I know is this system is SOOOOOOOO UN-intimidating, and SOOOOOOOO manageable! I just love it. I’ve said “thank you” in several different posts, and I’ll say it again. Thank you for sharing your creative genius with us all. Love it!
Project Life changed my life, as least as far as scrapbooking is concerned…and that is no small thing! I didn’t realize how stressful it had become for me and just not much fun anymore. Enter PL and scrapbooking is fun again. I will gladly plug Project Life!! Thanks so much…
My daughter and I use Project Life religiously for daily pictures and scrapping. I use Stacey Julian’s library of memories system for all the prints that do not go in Project Life. That way I have a daily scrapping system and I scrap whatever pictures I want to when I want to. I love both systems and helps me feel current and creative at the same time.
Therese this is brilliant. I cannot believe I didn’t think of this. I think it’s because I have been frozen with “feeling behind”, it can be paralyzing. I ordered a Project Life but then also took LOM this year with Stacy Julian and I loved both systems and could not decide what to do so I did nothing! PARALYZED!
It makes so much sense to do BOTH! This has been a revelation!!!
I will start Project Life on my kid’s first day back to school. I decided on the because I don’t want to wait until New Year’s to start and I feel like it needs to be a major beginning of something.
Plus, I will implement the Library of Memories from Stacy Julian for all of the other photos I want scrapped.
On Jessica Turner’s blog you can also see how she uses Ali Edward’s digital elements to put that day of the week on the actual photograph before she even sends it to the printer. I love that!
I am so so excited! Thank you all so much. I cannot wait to see Project Life for 2011!
I love doing photo album scrapbooks with my travel photos. I use a photo album with slip in spots for the photos-depending on the trip, I use a two up or sometimes an album with more slots. Then I slide photos in. I use cardstock for journaling and slip the journaling cards in as I would a photo. From time to time I’ll put on an embellishment or use some patterned paper. To me this is the best of both worlds-I get to put all my favorite photos from a trip in an album that people can curl up and look at, and it allows me to do some traditional scrapbook type stuff.
I still LOVE traditional scrapbooking! And, no I’m not caught up. We took a big birthday trip for me (my 50th) to Paris this past May. After some editing, I still have 1,500+ pictures. I desperately want them in their own traditional album. I want to tell the stories, and capture all my thoughts & feelings, along with all the ephemera I collected. I want to sit down and hold and touch and feel the happiness of that trip over and over again. I want to take those albums here & there and share these good memories. Do I fret that it’s not done? No. Do I enjoy shopping and collecting all the goodies I’m going to use in that album? Yes. As a traditional scrapbooker, I’m glad that I’ve got piles of photos waiting to be put into albums…after all this is my hobby and I love it. I hope I’m never caught up and out of pictures!
Thanx so much for posting, Judy! We think exactly alike.
With so many people going digital, I was beginning to feel like I was the last traditional scrapbooker on earth! I purchased Project Life and really like it, but use it mostly for random photos that simply tell about our life, but don’t need a full page. I still traditionally scrap all my photos from birthdays to kids playing in the yard to vacations and I too, will probably never catch up and love it, love it love it! So glad to know I’m not alone. 
Hey Michele! Glad to connect to another traditional scrapbooker! I was beginning to think everyone was going the PL way! I, too, am doing PL this year and P365 last year. For me, it is a great way to journal my everyday life. I like to think of it as my diary (in pictures, that is!). Turns out with these 2 yearly projects, I’ve ended up taking WAY more pictures than I used to take, and some of those daily photos have morphed into their own 2-page layouts in my other albums! Go figure.
I’m so glad to know there are other people out there who think the same way I do! I don’t worry about being caught up and am like you Judy – I hope I never run out of pictures or get caught up! I am a digital and paper scrapbooker (I do whatever is most convenient at the time or whatever I fell like doing) – there are elements of both that I love! I think Project Life is a great idea for people who don’t want to do a lot of journaling or creative play, but for me, I write a LOT (way more than will fit on small cards!) and love to have layouts that give me a chance to exercise my creativity. So glad to see I’m not alone! Thanks, girls!
