Take a peek at how I organize my scrapbooks & albums

As I mentioned before, I am currently taking Stacy Julian's online Library of Memories class at the Big Picture Scrapbooking site. I totally love her view of scrapbooking and it's freed me from the guilt of feeling behind in keeping up to date.

Since I started scrapbooking using the Creative Memories approach (back in 1996/1997), I have a bunch of scrapbooks that are chronologically organized by year. I also have some that are organized by theme such as school, portraits, vacations, and Christmas. I have condensed all of these into about 25 scrapbooks.



I have mostly 12" x 12" scrapbooks but also 12" x 15", 8" x 10", 8 1/2" x 11", 5" x 7", and some specialty mini albums. I wanted to imprint each Creative Memories album spine with the year and/or subject like this
but after doing some research on the internet, the best price I found was $7 a spine multiplied by about 25 albums and that was more than I wanted to spend. So, I found an alternative.

I lifted this idea from some ladies on the Library of Memories class board. I used a Stampin' Up! scallop punch for the base, a Creative Memories large circle punch for the center, punched and set eyelets at the top and bottom of each tag, using my Crop-A-Dile, threaded 1/4" ribbon through the spine, and tied it in a bow. Using my American Crafts photo marker, I hand wrote the titles on each tag. I like this system because it's easy, very do-able, and cheap. I was able to use my paper scraps to create all of the tags.

The scrapbooks you've just seen are all completed and reside in a bookcase in my family room. I also have some scrapbooks in progress in my studio.

These are 6" x 6" albums that will be given as gifts. Most of them are mini school albums destined to go to grandparents and godparents.


Then there are some miscellaneous theme albums and one chron album.


And, finally there are my Library of Memories albums which are all organized by topics and color coded as taught in the class. Currently, I'm using 8" x 8" We R Memory Keepers post-bound linen scrapbooks.


Each topic group will share the same color scrapbook. For example, all of the pictures about my immediate family will go into black albums and labeled "All About Us". Within each album are section title pages for each of my family members and a title page for layouts that include two or more of us. So, there is a section with just pages that focus on me and another section with photos that focus on our pet and so on. As a section grows and gets too large to fit in this particular album, I'll create a new black album to house just that one section. The new black album will be have the title of the section such as "Pets".

I also changed the way I organized my photos, based upon the Library of Memories class. Stacy Julian has a two-part system that feeds into the scrapbooks. The first part consists of traditional photo-sleeve albums that are organized by yearly seasons. So, you would have all of your Spring 2008 photos in one album, Summer 2008 photos in another album, etc.
Because Winter rolls over into the next year, I decided to split my albums into quarters instead of seasons. For example, one album will have Jan - Mar 2008. Then the next album will have Apr - Jun 2008, etc. Stacy has so many pictures per season that one album is needed to hold one season. However, that's not the case for me. I have several years housed in one book. I have Jan - Mar 2000, 2001, 2006, 2007, and 2008 in one album with each year marked and divided within. Also, to make it easier to put each album back after using it, all of the albums are numbered sequentially as well.


I wanted to make some cute tag labels to go on the spines of my photo albums (like the ones on my completed scrapbooks.) I didn't want to go with the same scallop tag so I created these tagswhich are made of scrap white chipboard, covered with My Mind's Eye pattern paper, topped with chipboard numbers that were painted with Making Memories paint and then sealed with Stampin' Up! Crystal Effects glaze.


The Crystal Effects makes the chipboard numbers look like glass.


I did all of this work but the tags don't fit on the spines well. So, I've got to think about how to solve this problem.


The second part of the photo system cosists of drawers of photos filed by topics which match the broad topics of the albums. I have my categories in JetMax drawer cubes.
JetMax makes a cube that has four drawers in one. These were on clearance at Target and they were all sold out by the time I decided to get one. So, instead I have these that have two drawers and a large basket.

Here's a look inside the "Things We Do"drawer which is further subdivided.

I still need to move the rest of my pictures either into the albums or drawers. The rest of my loose photos are in these four boxes (by Creative Memories and other companies).
And, finally I have a bunch of negatives that I need to sort and file.You've seen how I store my scrapbooks and photos. In a future post, I'll show you how I store my supplies.