Hello there! I’m Becky Higgins, contributing editor to Creating Keepsakes and lifetime family historian. Chances are, if you’re reading this you’re the family historian too. Happy to be sharing a bit of a solution-based idea with you today.
Problem: So many pictures, so little time. (Why do I have the feeling you relate to this?)
Solution: Summarize!
Details: With 3 kids and 4 ongoing albums series to keep up with (the fourth being the family albums) … I look for ways to be realistic in my approach to scrapbooking instead of throwing in the towel and giving up. Summarizing an entire season on one layout totally speaks my language. This approach keeps the hobby manageable for me, instead of overwhelming.
I’d like to share layout that I created for both of my kids’ albums. It’s a summary of last summer (our 3rd wasn’t born yet, hence just 2 layouts) and what you’ll notice is that they’re pretty much the same.
Here’s the layout in Porter’s album:
And here’s the layout in Claire’s album:
Summer ’08. Pages by Becky Higgins. Supplies Textured cardstock: Bazzill Basics; Letter stickers and patterned paper: American Crafts; Computer font: Gill Sans, downloaded on the Internet; Digital frame: Downloaded from Katie Pertiet on www.designerdigitals.com.
I saved myself a lot of time in these ways:
- The right page is completely digital. In Adobe Photoshop, I created a 12 x 12 canvas. I then resized a dozen favorite pictures from that summer – all 4″ x 3″. Next, I dragged & dropped, placing them all on the larger canvas. I added captions (just click on the “T” icon to add text) and finally, a simple digital frame over my favorite picture. I saved this file as a jpg and printed it at Costco, just as I would any other picture. Just bigger.
- I used the very same file, but replaced some of the pictures of Porter with pictures of Claire for her version of the layout. It took only a few minutes to make a second version, or rather, a second layout.
- The left page is pretty similar, only a couple small changes. But I used the same patterned paper (cutting a couple strips at the same time) and did the journaling at the same time so that I only had to tweak the text a little, to work for each of their layouts.
As you go about your summer, taking all those vacation and lazy-day pictures that you love to take, don’t feel overwhelmed thinking that you really have to “scrapbook it all”. Because you don’t. You can summarize it in a layout and still accomplish a great deal.
Then, copy the layout for another kids’ album.
I’m always looking for new time savers. What are some of your summertime shortcuts?
Becky Higgins, Contributing Editor
Check out Becky’s blog for more creative album inspirartion (and some great recipes!)
So then what do you do with the gillions of other very cute pictures. I have 6 children and now 22 grandchildren and am running out of spae to put up frames and as you say, overwhelmed with wanting to scrapbook all the cute faces.
I *love* recap layouts!!! Makes life so much easier. Then you don’t have to worry about scrapping every single picture. Thanks for the inspiration!!
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Awesome stuff, Becky! Always enjoy your work
When I was intially getting into scrapbooking years ago,Becky really inspired me to challenge myself in terms of thinking outside the box in terms of being creative. I’m still a fan but her work has become a litte dull, colors flat, layouts the same. Bring the old becky back and brighten up the blog please…..you are way more inspirationable than your blog projects – please go to anna maria horner’s or the purl bee’s blog for color!!
Becky,
I am Denette’s sister. I did not know if you are still doing this or not, but I love Denettes binders she got from you, are you still able to get them at all? Let me know what you think
Thank you
Danaca
I wish I had Becky in my home for a month – I started taking pictures in high school 45 years ago and have photos in boxes for the last (almost) 50 years. The one thing I have actually done is (finally) put the pictures in some sort of order by event and years. They are stored in “safe” containers but just lying there in boxes “waiting expectantly” to be scrapbooked. I also have about 100,000 digital photos stored on my computer. I have 12 grandchildren, elderly parents and work from my home so my time is very limited. I need a “scrapbook good fairy” to live with me – Becky does a wonderful job and I love her creations and instructions – if she could only provide me with some “major time to scrapbook” in my busy days. Thanks for your helpful hints.