I also am on my second year of Project Life (365) and love it, oh so much. At the end of last year’s album I created a title page called “Let’s Recap…” and then followed it with a few traditional scrap layouts (using the 12×12 paper that came with the kit) of trips & holidays where I wanted to show more pictures. I love how it turned out. The best part though was going through my year’s pictures to see what I wanted to include in the recap and realizing how much of it was already covered! LOVE this method of scrapbooking.
for travel photos i have a album which i do our photos into we visit christchurch lots as my daughters family is down there so i put out photo into the one album…im loving project life and for the week of bdays i will do one of the two pages with bday photos instead of doing layouts now… last year it was great to record what we had to go through to get my son to have grommets put in an then this year tonsills and adenoinds out so ive put the letters in from the hospital in there, and then also my illness has been recorded too, and thankfully mum took photos of the kids while i was in hospital when she had them, i love project life for getting the special as well as every day things but i do still love to scrapbook its so much fun to get all the bits out and play around every now and again
On our big trip to Maine I brought a scrapbook journal (hard cover with blank pages). I journaled throughout the trip and left plenty of room for pictures. Once I printed all my pictures I cropped them and added them to my journal along with some pretty paper and embellishments. A little paper and more embellishments on the front with some ribbon, and it was complete! – travel scrapbook and journal keepsake. (Although I did end up using two journals because I needed more room.)
I’ve also made photo books through picture sites especially for trips (never as cute as Project Life though.;))
I am using the divided pages (like the ones in PL) to do travel & other events & just adding them into my regular albums. I’m still a “hands on” scrapbooker, but the divided pages keep me from spending way too much time choosing papers & embellies, etc. It also means I can just hand-write my journaling cards. Saves a bunch of time. I’ve even used these pages sometimes when I’m just stuck for how I want to do a layout. It just simplifies when I need simplification!
Wow you’ve been reading my mind. My dear friend gave me my project life for Christmas last year AND I had ordered one for myself! I used hers to put all the pictures that I was going to scrapbook into a book for 2009 and mine I’ve been doing 2010. If we go on a trip or have a special occasion I just use an extra page for those pictures. I feel relief with my project life. I always feel like I just can’t get caught up with my scrapbooking, then it feels like work to me instead of enjoyment. This gives me great joy and only takes a little time.
I can understand that you are over it, it’s way too much pressure. I scrapbook what I want, when I can. I love to make mini-books so I find myself doing little projects where an event ends up in a mini-book. Apart from that I can recommend a digital frame. You can load up a card to the max and have as many photos as you like, it just scrolls through like a powerpoint slide. I means you enjoy your photos daily. K
I do a bit of everything. My 10 day trip to Ireland in 2006 — whittled down to 10-12 pages in my travel scrapbook. My husband’s trip to Norway from last year — intentions are there to complete layouts for it as I’ve already started and have the pictures printed. Our trip to Missouri earlier this month — already taken care of in a minibook (http://chrisscraps.blogspot.com/2010/07/minialbum-otr-mo.html). I’ll still complete a few layouts for our albums as it was my 3-month-old son’s first trip, and he met three of his great-grandparents so those sort of things need layouts in my regular album, but I LOVE how the minibook came together. I foresee a lot more of them in my future.
My husband bought me a MacBook Christmas 2008 (I have a wonderful husband!) and I began to use iPhoto and iMovie…love those programs! I began what Izzy Hyman from Izzy Video and Paperclipping (www.paperclipping.com) calls “Motion Scrapbooking.” I turn my photos into a slideshow so I can easily share with the friends with whom we travel. I post the slideshow to my Facebook page and burn the slideshow to a DVD for them to enjoy whenever they like. I also put print photos in small albums until I have time to scrapbook the photos…needless to say, the slideshow and DVDs are done much more quickly than the paper (or digital) pages!
I’ve been following RT as well. I’m glad to see that the “motion scrapbooking” is working out. I will definately go on there and try it out.
On our trip to Disney a couple of years ago, we had a ton of pictures that I knew would not get scrapbooked, simply too many. I was not doing Project Life at that point, so I created a photobook in Shutterfly simply with photos of our trip. It is a good reminder, with our favorite photos and my daughter can look at it anytime she wants. If it tears, or gets torn up it is not as devastating as a scrap page. I love the ease and convenience of the photobooks. In fact, because I am behind on scrapbooking, I do a photo book a year for each of my children through shutterfly for them to keep in their rooms with our favorite pictures of them throughout the year. It is fun for them to pull it off their bookshelf and “read” it in the evening before bed, as we do other books.
