if you have multiple children *and* you print layouts....

[Emmy]

1. do you put all layouts you do in one album? or split by child?


2. do you scrap different versions of one event for each kid or do you do just one layout that represents - say the pumpkin patch visit - for everyone?


I realize that 90% of you will respond with answers that are akin to blah blah blah I scrap what I want when I want and don't worry about it...but I'm looking for some regular traditional scrappers to give me some ideas on how they handle these issues.

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My answers:

I tend to scrap a lot of individual pages for my kids when they are little - as they get older the number of those decreases cause let's face - I"m not getting out the camera everytime my near 9 year old spreads toys out on the floor. I have scrapped different versions of the same event particularly if it was a big deal to the kids or something I enjoy scrapping (anything Fall!) but I by no means scrap different versions of everything. Sometimes I'll have photos of the kids doing something (say swimming) and the photos of 3 out of the 4 boys are just average but 1 kids has awesome pics - then he usually gets a fun layout and the rest of the pics go on a "family page" kind of layout (cough cough you know the kind that don't get posted ). My kids have a desire for their own little set of albums with all the pages about themselves - but I don't really have the budget to print separate albums for each of them so right now I print everything once and put it in the same album which is a family book. (note: I don't print every version then of the same event - I only print the family book version).

Lately I'm finding myself getting further and further behind with it all and wondering if I shoudln't change my method and maybe do less pages for each individual kid or stop the family book and just put my photos in slip in albums. So - I'm just looking for info on how others do it.

[Darcy Baldwin]

I scrap 1 family album. Later in life, when I'm dead and they didn't decide to just toss the albums, they can fight amongst themselves about which ones they keep.

[ditzyscrap]

Each of my kids have their own album. If there's a layout with both kids in it, it gets printed twice and put in each of their books (I don't rescrap the photos for each kid).

[beckyritchie04]

I have been wondering about this myself. We are about to add a new little baby into our family so I was also curious how everyone handles this.

[Paula]

1. do you put all layouts you do in one album? or split by child?
Each of my kids have their own albums. If the LO has more than one kid, then I print it for each album. That's the beauty of digi! LOL


2. do you scrap different versions of one event for each kid or do you do just one layout that represents - say the pumpkin patch visit - for everyone?
I scrap different LOs if there are different photos. Sometimes I'll have a great group shot and then individual photos at the same event. So, I'll scrap the group photo and then put their own individual photos on the LO. =)

[Emmy]

darcy - you're a digi scrapper, they can print more copies if they want! Cause we both know they are going to fight over your books - not toss them!

bree - do you have a family book as well or only books for each kid? I think where I might have gone astray 9 years ago was thinking I'd do a family book.....oh to turn back time...there's like no exit strategy for this hobby!

paula - my individual layouts for the kids are similar - I'll do a "master layout" and then switch out photos of the kids and do individual journaling for them.

[iJenny]

I have two boys and they each have their own albums with their own pages. For example, my oldest son's kindergarten graduation LO isn't in his little brother's album. If there is an event that I scrap for the both of them (like a vacation or holiday, etc) then I just put the page in both of their albums.

eta: I'm about half-half on scrapping the same page for each child. Sometimes I do if the photos are mostly of the whole family participating. But if there are several shots of one of the boys, I'll make a LO with their photos in it rather than his brothers. kwim?

[Emmy]

ANOTHER QUESTION: if you print for individual kids album are you printing 8x8 or 12x12? I could fathom affording 8x8 individual albums for each kid but at 12x12 it's hopeless.....too much $ for me I think.

Should I have had less children??????

[Kara]

I have two kids. Up until the end of my second son's first year, I did separate albums for them, but now I just do family albums. Once this baby is born, I'll probably just stick with family albums.

[iJenny]

I only print 8x8. I think they're a much more managable size and I like them more. Plus, like you said, 12x12 is just too expensive!!

[Darcy Baldwin]

Originally Posted by Emmy

darcy - you're a digi scrapper, they can print more copies if they want! Cause we both know they are going to fight over your books - not toss them!

