Why Do I Scrapbook?

I scrapbook for myself.
I scrapbook for my family.
I scrapbook to feed the creative monster that lives inside me.
I scrapbook because if I didn't I would go crazy...literally.
I scrapbook because I love taking pictures.
I scrapbook because I need to work with my hands but I don't like to get dirty.
I scrapbook because I want my daughter to know her family story.
I scrapbook because I love to travel and I want to relive every experience.
I scrapbook because I am an artist.
I scrapbook to capture everyday stuff.
I scrapbook because my husband has a horrible memory.
I scrapbook so that my daughter will have written and photographic proof of just how much we love her.  There are just some feelings that are so overwhelming the only way for me to express them is through scrapbooking.
I scrapbook because I am obsessed with paper.
I scrapbook to never forget.
I scrapbook, therefore, I am!

Finding Photo Connections

Part of Finding Photo Freedom is finding photo connections.  Letting photos "age" in my category drawers so that one day while I'm flipping through them I will be able to see photos in a whole new way.

For the class I'm currently taking, Finding Photo Freedom at Big Picture Classes, the assignments the last couple of weeks have been to look for these connections and then scrap them and decide which Library Album the page will live in.

Here's a look at the connections/pages I've done.

This first one is a new favorite.  I was going through my storage binders and found this cute picture of Bug-A-Boo in a Wonder Woman "Underoos-like" onesie.  My brother had bought it for her and I knew I wanted to do page about it eventually.  I made a mental note of which storage binder it was in and I moved on.

A day or two later I was flipping through my People We Love category drawers and came across a photo of me and my brother from 1979 wearing our super hero Underoos.  At that moment I knew I had to scrap this photo and the photo of Bug-A-Boo I saw a few days earlier.  Here on one layout there were 2 separate connections:  Me wearing Wonder Woman Underoos and 30 years later, my Bug-A-Boo wearing them;  my brother's love of super heroes and Underoos and he was the one that bought Bug-A-Boo her first Underoos.  This will live in our Things We Do:Everyday Life album.

Underoos, Pt. 2

Here is another page that I immediately saw connections with while flipping through my Things We Do:Seasons:Winter category drawers.

The first time it snowed after Bug-A-Boo was born I bundled her up and took her outside so we could get a picture of her first snow.  I took a long-arm-shot of the two of us and then laid her in the snow to make a snow angel.  In my category drawers I found a couple photos from February 1973 (I would have been 11 months old).  My mom had bundled me up and took me out in the snow.  I thought it was neat that these photos are almost the same but taken 34 years apart.  This will live in our All About Us:Just The Girls album.

Snow Babies

The next two pages don't have any "connections".  The assignment was to do a Storage Binder layout (select photos from my active Storage Binders) and scrap them and decide where they will live.

For the first layout I grabbed some photos I had been wanted to scrap for awhile.  When Bug-A-Boo was first learning to crawl she would often crawl after Kady or Cori (our Furry Babies).  One day she while Kady was laying down, Bug-A-Boo got very curious and was petting her bum.  I snapped a few photos because it just looked funny and cute.  A few days later I was listening to the radio and I heard a clip from the movie Dr. Doolittle..."If you really want to get a sense of who somebody really is you gotta sniff their butt."  The clip was Ellen Degeneres as a dog.  It cracked me up!  I wrote it down and put it in my Words file and both the quote and photos have been ready to go since 2007.  I finally got around to scrapping them and I absolutely love the finished product.  This will live in our All About Us:Furry Babies album.

This layout is depicting Mother's Day 2010 when I received my first official "mom jewelry" and my first Tiffany & Co. jewelry.  Both are valued the same in my heart.  This will live in out Things We Do:Holidays and Traditions

Beads & Baubles

I put pockets on the back of the pages to hold the cards I received that year for Mother's Day.

Library of Memories Albums

Yesterday I highlighted my Library of Memories Framework Pages for my four categories:  All About Us, People We Love, Places We Go and Things We Do.

Today I'll show some example of the system in action.

ALL ABOUT US:
Together Forever

All In The Family:  Page with photos of all 3 of us

Together Forever:  pages with photos of just me and Tom

Furry Babies:

 All About Tom:

All About Kelly:

All About Sydney:

PEOPLE WE LOVE:

Grandparents

My maternal and paternal grandparents

Bug-A-Boo with her Grandpa

Extended Family

Friends

PLACES WE GO:
Home

School

Work

Near/Around Town

Aquatic Adventures

Homestead Park

The Columbus Zoo

Far Away

THINGS WE DO:
Everyday Life-This is probably my favorite part of Library of Memories.  Before this system I never would have done pages like this.  I was so stuck in chronology that I was missing the small, everyday stuff.  If I ever did think about doing a page like these I never actually did them because I didn't know where to put them and how to organize them...until now.

Holidays & Traditions

Sports & Recreation

Seasons

Colors

this page was inspired by the Coldplay song, "Yellow"

Isn't this system AWESOME!!  Before discovering Photo Freedom and Library of Memories, more than 1/2 of these pages never would have been thought of, let alone completed.  Now because of this system I can scrap what I'm inspired by and I have a place to put it to be enjoyed by my family.

Library Of Memories Framework Pages

As I have mentioned before I am a follower/practicer of Stacy Julian's Photo Freedom and Library of Memories system.

Today I want to highlight my Library Albums and the framework pages in them.

First a little explanation of what Library Albums are.  I am what Stacy calls an inspired scrapbooker.  I no longer scrapbook in chronological order but by what I am inspired by.  Whether I'm inspired by photos or stories it doesn't matter.  Once a page is done I need somewhere to put and when I found Stacy's Library of Memories system I knew that this was the system for me.

I work with four categories:  All About Us (personality and relationship pictures featuring me and members of my immediate family), People We Love (pictures of extended family, friends and other people I love and admire), Places We Go (pictures of place we've been once or places we frequent in our everyday life), Things We Do (pictures of stuff we do and the stuff we love-from food and fashion to family rituals and traditions with all the mundane in between).

Each album is assigned a color (US-Brown, PEOPLE-Red, PLACES-Green, THINGS-Pink) and has framework pages:

Title Page

Dedication Page-I've chosen a quote for the dedication page of each album.

Within these four major categories are sub-categories and these have section pages:
All About Us
All In The Family (Photos featuring the three of us)
Together Forever (Photos featuring just me and Prince Charming)
Just the Girls (Photos of just me and Bug-A-Boo)
Daddy's Girl (Photos of Bug-A-boo and Prince Charming)
Furry Babies (Photos of Kady, Cori, Josie)
All About Tom (Photos of Prince Charming's life and personality)
All About Kelly (Photos of my life and personality)
All About Sydney (Photos of Bug-A-Boo's life and personality)

People We Love
Grandparents (Photos of us with our Grandparents)
Extended Family (Photos of extended family members)
Friends (Photos with friends)

Places We Go
Home (Photos of the homes we grew up in and our current home)
School (Photos of our school life)
Near/Around Town (Photos of places we go near home, ie. The Zoo, The Park)
Far Away (Photos of places we go far away, ie.  Disney World, New York, Europe)

Things We Do
Everyday Life
Sports & Recreation
Seasons
MOMS Club
Holidays & Traditions

In addition to my Library Albums I also have a Library Album for Birthday Celebrations only.

I love my Library Albums!  It makes everything so much easier.  Once a page is finished I determine the best place for it and that Album becomes it's home.  I'll post some examples tomorrow.