So, you are just starting out on your scrapbooking journey and you have piles and piles of photos. You have your whole life in photos and you have no idea where to start and you ask yourself “do I start at the beginning?” Well you are not going to love my answer… You can if you want.
There are no rules to scrapbooking. There is no scrapbooking police force that will burst through your door if you scrapbook in chronological order and likewise there are no laws being broken if you decide not to scrapbook chronologically.
I can tell you what works for me and then I leave it to you to find what works best for you. I’ve been taking pictures since I was a little kid, I always had a camera around my neck so if I tried to go back in time and scrapbook from the early days to today I would get so overwhelmed and bogged down I would lose interest – how do I know I’ll lose interest? Because I tried it! When I started scrapbooking I went back in time and thought I had to start there. I didn’t start all the way at the beginning but I did start with several years prior. I scrapbooked one vacation, then whatever big event came next. That was the other rut I was stuck in scrapbooking only the big events; vacations, birthdays, holidays. I did this for a while, creating pages that served their purpose and then you know what happened? I would get to that next stack of “have to scrap” photos and I would feel indifferent towards them. I was losing interest, I wasn’t feeling inspired and for months and months I stopped scrapbooking all together.
Finally and to be honest I don’t remember how – I snapped out of it and I started scrapbooking whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted to scrapbook it! And you know what happened then? FREEDOM! My creativity opened up, I found my style and I fell in love with scrapbooking – really fell in love with it!
Now I’m certainly not going to tell you how to scrapbook – that is up to you. But I will tell you – let go of the rules, throw away the preconceived notions of what you have to scrapbook. These are your stories, your photos, your memories – only you can decide how and when they are told. When you let yourself off the hook you will open the door to creativity I can promise you that!
How do you scrapbook? I would love to hear if you go the chronological route or the whatever inspires you route. Tell me by leaving a comment below!
I am like you I tried to go in order and got totally bored with scrapbooking that way, then I saw a more recent photo I had taken and got inspired to scrapbook that photo and that was it, I never scrapped in order again. I felt stifled when I scrapped chronologically. I will never do that again.
By the way, I LOVE your blog and it’s now my first stop when I get on the computer
I can’t wait for the next LOAD month because I really want to play. Thanks for your fabulous blog.
I am so glad you are enjoying the blog Susan! I’m so happy to have you!
I have always been a ‘make a list’ and ‘keep it in chronological order’ sort of girl – even as a child, as you said “with a camera around my neck”. I’ve saved ‘stuff’ to be scrapbooked as long as that as well (I’m 60+ and have every program from every play at our local summer theater since my first time in 4th grade). I am comfortable to keep things in order, am enjoying this LOAD213 challenge, but have been wondering what I am going to do with the pages, since they don’t ‘fit’ into chronology. I think it is a disease that needs a cure!
Libby you would probably be shocked to see that I just put my layouts in albums. I do my best to date the pages but the albums are in no particular order… I have visions that I will soon put the layouts in some sort of order… wish me luck
I too am 60+ and used to scrap chronologically but was getting bogged down. My first LOAD released me from that. I use the prompt but also use pictures I have as opposed to taking anything new. Gets a lot of pages done and they look just fine in the album. I am using LOAD 213 to scrapbook a Christmas Cruise. Four days down and several Cruise pictures scrapped! This LOAD will fit right into the rest of my Christmas Cruise Album.
Dorothy I’m so glad you have found a way to get pages complete that works for you! Love seeing your pages in the gallery!
These replies make me feel young- I’m “only” 55. I also started late, with chronological albums full of photos of my big family. I am doing 3 ring binder pages so I can remove old photos, scan them (they’re from the pre-digital age), scrap them, and then return the scrapped page to the album. Some albums are getting fuller and I may have to adjust where the ends and beginnings are, but the binders are easy to change. I also have lots of digital photos that haven’t been printed yet, neatly saved in dated folders on my hard drive and at an online back-up company, so I can print some of those and scrap them when I get paper or die cut files I’m inspired to use. The biggest issues for me was fear of and lack of commitment to journalling, but LOAD is helping me get over that.
I feel super young too I’m only 36 LOL!! I love using binders Lisa they are a great way to get more pages in your albums and to rearrange your layouts to be more cohesive within each book!
I scrap several ways.
First and foremost I complete a 2 page spread for the month complete with journaling (have done this since 2006). This helps me in reagrs to not forgetting all those little monents and that dreaded feeling for being ‘caught up’. I do this for the whole year. I LOVE this month in review albums, but I do keep them simple and use the same sketch for each month. I change up sketch each year.
Then, went I want to ‘play’ and get ‘creative’, I do what I want. Sometimes I have a plan and work on certain years or events. Sometimes I new product that I want to use for a certain page and I go with that.
So I am all over the place. But loving every minute of it!
I love the idea of Month in Review pages but I’ve never done one Janet
Dani, a huge surprise I know, but I scrap whatever, whenever
hahaha.
and it also would insure I pick up the camera thru out the month! (something I know I would do better if I had a DSLR! Congrats on yours by the way!!! 
) but I have a simple point and shoot… Heidi
When the mood strikesme, I do sometimes do a batch or stack of photos from a certain time period or something but I have no strict rules.
I actually think I may start using the same approach as Janet (and some others I know) and start scrapping a year in review book. My family and my husband’s family would definitely like this and understand it better
Heidi nothing wrong with a point and shoot!! I might join you in the month or year in review pages!!
Hi Dani! I scrap any way I want, but I **store**/organize my LOs in chrono order.
Thanks for your videos and posts, love them!
So happy to have you here Ali
Hi Dani, I’m loving your videos. Thanks for sharing your LOAD with us!
I’m like Ali. I scrapbook out of order – whatever I want to scrap whenever I feel like it – but I put my layouts into albums in chronological order. I took Stacy Julian’s Library of Memories class a long time ago, and I implemented her system, and was just putting the layouts into the album out of order, but I decided last year that this was making me crazy. I couldn’t find layouts I knew I’d done, because I had no idea whereabouts they’d be in my album. So I spent a couple of weeks totally reorganising and now I’m much happier. I guess what I have now is a hybrid system
That is what I’m worried about that when I finally want to put my pages in order it will take me weeks or months!! haha!