True - but it holds for the paper albums as well. I did a family album. They'll have to separate them out when I'm dead.

I also print 8x8.

[mrsmbm]

I have two kids. Each one gets an individual book for just the first year of her life. It's 12x12. The pages are only about milestones or cute stories that are just about them. Disneyland trips or the like that deal with the whole family and occur in the first year of her life goes in the yearly family album.

Each year I print off a family album. In there are individualized pages for each girl, family trips, traditions, etc.

My plan is to save all these jpg files and print off their own copies of the albums to give to them as wedding gifts. The baby books are mostly paper scrapped, and I'm not going to rescrap them digitally any time soon, so I have no plans of giving those up until I'm dead and gone! But I hope that each girl will get their own copy of the album someday.

ETA: My yearly family albums are 8x8. I quickly discovered that printing digi pages at 12x12 are not how I envisioned them as I created them. They are way too huge. 10x10 would be ideal, but I'm starting to love how small these books are on my shelf, next to my ginormous 12x12 books!

[ChristyHC]

I am doing first year books for each of my kids individually. And I also do a family album for each year.

[Sarah8914]

We have a family album with all layouts and then each kid has their own. If both kids are in the layout (or all 3 now) they will all get that layout in their book!

[maryinaz]

I have 4 boys - they all have their own albums. They are all 12x12 - I've invested too much paper scrapping in that size to change it now with digi, so I stick with that size.

I do not do a family album - that just doesn't work in my brain. However, family layouts either get created more than once (rarely happened with paper scrapping), or printed more than once (much easier with digi!).

I do plan on doing a book with the project 365 layouts (of which I'm behind on) once the year is done, and will print that at least twice because my little guys are both interested in those.

[mlewis]

Originally Posted by Darcy Baldwin

I scrap 1 family album. Later in life, when I'm dead and they didn't decide to just toss the albums, they can fight amongst themselves about which ones they keep.

What she said!

[mummytothree]

1. do you put all layouts you do in one album? or split by child?

I have 4 children (soon to be 5 so I'll add another album) and they each have their own album. When I scrap a page with only that child in it...it goes in their book. Even if it's at a family event or holiday. I'm not a chronological scrapper so it doesn't matter to me in there is an Easter LO from 3 years ago beside a Christmas Lo from 2 weeks ago.


2. do you scrap different versions of one event for each kid or do you do just one layout that represents - say the pumpkin patch visit - for everyone?

If it is only a picture of a single child it goes in "their" book. If it has more then one child on the LO it goes in the family book. Again I'm not a chronological scrapper so this works for me!!

Just for reference I have [album wise]
1. Oldest DD
2. Youngest DD
3. Oldest DS
4. Youngest DS
5. Baby #5
6. Mommy & Daddy combines (for LO's that are only about us individually or as a couple)
7. Family

I ETA: I scrap 12x12 but always print 8X8!!!

[Julie Billingsley]

I just recently started thinking about this as well because my oldest son is 17 and isn't *that* far off from being on his own with a wife and kids. Reasonably, that could be just 10 years from now. So I'm thinking that I'll have to start printing 2-3 of each layout so I will have one for me and one for the kid(s).

[DawnMarch]

my individual layouts for the kids are similar - I'll do a "master layout" and then switch out photos of the kids and do individual journaling for them.

This is exactly what I do. Each kid has their own albums and I don't do a family album. But, I've beem doing more generic "master layouts" than individualized ones lately which I just put in both of the books, so maybe I should actually switch to just doing a family album and printing them each a copy! That would save time!

[KirstieGai]

Each of my 3 kids have their own album. If I scrap a photo that has each of them on it I put a copy in each album. If I have photos of them individually but at the same event I sometimes do one LO and just add each of their photos in saving each time (they have the same LO but with their own photo), as a time saver.

