Suggestions for album organization

[jcb5600]

Hi everyone!

For years, I've organized my scrapbooking pages by my daughter's age (she's now 7). As our only child, 99.9% of my pages revolved around her so it just seemed easiest to have a 1 year old album, 2 yr old album, 3 yr old album, etc. Now we have been surprised with another child, Cooper, who was born last month.

So my question is how do you organize your albums, especially if you have multiple children? My daughter has albums devoted entirely to her and I would never want my son to feel left out. If you organize by calendar year (Jan-Dec) is a momentous event like a child's birth simply part of that year's album or do you give it a special album?

Thanks!

[Nixenkind]

I make chronological albums which feature ALL kids (I have four). For monumental events with many photos I'm doing separate albums (I did that for pregnancy/birth-albums). I also do separate albums for our vacations.

[Darcy Baldwin]

I organize by date, and that does mean there are a lot of pages dedicated to our first child because he was born first, but that was our life at the time. We don't do separate baby albums, etc. We're one big happy family, and that is how our life evolved, and it's reflected in our scrapbooks that way. When I die, they can separate out the pages to make their own baby books, etc., but until then, the scrapbooks are all mine, done the way I want!

[NeverendingJen]

I don't have children, but we do by year. I just chronologically do things.

When we have children, I plan on doing each of them an album for my pregnancy through their first birthday, but some of the layouts will duplicate with our family album. After that they will just get a few yearly spreads added to their individual books(again, duplicated from the family album). When I'm dead, they can fight over the albums if they want them.

[KateD]

Originally Posted by Darcy Baldwin

I organize by date, and that does mean there are a lot of pages dedicated to our first child because he was born first, but that was our life at the time. We don't do separate baby albums, etc. We're one big happy family, and that is how our life evolved, and it's reflected in our scrapbooks that way. When I die, they can separate out the pages to make their own baby books, etc., but until then, the scrapbooks are all mine, done the way I want!

^^^

I love this, Darcy! I started out making yearly family albums with additional albums (mostly just planned) for both kids. Now I don't worry about the kids' albums anymore, I have Project Life albums and 12x12 pages I've made in yearly albums. I keep thinking about making a baby album for my kids (because every kid should have one, right?), but I haven't ever followed through and probably won't. Everything will be in the family albums anyway. Now that my boys are older (12 and 14) they've shown some interest in putting together their own album with pictures of their friends. I'd be ecstatic if they do. If they don't, the memories will still (mostly) be captured in our other albums.

I have the same feeling as Darcy: we're all part of a happy, crazy family and that's the context I prefer to record our memories.

[jacinda]

If I do a page specifically about Brooke, then it goes into her album. Likewise with Elisa. If I do a family page, or a page with both of them in it, then a copy goes into each of their albums.

[staciahall]

I used a kind of modified Library of Memories system. We have all about us albums (one for my daughter, one for my son, and one for me). My daughter has 7 plus her ballet album, my son has 6 plus his 4 scouting albums, I have two. We also have places we go for travel (3 of them plus separate trip mini albums), people we love and things we do and 2 Christmas albums. I do mini albums now for each holiday season.

If I actually do a layout about their relationship with each other, I'll print two. Or it goes in my album because it's from my point of view reveling in their relationship with each other. It all seems to work for me.

[glumirk]

Mine just all go together. Making individual albums stresses me out, so I just scrap what I want to scrap (not chronologically) and then when I print they all go in my scrapbook and I sort them into chronological. If the kids want to split them, then my files will all be available for them to print.

[abm234]

It sounds like I pretty much use the same system as Jacinda.

I have 3 kids and I print 3 copies of Project Life. It is spendy, but I hope that each will want a copy when it's all said and done. I've thought about printing 4 (one for me!) but that seems a little overboard at this point.

They each have their own regular album as well. Whenever I print a 12 x 12 of a family event I print 3 and one goes in each kid's album. If I print one of their piano recitals, birthday, etc it goes in their own album.

[nesser1981]

I print chronologically and organize that way.

My albums are usually by month/year. All events/children are in the same album.
o
For example, my albums that were printed last year were January-September 2012, then we had our 3rd child, I haven't printed yet, but it'll be October-November 2012, and then December 2012, because photobooks will only hold so many pages.

[clearskies]

Originally Posted by nesser1981

I print chronologically and organize that way.

My albums are usually by month/year. All events/children are in the same album.

^^^ This. We are a family. We have family albums.

[rach3975]

I used to do 1 album per child per age and print many pages multiple times, but that got too expensive. So I switched to a yearly family album when my kids were 2, 4, and 7. Even though I initially did it because of the cost, I like it better this way. The kids and I like flipping through the albums and seeing everyone's pages and stories, not needing to look through 3 albums to cover all of them.

If I had to decide how to handle a new baby's book, I think I'd put the pages in the family album and then print a separate photobook using mostly the same pages. The main reason would be that I already have individual albums for my other kids, so I'd want the littlest to have one also.

I don't print extra copies of my pages for the kids to take. When the time comes that they're moving out, I'll pick the most meaningful LOs and print them a couple of books spanning their life (and give them digital copies of everything if they want it).