Saturday, August 7, 2010

my albums

Yesterday, my friend Brenda blogged about her new album shelves...gorgeous! And she asked to see how the rest of us do it, so here's my album (dis)organization:

Once upon a time I scrapped exclusively 8 1/2 x 11. Those pages are all in lovely binder albums under our TV cabinet. Not much to look at right now & I need to re-do those.

Then, in the late summer of 2003, I decided that I really liked the 12x12 format much better. And manufacturers were finally making mostly 12x12 sheets of paper (prior to then, most were 8 1/2 x 11). So I went and bought a navy blue post bound album from Making Memories. It bit the dust a few years ago. Once I filled that up, Chatterbox came out with the pretty faux-suede albums seen below (in red, sage, & lavendar). I thought (and still do) that they were so pretty! And they've got a nice 4x4 window on the front to label them. However, no label on the spine. And they no longer make them.


The albums above are 2003-04, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008.

Sometime in 2008-ish I picked up the We R Memory Keepers post-bound album in nutmeg. But shortly after I got it, I realized that I needed to switch back to the binder-style. It's just so much easier for me since I don't necessarily scrap chronologically, but I want my albums chronological. With a binder style I can easily swap pages in & out (like when I decided that I was going to do my Christmas layouts all in an album of their own).


When I first made the switch to binders, I still wanted the classic brown nutmeg look for all my albums. Then I saw this on Becky Higgins' blog & decided I really wanted red albums for our family. So I started buying the red ones (which I *love*). So far I've bought three in red. The kiwi green album seen above in my Week in the Life album (which I'll get back to someday to show you how I've finished it!). The large black album in my Project LIFE album, and next to it is my new black family album. Yep, I've changed colors again!

So here's my new thinking: black for family, red for Christmas, and fun random colors for fun random albums. Slowly I'll be replacing my albums, which has been the plan for awhile. I don't like how they look all mish-mosh. And as much as I love the colored albums (We R Memory Keepers is coming out with aqua! finally!), I want to know that I can buy a matching album 10, 20, 30 years from now. It may not be "exactly" the same, but at least it'll be the same color. Plus, I can buy the black albums locally, with a coupon, so they're only about $20 with tax.


Here are some other albums. Starting on the far left: Christmas 2000-04 (a dark plaid KI memories), Alpha Phi, portaits from my childhood, the baby book my mom re-did for me, Brandon's baby album (the one I haven't cut the spine for so the protectors show!), Abbie's baby book, and our current Christmas album. I haven't quite figured out what colors I'm changing the kids too. I really like some of the new WRMK album colors! But we'll see...

As for the labels on the spines, I did my version of a label I saw on Ali Edwards' blog.

I used the font Century Gothic for the "c" (our family's monogram) and the years, and the CK Ali's Handwriting font for the script. I did these for each album so at least the spines match! Some albums don't have them in yet because I've been having a very difficult time getting the blank label out!

So that's my album "disorganization". Someday, when it's all nice & coordinated, I'll share again :)

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for sharing! I am in love with WRM albums too. And I love the spines that you have created!

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