[mnm_y2]

I've got ALL my printed layouts out of my albums because I've been figuring out what I want to do with them. I had been doing yearly family ones --- and got some new 3ring albums --- but haven't made over the switch yet. My goal (I think) is to have

1. A Family Book that includes all my layouts in the 3 ring binders
2. An 8x8 photobook (artscow) of the birthdays for the year


Other photobooks I've printed from either Shutterfly or Artscow:
2006 Family Reunion (1 day event)
2005 Trip to Mexico (3 days)
2006/2007 trip to Mexico (2 weeks)
2008 First trip to the zoo (1 day event)
Baby's first Year (DS2)
Preschool Year for my oldest son
AAM layouts 2008 (I did a 40 day challenge last year and have tons of LOs)

In progress
I want to do birthday books for each year (since 2005..)
DS1's First Year book (he's six!)
DS3's first year book (six months old now)
A six flags book (from TWO years ago!!!)
Project 365 book for 2009
DS1's Kindergarten
DS3's Preschool book
Soccer Album (both boys)

and well... just catching up my older years. ive still got some missing pages from 2005 and 2006 that i need to work on.

[SeattleSheri]

So far, I do one album per year that includes my favorite pages, regardless of who is in the photos. I try to put them in chronological order but it doesn't always happen that way. I print out four 12x12 books. One to keep and one for each set of ILs. Sometimes, I print individual pages too (usually 8x8).

[ditzyscrap]

Originally Posted by Emmy

bree - do you have a family book as well or only books for each kid? I think where I might have gone astray 9 years ago was thinking I'd do a family book.....oh to turn back time...there's like no exit strategy for this hobby!

I do have a "family" album but it's mostly for the layouts of us as a family. It's kinda hard to explain my system...lol...

I've got a family album which is for things we do as a family
The kids each have an album which is layouts about them (but as I said before, if it's a layout that has both kids in it, it gets printed 2x)
I have 3 Disney albums - one for the family and one for each kid (personalized layouts - meeting characters, etc)
There are a couple of "family vacation" albums which are of our trips we take with my side of the family - anything from those trips just goes into that
And then I've got an album of layouts of my nieces and nephews - just cute pics that I wanted to scrap of them, even if I wasn't there for the events

I print 8x8 and have like a million albums that I got for relatively cheap to fill up.

[Stacey42]

I'm so sporadic at printing that simply the idea of having albums is a stretch for me

Each of the boys has a set of layouts of their first year. I intend at some point to get them printed for each of them.

I have an album I put pages in as I print them. It's a family album I suppose. I print whatever layouts catch my eye when I have some spare cash & they are arranged chronologically.

I have a book of 100 layouts done chronologically of the boys from DS1's birth until last September. I did that for my dad's 70th birthday & had a copy made for myself.

I also have my Journal Your Christmas layouts in a book.

The only thing I really consider is getting a more or less even number of layouts done for each of the boys. I'm pretty random about events & chronology when I scrap. We'll go to the pumpkin patch & I'll fairly quickly do one layout of it, probably with both boys in it. Then sometime later (maybe even a year or more) I'll decide to scrap one of the photos with just DS1 in it, then I may or may not get around to doing one with DS2. But I'll maybe do a 4th of July layout with just DS2. I keep an eye on my most recent layouts & try to keep them balanced.

They have their own photo albums, which right now they seem to prefer to my layouts so I'm in no rush to print them regularly.

[pbumbaca]

I still paper scrap so I don't print my digi pages but in my traditional albums here's what I do:

I have a family album and an album for each boy that goes in chronological order. I dont scrap that way but I do order them chronologically. I may have the same photo in each album if I really like the photo. What I am planning is letting each boy take their own albums with them when they move out and the family albums will stay with me until I'm gone and then they can do what they want with them. I also have a wedding album in progress that I just when I was married 20 years and a girlfriends album of the many trips I've taken to visit friends, etc.

I am thinking of starting to print some digi pages since I haven't paper scrapped as much as I used to and I'll follow the same format except they will be 8x8 albums vs. 12x12 that my paper albums are.