Scrapbooking Your Best Days
Are you a chronological scrapbooker who focuses mostly on events and holidays, scrapbooking your memories by the calendar? Or are you a "moments" scrapbooker who takes a more haphazard approach to memory keeping, capturing the moments and events in whateverorder you feel like, creating a mix of layouts and theme albums, both mini and big? I'm willing to bet that, like most of us, you fall somewhere in the middle of that spectrum. I know I do.
With that in mind, I'd like to share with you one of my all-time favorite albums, which offers a seamless blend of chronological and theme-based scrapbooking. It's an ongoing album called "Our Best Days." You see, I organize my layouts into albums based on topic rather than year or date. My album topics, which are modified from the Library of Memories approach taught by Stacy Julian at bigpicturescrapbooking.com, include All About Us, Things We Do, People We Love, Favorite Photos, and individual albums for each member of the family. And the one album to rule them all? Our Best Days.
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Keira Comes Home
October 4, 2010 was a day I had dreamed about all my life and had been working toward and praying about for six long years. So the day we brought our baby girl home from the hospital was a BIG day indeed. |
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This particular theme album helps me solve a dilemma I've been facing. There were certain events and moments that I wanted to make sure never get lost in my standard ongoing albums, and I know if I were to ever look for these layouts in the future, I'd search for them based on date the event happened. So, I decided I should also organize them by date. And in so doing, I created a specific gathering place for layouts about my family's very best days—our wedding, the day we got engaged, the arrival of our baby girl, our son Jeremy's baptism, even an important achievement like a family goal of completing a 25-mile bike race when Jeremy was 12. (This album could also be called "Favorite Days," as it follows the concept of my "Favorite Photos" album, where I gather those one-in-a-thousand shots that capture an emotion, relationship, or scene with perfect clarity—those that hold the biggest emotional impact for me.)
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Thomas Goes Home On December 20, 2003, my sister was visiting from California when she went into labor at just 25 weeks along. It couldn't be stopped. Little Thomas arrived, weighing just 2 lbs. 2 oz. and stretching to 14 inches long. It was a harrowing three months as we all prayed for this tiny infant, supported my sister, and tried to believe in miracles. It worked. Thomas went home on March 18, 2005 in perfect health, and he's now a happy and healthy Kindergartener. |
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I call these types of albums—both Favorite Photos and Our Best Days—"ongoing theme albums," because they each have a specific purpose and all the layouts within each of them share a common theme. But they're not standard "theme albums," since they are not albums that I plan out and create in one sitting or even over the course of a couple of weeks. They are simply gathering places for all the layouts I create that suit the topic, whenever and however they get created. I'll continue adding to both albums as new page ideas come to mind.
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Our First Bike Marathon On April 21, 2007, the Lucas family achieved a goal we'd been working toward as a family for a few months. We completed the Salt Lake City Marathon Bike Tour when Jeremy was 12 years old. We misread the qualifying age, and he was technically supposed to be 13 to enter the race, so he could have been the youngest participant to complete the 26.2 mile course and receive his medal. It was a proud achievement for all of us. |
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My typical scrapbooking process is to create pages in random order, based on whatever inspires me at the time. And it's usually only after a layout is done that I decide which of my albums should be its home. But "Our Best Days" is one exception to that rule. If I'm scrapbooking about a momentous event, huge celebration, important milestone, or even just a fabulous regular day, I save it for Our Best Days—slipping it into it's chronological space in the lineup. This album is my one chronologically organized haven in all the creative randomness that rules the roost most of the time.
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Our Wedding Day A day we'll never forget—our wedding day. February 21, 2004. (And I made sure Travis will never forget it by having the date engraved inside his wedding band.) I still have grand plans to complete a separate wedding album, but I have to have at least one wedding page, featuring my favorite photo from the day, in my Best Days album. |
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And while I don't try to coordinate products or designs from page to page—all layouts stand on their own—most of these pages do have one design trait in common. I include the date prominently, and usually on a tab that sticks up off the top of the page. The size, shape, and style of the tab certainly evolves, but I like that subtle, common motif to repeat throughout the album.
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Engagement Day On September 28, 2003, Travis and I hiked to the famous Delicate Arch in Arches National Park. And just as the sun was about to set, bathing the stunning red rocks with an orange glow, Travis dropped down on one knee and asked me to marry him. Suddenly it made sense why he was so nervous all day, and kept checking the contents of his backpack. Definitely a day to remember. |
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Whether you're in the chronological or the theme-based camp, consider adding an album like this to your personal scrapbooking library. It's a great way to bridge both worlds. And who knows, it just might become your favorite.
Looking for fabulous ideas for scrapbooking those recurring holidays and yearly celebrations for your chronological albums? Pick up Creative Ideas for Events & Holidays: 34 scrapbooking challenges and cool ideas to try, by Sara Winnick and Margaret Scarbrough.