Speaking about all those photo’s I have a question? I remember that you are very archival conscious and organized. I have a stack of over three hundred photos sitting on my desk. There is no way I am going to scrapbook all of them, but I do want to put the date on them and put them in order in photo boxes. When I have time I will grab the pictures I want and I will know when they were taken, the pictures I do not use will stay in the box and some day when my kids are grown and go thru it they will at least know when the picture was taken. To try to speed up the process I thought of using a date stamp but I was not sure if there is an ink that I can use that is archival, will not smear or bleed thru the photo. Any suggestions?
Thanks for you help.
I do a bit of everything. I absolutely LOVE project life and also LOVE traditional scrapbooking. My pictures of the day are the random, everyday ones, which i love, but not necessarily feel the need to make a whole page for and my ongoing albums are the ones who tell more of a story (a daytrip, mothersday family meeting, a girls’ night out..). I also have an album for vacactions, which are indeed quite time-consuming, but I like working on those pages and including ephemera and everything else we collect during our travels.
Hey Becky, this isn’t relevant so much to this post as it is to the general overflow of photos waiting very patiently to be scrapbooked in my photo box
Cheers, Rita
Is there any chance of accommodating a few vertical photo spaces in the next project life kit? I’m sure i’m not the only one that likes to take vertical shots (there’s something about them – I feel that they capture so much more than the horizontal ones!), but I don’t want to be cropping all my favourite photos down to fit in the journalling spots.
So pretty pretty please, with sugar on the top, all the way from sunny Australia??????
**smiles nicely and bats eyelashes**
OMG…I can totally relate. I am overwelmed with pictures…Project Life has also helped me so much. The only thing I feel bad about is I am not working on my kids “separate” albums. Time just does not allow. I always think some day….ugh!!!!! I have decided to simplify though and whatever I do….I do. At least I am scrapping memories that some just throw into a box. Thats what I’m going with. Becky speaking of Project Life, I have a dear friend who FINALLY just got to order a kit. Well unfortunalty it came damaged. The binder was smashed all up. She went ahead and starting working on pages though as she was SO excited. She said she is having trouble though as Amazon wants her to return in full. ERRRR is there not a way to simply return the binder, and/or get a binder replaced. Apparantly she has emailed to your customer service mail and has gotton no response in over a week??? Just really bragged up the kit so I thought I would try to help her out. Just in case…her email is: dceyler@cass.net THANKS and thankyou for such a fantastic blog….love it!
Hi Becky! Thank you so much for posting about your Travel photos. I always tend to take too many pictures and can’t seem to delete as many of them as I should. I have been doing Project Life for 2010 and did Project 365 for 2009. I love it! I feel such an overwhelming sense of joy, rather than guilt, using this system. For 2010 I actually bought 2 Project Life Kits. One is for our POTD etc. and the other one is just for my favorite photos. I’m so thankful to have a place where I can record those favorite moments or expressions. For my travel photos, I’ve been incorporating them into Project Life. After our trip to Disney – I had tons of photos I wanted to print. Each day of our trip I took a photo of the kids in front of the same Mickey Mouse topiary – Just for fun. Those went in my Project Life book. The rest of the photos I printed went into a 2 up sort of album. I still scrapbook some of my favorite pictures and then put them in albums, but honestly my Project Life book is what really showcases our lives. I love that I can quickly capture our life right now, in the Present, before I forget those tiny little details if I scrapbooked later. I am so excited to see what you’ve come up with for School type memories. I am finding it hard to go back and remember the whole school year. For this school year, I’m going to document more as it happens, so I don’t have to journal now what my son did in school last September. Thank you Becky for your inspiration!
hi becky! so funny- I just wrote a post on vacation scrapbooking and showed how I used some of your sketches a few years ago. I came back here and saw you wrote a post. I am SO with you- sometimes the endless options of documenting travel can be overwhelming.
I felt like I had way too much scrapbooking stuff already to invest in Project Life this year but I did buy the divided page protectors from American Crafts and use them to make some of my layouts. I didn’t start doing that until this year and it’s amazing how much easier it was. I stopped feeling overwhelmed and I was able to take more time to journal and really enjoy the process. If I feel like doing a full 12×12 Layout i throw it in the binder somewhere.
