Those Unfinished Scrapbook Albums

6 years. SIX WHOLE YEARS and I've finally finished an album that has become the bane of my scrapbooking existence. It actually became a joke between my scrapping friends and I when we would get together to scrap... oh you are working on "that" album again, huh? Of course that was back when it took 2 hours per layout. I would be so annoyed, wanting to work on newer albums and pages, but being determined to get the album "done". It really did take the fun out of scrapbooking.

Once I started Project Life, I mentally put my older albums on a back burner because I didn't know what to do with them and almost all of them were only half finished. The prospect of finishing them "one day" was there.. but never actually happened.

Well, this week, nesting has taken FULL EFFECT. I have reorganized everything, and I decided to tackle that album, but do it project life style! 

The album in question? My bachelorette weekend. Several of my friends and I went to Downtown Disney in Orlando, where we shopped, laughed and at night, went to Pleasure Island, which was a safe way to "bar hop". We had a great time, and I really want to preserve all the fun we had- which is why I was hellbent on finishing the album. 

I will warn you, the photos you are about to see contain a bunch of ladies drinking adult beverages, laughing at stupid things, and making goofy faces. View them at your own risk :)

I also decided to take them out of the album and put them into my 2007 family album. This will also eventually be a project life type of album, but for now, it holds memorbilia from the year as I really don't have any photos printed for it yet!

Below are some of the beginning pages done the "old way". There are a bunch more, but you get the idea. It's AMAZING how my style has changed. I don't love these pages but I wouldn't change them for anything :)

And HERE is where things basically stopped:

So as you can see, I put the photos and background paper in, but never quite got to the last few layouts. I had big plans for some of them, actually, but I never had the time or motivation. 


So I started on one of the pages. The first lesson in integrating old with new? The first page (left side) has to be the OLD style- so I pulled out my old scrapping supplies and went to town. I had already pre cut several photos with good intentions, so now all I needed to do was adhere!

BTW, don't mind the random crappy image quality. I'm still learning how to use my Canon 7D and it's TOTALLY operator error.

Step 1: Layout ALL YOUR photos to see what you have!

Used the 6x6 pages, and LOVE them!

A very easy, and FINISHED page! Nothing fancy, but DONE!

Okay, so now I can continue the Project Life style.. using inserts instead of full 12x12 layouts! So I went to the next page, started to layout my photos to see what I had, then hit a roadblock...

I had WAY too many pictures! This was one of the biggest troubles I had with traditional scrapbooking. I would try to cram a million photos into one layout. So, I started thinking and decided the best way to handle ALL these photos? INSERTS :) I use inserts ALL THE TIME with my current albums, why not here? So the "layout" will be full 12x12 pages, although not traditional layouts. And the insert can fit a TON of photos, but is smaller than 12x12 so it fits snugly in between the two 12x12 pages. 

Left 12x12 page is Becky Higgins design E. The middle (has a sticky note on it) is Becky Higgins design G (one of my FAVORITE designs)

The right side is a We R Memory Keeper page. I've left a blank space for journaling. 

There. DONE. Why have I waited SOOOO long to get this album done?

On to the next. I had big plans for the next page. One of the things we did was try to get me to take a photo with as many guys as possible. It was fun, and I wanted to make this big layout with all the boys.. well that never happened. What I DID do, was use design J as an insert, and you know what? I like it better than the original idea. WAY less work, and still gets all the photos in there. I love the versitility of the project life way of scrapping. The outcome may not be exactly the same, but it works and takes a FRACTION of the time. 

Used Becky Higgins Design J for the first time, which worked perfectly!

On to the next! 

Laying out the photos

Both are We R Memory Keeper pages. I was glad to use them up! Again, blank area for journaling!

AND.... on to the next and LAST page! HOLY COW, is that possible? 

Again, I layed out the photos to see which plastic I would use. 

Left and right are both We R Memory keeper pages. I will be journaling in the blank areas :)

And I'm done....?

How is that possible?? I think total time, start to finish was maybe an hour and a half, and that included food breaks, potty breaks, taking photos, and getting some old scrapbooking stuff out (and putting it away).

THIS is why I love project life. Are the above pages my most favorite work? No. Are they done and somewhat cute? YES! Can my friends and family look through the album and get an idea of the memories created? YES! Can I take a big breath in and shout "I'M FINALLY DONE WITH THAT ALBUM!!!" yes :) Can I choose NOT to use pink and black pages in an album again? Oh yes!

For those who are just thinking about project life, and are still debating it, think about the time it takes you to do one layout. Now think about all those unfinished albums and count roughly how many layouts you need to finish. Now multiply them. For me, 2 hours per layout was a safe average. That meant in an 8 hour session, I got 4 layouts done. AND.. I had to pull ALL my stuff out and really make a day of it. I don't know how many project life layouts I can do in eight hours, but what I can tell you is that it excites me to know that it's a bunch. 

Take a look at your older albums and see what you can do to get them finished!

Happy scrapping :)