Why I Scrapbook

Digital goodies from The Daily Digi. Journaling stamp from Sugarplum Paperie


I must be crazy. I'm taking Finding Photo Freedom AND LOAD (at Big Picture Classes)at the same time! Well maybe not so crazy. The beginning weeks of LOAD overlap with the last part of FPF, and while LOAD is just getting going in a fairly slow-paced way, FPF is a review class for me, and I'm mostly tweaking my system, which is already mostly in place.

I'm getting huge value out of FPF, though, even though this is the 3rd time I've taken the class. There are little things here or there that I just haven't had time to do in previously classes that I'm getting to now, like using the Digital Workflow cards and redesigning them to suit my workflow. This is really big! (As Stacy would say) It's going to be a huge help to keeping track of where I am in tagging and starring my photos. I've been doing the work, but in a rather catch-as-catch-can fashion, and that makes me put off getting back to it because I have to figure out where I am every time.

I'm also hugely happy with last week's work. Trish & I totally cleared out our storage binders. Now, this may sound like Library of Memories heresy, but here's our reason. We are both almost totally digital these days. So we really don't need physical storage binders and prints because we have them set up on our computers, and are in the process of getting all of our thousands of digital photos sorted through and the best into digital storage binders.

That means that we no longer need to keep photos in storage binders. We did some real power scrapping, creating quick layouts of many of the photos (adding 30-50 layouts to our albums!! Some of the "layouts" were really divided page protectors with a quick journaling card. But hey, the stories are told and in our albums! Many, many of our photos went into category drawers because we tend to take a lot of category drawer kind of photos these days rather than event photos. Our children are all grown, and events just are as much a part of our lives as they used to be.

For me, going forward, the only photos I'll print are 1) finished digital pages 2) photos for a specific special project like a mini-book or photo album scrapbook or 3) photos to put in a photo album for my grandkids to look at. It lives at my house. They love to look at photos of things we've done together, and I like to have that handy and accessible for them. But that's easy, and one granddaughter in particular like to help me put the photos into their album.

Hence, we have no need for stoarge binders. Traditional scrapping will now be done out of our category drawers, and we forsee a day when those will be cleared out, either by scrapping them, scanning ones we want to use repeatedly, and putting the rest into cold storage or the circular file. I personally am hoping the use a bunch of my category drawer folders for LOAD layouts.

For us, this is a stage in the Library of Memories journey that makes perfect sense. It will, of couree, not be the thing for everyone.

So, maybe I'm not so crazy for taking FPF & LOAD at the same time. I'm really looking forward to a very productive summer scrapbooking. And as I found out last week, it feels really, really, good to get the stories told and into albums. So while I have to admit to feeling a bit intimidated by load, I'm sure that Lain will help us get there in the best way possible, and I'll feel oh-so-good to put those layouts into my albums.