I can’t wait for the school Project Life to come out! I really want to do them for my boys. My oldest starts Kindergarten this year so the timing will be perfect. And I definitely want to do Project Life next year. Those albums are just too beautiful to pass up!
becky, i have not tried PL because I don’t take a picture a day. I take most of my pictures over the weekends when we’re all up north and together. have not figured out how to incorporate PL with my life. however, i did want to ask how you’re dealing with individual books for each of the kids now and their individual activities?
thanks for all you do.
I too am a “to do list” girl, which in the past those lists have helped me to feel bad about myself. So now, I scrapbook when I have a story to tell. I put all layouts into the same album. No more seperate albums for this or that family member. Each child gets a seperate album for the first year, after that everything goes into the “family” album. All “other” pictures are printed and put into old style albums. I don’t keep those seperate, travel, birthday…, they are put in date order olnly. Photo books are done for special things, like the first trip to Disneyland.
I have been very intrigued with the 365 project for several years and have made several attempts on my own without a kit. My birthday is next month and I will be starting Project life then. I try to keep life simple. Like many women I have spent far too much time feeling guilty about the undone things. I have high hopes that Project Life will help me to enjoy my life and the people in it more. Keeping it simple!!!
I did P365 last year and am doing PL this year. I have noticed that my family LOVES looking through these last two albums just as much as the 17 other albums of traditional scrapbooks I have done in the past. A couple of things I concluded from that were that the extra creative efforts I put on the original pages were appreciated just as much as the POTD with it’s small journaling and that there is no way my kids were ever going to cart off all the albums I made after I am gone because they would have no place to store them. What I would really love is to have the divided page protectors like the ones in your PL and also the ones from P365 (to mix and match) and then I could make up my own smaller travel albums using these page protectors. Before I print photos I could choose to print vertical pix as 3×4′s and slip those into the smaller pockets, leaving some of those open for the journaling summary. Does this make sense? To address the creative urge that I still feel to make art, I have started an art journal where I use all kinds of scrapbooking tools and supplies to just have FUN! This all works for me, hope it helps others.
Becky, you have been inspiring me for years. I’ve always been the family photographer, but shied away from scrapbooking because it seemed so cluttered and cutesy. Then I discovered your clean, beautiful style, started imitating it, and was hooked! I love traditional scrapbooking. I use it for theme albums: travel, sports, performance, Christmas. I am not “caught up” but am not concerned about it. I do what I can do. Some planned layouts may never get finished and that is okay.
That said, you also changed things for me when you came out with Project 365. I had gotten into the habit of not taking pictures unless I could see them eventually becoming a 2-page layout. I had no idea how much I was missing out on, not documenting the commonplace, everyday details of our life. I LOVE PROJECT LIFE! I will do it in some form or other every year. Thank you.
I’ve also recently gotten into digital scrapbooking. I love that we have options. We don’t have to be only traditional or only digital or only PL. We don’t have to throw away one method because we find a new one. We can embrace any or all of them to tell our stories. Thank you for continuing to open new doors and possibilities!
I’m so enjoying Project Life, though I’m behind in that too! I know it doesn’t have to be 365, but I want it to be. I’ve been talking photos and journaling a line or two in my daily planner…so I know I can catch up when school starts again.
We took a big vacation for my 40th birthday this year to San Diego. Normally all our trips/vacations are to see family, so this was huge for us. I added a photo a day to our Project Life and journaled, but I’m also making an 8.5×11 scrapbook of it, especially because I knew I wanted big 8x10s of my kids on the beach, etc. I can’t tell you how much I’m enjoying it, partly because I don’t associate this play with supplies with any “to do’ list any more.
Question: I saw a project by Elizabeth Dillow on Write Click Scrapbook that combined different old photos and stories from all her siblings. I’m one of 9 and we all have different photos— I think the digital version of Project Life might be the perfect way to share these with each other. Is it possible for different people to all work on the same album? Thanks.
I find trouble keeping up with EVERYDAY and sometimes overcompensate with 40 picture Saturdays.
What I do is I bought a 4 X 6 album at Ross for $4.99. When I print a big batch, I just put them all in there. They are in order as I took them and that’s good enough for me. If I want to add journaling or a title, I add a 4 X 6 piece of cardstock. It couldn’t be easier.
For our last trip, I saved small momentos to add to the book–bracelets from the water park, neat post cards, etc. It worked just as well as a scrapbook layout that I wouldn’t get to for oh, about 5 years….just ask the 2 1/2 yr old that has 1 layout in her baby book.
