My first Photo Album Scrapbook

Today is the last day of school and the summer is about to start (even if the weather isn't cooperating).  I thought I would take a break from my 28 Days of Sketches class (I'm still trying to catch up) and share my first Photo Album Scrapbook (PAS).

The first time I had ever seen a PAS was while I was reading the second volume of my Scrapbooking Bible, "Photo Freedom" by Stacy Julian.  She had used a standard 2-up photo album for a trip she had taken to London, England.  I remember reading the first page of the section and thinking, "I could never do that.  Especially, not for a trip to London.  My trips to Ireland and Italy required three 12x12 albums each."  

Then I turned the page and saw some examples of her London PAS.  It blew my mind.

This is not what I was expecting to see.  This was fun and creative and really easy and pretty.  I read on to learn what this amazing concept was all about.  Stacy said,  

"For some reason, most of us have the idea that using a photo album to store and share photos is a cop out, like it's a lesser form of scrapbooking because it doesn't require as much time or creativity as making layouts.  Wrong!  Not only are photo albums OK to use, they can become your best friend.  If you let them, photo albums can relieve you of the burden of hundreds of pictures that you really don't want to use on layouts - and they can help you easily document your memories during times when life is especially demanding.  If you're feeling burdened by hundreds of baby pictures of your now 12-year-old, compile them into a photo album scrapbook, and enjoy the wonderful feeling of losing that baby weight!"

Isn't she wonderful!!  I was one of those people.  Not any more!!  I decided right then that I was going to embrace this idea of Photo Album Scrapbooking and I was going to try one.  I searched out more information and examples and found a wonderful entry on Stacy's blog.

I chose to use our vacation to Lexington, MI as my first PAS.  I was nervous but excited to start this new creative challenge.

I headed to Target to first purchase my album which I figured would help determine the color scheme for the book.

After finding awonderful green album with it's striking blue elastic closure it was time to gather my patterned paper, cardstock and embellishments.  One of the most awesome parts about this is that I was able to shop my own supplies.  All total with the cost of having the photos printed,  the album itself and some adhesive I think the whole project cost around $15.00.

Obviously most of my supplies were lake themed.  Lots of blue, green, white, yellow and water.

I quickly learned that it was okay to cut photos and use patterned paper as embellishments.

Dealing with vertical photos was interesting but I realized that it was okay to split them.  It looked pretty cool actually.

Sometimes it was just as effective and cool looking if a divider only had paper in it.

I loved working on this PAS.  It was so much fun and easy and freeing!!  I'll admit I was skeptical and when I started it was extremely challenging to literally change the way I feel and design my scrapbooks but this was amazing.  I plan on doing more albums in this style.

I have hundreds of photos from a trip to California a couple of years ago and I plan on doing a PAS only in 12x12 format using divided page protectors.  Can't wait to start that project!