Aluminum Foiled: Scrappin' it Up!

For some reason, I feel a lot of pressure to scrapbook our family life. I feel like it's one of the qualifications of motherhood. I know it's kind of crazy: it's just one of my things. Some people feel qualified as a mother/wife/woman via their apple pie recipe. Family scrapbooks are my apple pie. For me, failing at scrapbooks=failing at motherhood/wifery/womanhood. Weird. I know.

But it was getting sort of silly, because not only do I put together a family scrapbook, I also complete a scrapbook for each child to take with them when they leave the nest. So that was four nearly identical pages of Christmas 2005, you know? Crazy.

Once everything went digital it finally made sense to digitally create one page and print it four (now five) times. I found some templates I like (Kate Pertiet designed them) and I drag and resize all over Photoshop. They end up looking something like the image above. Then I print the whole page on photo paper at Costco. They are nice and sharp and I believe that the photo paper will lend itself to the longevity I'm after.

I've always used 8 1/2 x 11 size because I'm convinced that one day the 12 x 12 sheet protectors will disappear. (Probably not. I'm just crazy like that.) And I have a dozen of these cloth covered three-ring binders waiting to be filled. I bought them all when American Crafts was having a great sale. All black. I like them to match. Crazy. Yes. I know.

So that's what I've been up to these days. I'm catching up (just finished 2009!), and I'm feeling especially driven because I have a stack of gorgeous Jonah photos that I want to keep forever.

Since I thought I'd never do a "scrapbooking" post and here we are in the middle of it, I'll just throw in a couple of extra tips that I've found helpful. Stop reading now if you're exhausted already.

1) Don't scrapbook too quickly. It may seem counter-intuitive, but when I immediately scrapbook an event, I tend to include far too much detail. Stuff that no one will care to read in 20 years. I usually scrapbook about a year at a time, which helps give perspective and balance to the process. I have a box in the basement where I throw all the stuff I'm planning to keep or scrapbook. When the mood strikes, I organize it all, pair it with photos and slip it into the sheet protectors. This usually takes a couple of weeks, when I'm working on it as time permits.

2) If you don't print the photo, it doesn't exist. This whole digital photo revolution is outstanding. But if you don't have a hard copy of that great shot, it's going to disappear into the hard-drive/USB/compatability swamp. I have hopes that the cloud will solve this question, but really, what happens when the electricity goes out?

Even if you're not going to stick it in a scrapbook, print that photo one way or another. I have friends who keep their photos in photo boxes organized by year. I think that is a good enough system on it's own. But you must print it. Just ask all those grandma's converting family movies from VHS to CD so they can upload it to YouTube. Print the hard copy or it will disappear.

3) Do NOT, under any circumstances, keep all of the school work or artwork your children bring home. Even when it's "very special" to them. I like to hang everything on the back of our pantry door, then take a snapshot of the whole door when it's full. Then throw it all away. You can see an example of this non-sentimental documentation above: the bottom photo of Thanksgiving artwork. I didn't keep that stuff, for crying out loud, but we can still look at it and smile.

I do keep a few pieces of art, a few special items of clothing, and one or two tropies, all in a 55 L Rubbermaid box designated for each child. My goal is that each kid will have one box for birth through elementary school and one box for junior high/high school. Absolutely no science projects, large Reflections artwork, or 3D artwork is kept (I hate those cabins and castles we have to build: I take a photo and throw it in the trash). Don't even think about keeping all their uniforms or t-shirts. Stop yourself now.

Oh, and some good news. Your kid's output rate will slow considerably around 5th grade. They'll stop bringing home piles and piles of "art" every week. So don't worry so much if their box is almost full by 4th grade. The last few years of elementary school will be more about papers and photos anyway.

4) Every once in a while, print a set of iconic photos in black and white. Who knows how your photos will hold up for 50 or 100 years: have a version in black and white here and there to hedge your bet. Keep the black and white copies near your color copies. Which leads me to my final, most useful tip. Any extra prints of photos or programs or tickets that don't make it onto the scrapbook page can easily be slipped into the sheet protector, behind the page itself. It's a nice way to keep track of duplicate photos that you might want to use for another project. This has been a great way to keep organized over the years: I don't have extra keepsake items floating around. They are in the scrapbook or in the garbage.

One final thought. I've worried at times that the scrapbooking I do is completely insane. I imagine myself flipping through dozens and dozens of books as a senile old woman, wondering why I thought I cared about these photos, or those parties, or that family hike. But I have found that the most satisfying benefit of scrapbooking is taking place right now! My kids absolutely adore looking through our books. It has been a treasure to see photos of Lucas looking just like Jonah. They light up when we see old friends and cousins. These pictures lend heart to our family stories and myths. What could be more sane?

Source: http://aluminumfoiled.blogspot.com/2012/02/scrappin-it-up.html

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