I love your idea for your family albums. But what are doing for your kiddos albums. Are you still doing the traditional layouts for their scrapbooks or have you developed another system as well? Also my sister is getting married later this year have you ever thought of developing a wedding kit? If not, what could you give me some ideas on what to scrapbook
? Thanking you kindly, Cathie
Right now I do Project Life/365 for the first year. We have taken a trip to Spain with our young daughter a couple years ago. I uploaded all those pictures, about 200, and made a photobook of just the trip. Photobooks are great! They compact the high volume into a small space.
We have other ‘smaller’ trips that I need to decide what to do with the pictures. I will probably print them out and put them in 4×6 page protectors for each child. As for the rest of my pictures and I very slowly printing years of pictures from the computer and just collecting scrapbooking products because I like them. : )
Amy
I am a project lifer and love it! I used to be the same way….lists of layouts that I never got around to. Having said that we recently took out boys to DC and I made digital book thru iphoto. It was pretty quick + simple, so I think I will continue on that track in the future. I still stuck individual photos in my project life, but to see the nitty gritty of the trip I have the D.C. book. We don’t take big trips all that often so it shouldn’t be overwhelming. And when I say I made a book it is just photos with the intro page simply being a list of things I wanted to remember from the trip.
Becky,
Love your blog. Love your tips. And have always loved your simplistic scrapbooking style. Wanted to add that I’m using 5-up and 6-up albums (photo album scrapbooking) to store and catch-up with organizing my photos. It’s working nicely. I save one of the slots for a journaling block to describe the pictures on that page. Easy peasy. What I’d really love is for you to offer the journaling blocks included in your PL kit for sale seperately. Also, if the PL set came in a smaller 8 1/2 x 11 or a postbound format, I’d be more likely to purchase it. Even though I’ve drooled over the one you’re currently selling, it’s just too big for my tastes. We live in a small house and storage is a problem. I know you’re thinking the PL digital photobook would solve this problem, but I’m not into photobooks for various reasons. I love the POTD concept and I do my best to keep up with that. Best wishes and I look forward to the new things you may have in store when your next PL kit hits the market.
I do Project Life also. Earlier this year my parents visited for 3 weeks and we did several day trips and a 4 day trip. I had so many pictures which I will scrap on a later date, but for Project Life I picked my favorites of those 3 weeks, used the small journaling pockets to put small pictures in and used 1 of the 4×6 spaces each week for a large journaling card written full front and back. I did not have 1 picture for each day, but rather a collection of those 3 weeks. I had 40 pictures for those 3 weeks. I love how it came out. I will try to post it to the gallery this week.
When my kids had their birthdays this year I used 4 to 5 pictures for each child’s birthday, and used the small journaling cards to write about their birthday. It made it easier for that week not to “have to have” a picture for each day. I let go of the rule to have 1 picture for each day. It’s too hard sometimes. And that is OK, that is LIFE! :0)
I love Project Life and am so grateful for it. But I do still like to scrap the old fashioned way. But I use scrapbook kits that are coordinated to make life easier like Becky Higgins Baby Kits and School Kits. Love those!
Cannot wait to Project Life 2011!! Thanks Becky and everyone at Project Life!
Sandy
My blog is my scrapbook and I plan to make each year into books…someday when my kids are all in school! I use Project Life for my kids books and love it!!! Thanks again Becky for making something so doable.
Several of you have asked about what to do for your kids’ albums. I tweaked the traditional Project Life just a little and use it for each of my kids. Works great! I especially love that I can add memoribilia and a traditional layout in whenever I want. I scrapbook a layout here and there just for fun, but am able to stay on top of their books because of the Project Life system.
I have pictures of how I’ve done this on my blog if it would help anyone! Thanks again Becky!
http://www.kennyanderin.blogspot.com
(click the label “scrapbooking” on my sidebar)
I burn events (birthday, Christmas) and trips onto a disk. Our DVD player recognizes and plays .jpg images. We can see the television from the breakfast table. SO…we often spend our breakfast time playing a random photo DVD while we eat and talk. It’s the new millenium’s way of looking at photo albums together, and is so much better before school than cartoons!
