All About MY Scrapbooking

 I have started and deleted this post a hundred times over the past few years.  When I started sharing photos of my scrapbooking pages on the blog I had so many questions about my scrapbooking and was asked to create a whole post dedicated to it... but I always flounder at how to answer these... what to include and not to.. so I decided to start a mini series about scrapbooking!  In today's post I'll give a quick overview of MY scrapbooking timeline and what I've done through the years and then I'll have some other posts with more details later on (I'm thinking 1 a month for a few months?).  

When I started: I started scrapbooking in 2001... my sister gave me a scrapbook she put together for my wedding shower and I just loved it and that inspired me to add pages into the back of her album of our actual wedding then I put a scrapbook together of our honeymoon.  My hobby just sort of took off from there! 

A sample of some pages my sister made:

Some of the pages I added:

Some of my earliest pages: Now you have to remember that I got into scrapbooking in 2001; which was before it was the HUGE industry it became (at least here anyway) so there weren't many embellishments or papers or even adhesives and books to pick from.  There were no scrapbooking stores and online purchases weren't really a thing. My earliest pages are rather blank and boring and amateurish but I was an amature.  I relied a lot on the few rubber stamps and ink pads I had as well as colorful papers and textures to add interest. 

I often used program, ticket stubs and the like to fill in pages as well (or used maps as background paper)

I used stickers when I could find them and often made up my own embellishments and even patterned "paper" using paper weaving, stamps, and whatever else I could find that went along with the page I was creating. 

I used wire to sculpt my title on this page and then glued it onto paper.

I used the same stamp set on Ian's nursery walls to decorate the pages in his scrapbook to match.

(My sister and I were due just a few weeks apart so we had a joint shower; which is why we're both opening gifts here)

I used 2 different stamps from Stampin Up! to create a patterned background on this page

the paper weaving I mentioned

I used to create pocket pages to store cards and other keepsakes in too.

Where I store them: I have a deep bookcase that holds all our scrapbooks.  I went searching through a furniture store for a bookcase that was 12" deep specifically to hold our albums.  

A few smaller albums are stored in a giant basket under one of our end tables. 

I keep the albums I'm currently working on in my craft room and I honestly don't know what I'll do with them when they are full because my bookcase is full too.  I've been trying to convince my husband for YEARS to build a giant bookcase on each side of this window and build a nice bench underneath it connecting the two... wouldn't that be perfect?

How Many I Have?  Oh boy... um...  41?! I think.. at last count.  (Of the 12x12 size anyway but I do have some smaller scrapbooks too!). 

How I divide up my pages: Normally I just make up a single page spread but depending on how many photos I have of the event I'm scrapbooking I may make a double page spread as well.  So I guess the number of photos I want to use often dictates how I divvy up my pages.  

When the kids were little I used to take more photos so the pages often included flaps and flip up sections with even more photos.  

I got really good at fitting a lot of photos on one page.

But a few times I'd even take just one photo and enlarge it to nearly fill the page..

Some of my favorite pages: picking some of my favorite pages is like trying to ask me to pick my favorite child.. it's impossible to pick just one.  I thought I'd include a few favorites with each of these blog posts. 

Sometimes it's my favorite because of the photos!

Sometimes I just fall in love with the layout/ embellishments/ colors of the page:

Sometimes it's my favorite because of the memories associated with it!

Sometimes it's a new layout I fall in love with. 

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