My local scrapbooking store writes an article for the local advertising supplement in our town newspaper. One of the latest articles talks about how to simplify scrapbooking by sorting your pictures. I scrapbook chronologically and I complete two albums per year, with the exception of my Disney trip albums. (they deserve their own special albums of course!) Back when I took my photos with my 35mm camera, I had many more photos to search through in order to find ones to scrapbook. I would take my film down to the local store and would automatically order doubles of them all. It was always a surprise to see which pictures actually turned out, and which ones had someone’s eyes closed. Now that I use a digital camera I still develop many (my hubby thinks TOO many) photos, but I crop and mentally plan my layouts as I pick my pictures to scrapbook.
The article stresses the importance of having a proper workspace to do all of this. My workspace is my dining room table. It is not the most accommodating workspace, but it seems to work for my family. Two of my best (non-Disney) friends have their own room in their houses for scrap booking, and I envy them both. To have my own space, and to not need to pack up my paper, stickers, and brads every time company comes over would be wonderful. However, using the dining room table has turned out to be a fabulous way to include my entire family in my scrap booking. I have designated Sunday evenings to be my “Crop Time”, and I can often be found listening to Sorcerer Radio or Mouse World radio. On special Sunday evenings, I listen to “WDW Today Live” and I work even longer into the night as I listen to Matt, Len, Mike, Mike and Annette answer Disney questions! My family respects the time I have set aside. However, because my work is out in the open in the dining room I can grab other moments during the week to work on my pages. They seem to take a greater interest in my albums as they see the work in progress, and they take time to add comments and suggestions to the pages.
The next part of the article talks about how to sort your photos down into small groupings so you can use only one, or a few photos per layout. Now this is where I have problems. I have a horrible time picking only one or two photos per page. I should clarify though; I especially have problems narrowing down my Disney trip photos to only a couple of photos per page. In my “regular” family albums, I can sort the pictures down to each time of year or event, (Christmas, Birthdays, Dance Recitals, etc…) but in my Disney albums each photos represents a Magical memory. My family memories of each trip are recorded in these albums and the pictures bring back the emotions of my family and our love of Walt Disney World. Just as I cannot walk down Main Street U.S.A. on the first day of our trip without shedding tears, I also cannot open any of our Disney Trip albums without being flooded with the emotion that each trip brought to my family. As a result, my Disney albums are full of pages with many photos. My layouts are busy, many with 8-10 photos per two-page layout, and they are full of journaling. If each photo is worth a thousand words, then my albums are worth millions. Well, Millions of Magical Memories that is…
Look for more “Simplifying Your Disney Scrapbooking” in upcoming posts.
Contributed by: Mary Beth C. (NDM #6). Mary Beth is our resident ‘neurotic Disney scrapbooker’.