Thanks for these great tips! I linked to your blog in today’s scrapbook news at http://exm.nr/aBN1bZ
Mini albums. I print out all the photos I like in 4×6 and 4×3 sizes and then scrap the ones I really, really like in a mini album. One per trip. I love mini albums; the 6×6 albums by American Crafts are my faves for long trips and all the cute little albums that manufacturers produce every season work for weekend getaways. I also do a single layout with one or two photos from each trip for my chronological albums. Yes, I still have chronological albums. Please don’t judge me. Lastly, following Stacy Julian’s genius sorting system (I love Stacy even if she doesn’t love my chronological albums), all the leftover photos get filed away into my people, places, life (etc) photo boxes behind the appropriate tabs. And that’s it. It really doesn’t take that long. And if you want it take even less time? Put the mini album together using Stacy Julian’s Finish Line Scrapbooking system. I swear I’m not Stacy Julian, but I am a big fan.
I did Project Life last year and I truly miss it this year. I did buy another kit and look forward to doing it again with my family in 2011!
For our vacation and travel pictures, I have separate albums that I store our pics in. There are 8×8 albums that already have pages in them that fit two 4×6 pics on each side plus an area beside the pics where I briefly journal. I come home, print out all our favorites (sometimes many, many pics), go to the store and buy one of these albums, com home and put all the pics in with the journaling, and bam! I’m finished. It’s a good feeling.
I take notes while on vacation, a short summary of what we did each day, so when we get home and print out the pics, it’s easy to journal about each one. I started off buying dark brown albums but the company doesn’t make that color anymore (should have bought more when I could!) and now I buy their olive green ones.
Thanks, Becky!
Pam
I forgot…the albums have a space in the back for a CD so I always get a CD made when my pics are printed and I include that in the back of the album.
That’s it…
Pam
When I travel, whether a big trip or a small road trip I take lots of vacation photos! Trying to scrap them all became to daunting though deep down I really wanted to scrap them..however, I now buy those photo albums from Costco that hold a ton of pictures and the front cover has an area for a photo on front, which becomes my title area for the vacation book. This year I kept my five favorite pictures to make a page to document the trip for my Project Life book which was quick and easy. Because I can get the rest of the photos into the albums quickly, we enjoy the pictures right away without waiting forever for me to scrap them. This is one of the best things I ever did for myself and my family!
Oh, forgot to add that this year in my vacation album in between pictures for some quick notes I used my little journal cards from Project Life and slipped them into one of the photo slots when I wanted to jot down a quick little memory to go with an accompanying group of photos! Quick and easy journaling!
This year I went through my vacation photos, put my favorites in a seperate file,and then printed them all. Then I made a mini scrapbook. It was very simple, a blank journaling book that I adhered the photos to, wrote a bit of journaling, added small amounts of embelishments and Voila done! I also picked my very favorites to add to my project life album ( I am actually using the old 365 day album kit-from CK kit of the month). It felt so good to have my vacation pics on display in a fun mini album so soon after the actual vacation, I am for sure going to do it again. Does anyone know a good site that sells blank journals?
I’ve taken a small handful of exceptionally cool trips in my 12 years as an official adult. (Hawaii, London, DC, NYC, etc.) For these trips I devote an entire album. It used to be a traditional scrapbook. The last two have been digital albums. They are trips with the love-of-my-life, and they warrant their own glory in all of its splendor–all 500 pictures worth.
That said, the digital albums have been nothin’ fancy–the focus is on the pictures. In most cases I have a lot of the album finished before I arrive home. Long plane rides and a laptop are good for that.
When I have an event where I took a lot of pictures, whether it be a vacation or a holiday, I like to make a mini album. I find those can come together quickly and then I can easily share it with others. I pick my favorite potd for my project life album.
Becky, you have NO idea how much I would give right now to sit and listen to you go on and on about the evolution of your ways!! I have lists of my lists of layouts and albums that I want to do…they hang so sweetly on a cute little embellished clipboard, of course, but they still sit there and remind me of how much I feel behind! Thank you for the continued ideas and for the concept of P365….I will get there!
Becky – just yesterday I was looking through piles of printed pictures that I once thought would get in a scrapbook – they are still sitting there. I too have embraced the project life idea because there is instant gratification – although after just coming back from a family vacation I put together a quick photo book on kodak gallery and I am very happy with it.
This is a really great way to organize, I have really been slacking with scrapbooking my travels. I thought of my vacation themed craft kit that I put together when I saw this post. http://etsy.me/pEGmML