How do you organize your printed layouts?

[mnm_y2]

I am struggling with how to best organize my printed layouts. I have pretty much had them in chronological order, but as my family grows, I am thinking more and more about doing smaller subcategories. I have several unfinished P365 layouts for past years.

I've been googling and not finding much so figured I would make a post about it. How do you organize your printed layouts?

Right now I have digital layouts going back to 2005.

[nesser1981]

I do chronologically in photo books.

[dailydwellin]

I don't. I have mine in albums basically by when they were scrapped, but it's not in any specific order. I like looking through random pages.

[KateD]

I use Stacy Julian's Library of Memories system. The layouts are arranged by category and subcategory rather than chronologically.

[MamaBee]

Mine are chronological in 8x8 D ring albums... then special projects like vacations, P365, Dec Daily, Week in the Life - are printed into photobooks. I also have a separate binder for my pages about me...

[NeverendingJen]

I use the LOM system like Kate.

[mnm_y2]

I've read a bit about the LOM and I think I want to do a bit of that - but still have a "yearly" album because I don't actually print any pictures. I am sorting my layouts and so far I think I have:

Individual album for each boy (3)
Brothers book
A book about me (pregnancy, AAM layouts, childhood)
My/DH layouts (anniversaries or love layouts)

P365 - I have a bunch of unfinished years, so im sorting to see what exactly I have and will figure out what to do with these

Soccer/Sports - for now I think I will put into each kid book

Family Yearly - this leaves me the yearly stuff like birthdays, family pages, family events. not sure yet if this will be needed or not... but I think I will.

I do have printed books for weddings, vacations, baby's first year...

[jacinda]

I do photobooks. My girls have individual albums, and I have one for myself. Any family activities get put into both of their albums, as do layouts that feature both girls. I figure they'll take the albums with them when they eventually move out of home, so I should include as much as possible.

P365 or p12 albums are separate too.

[mnm_y2]

Originally Posted by jacinda

I do photobooks. My girls have individual albums, and I have one for myself. Any family activities get put into both of their albums, as do layouts that feature both girls. I figure they'll take the albums with them when they eventually move out of home, so I should include as much as possible.

P365 or p12 albums are separate too.

How often do you print your photobooks?

[rach3975]

When I started scrapping I had individual albums for each of the kids. Starting in 2011 I switched to one big family book. There are still things I like better about having an album for each child, but printing multiple copies of so many layouts was too expensive. I generally prefer chronological layouts in fewer albums, so I don't do too many themed or mini albums.

[nesser1981]

I print my photobooks when I have enough to fill one at viovio.com. Their 8.5x8.5 books hold 160 pages. Like right now I have 3 to print, October-December 2011, our Disney trip, and January-September 2012. Each album will have like 130 pages or so.

[jbarksdale]

Good questions. I haven't printed any of my digital pages and I never thought to organize them, either. Will have to think about that!

[mnm_y2]

I had a lot of unfiled layouts and I have a bunch of empty scrapbooks and I was able to sort some of my pages last night and I think my family is excited for what I have so far.

My boys are 9, 7 and almost 4.... and my 9 and 7 year olds have a lot of layouts about them and many with the 2 of them in the page. They were so excited looking through their baby ones through more current.

And I realized I need to print some of my 4yo's layouts! He kept asking where he was in all of these!

[FireWolf]

Originally Posted by KateD

I use Stacy Julian's Library of Memories system. The layouts are arranged by category and subcategory rather than chronologically.

Yep, this!

[Darcy Baldwin]

Chronologically. It's the life of our family. At some point, we'll break it up for the boys to have their parts and split the combined between them..but this works best for us.

[Nettio]

I have mine organized LOM style too. Some of the subcategories within the albums have layouts that are organized chronologically and others don't. It just depended on what I felt told the story best.

This recent Paperclipping Roundtable episode was all about album organization: Story Albums. I was listening to it at the gym yesterday so I'm only halfway through, but so far they had some really interesting ideas that got me thinking so you might want to check it out.

[lizj]

Originally Posted by MamaBee

Mine are chronological in 8x8 D ring albums... then special projects like vacations, P365, Dec Daily, Week in the Life - are printed into photobooks. I also have a separate binder for my pages about me...

This is what I do too. I like having chronological books for the kids, and the D ing binders make it easy to drop in pages, since I don't scrap chronologically much. Any theme albums like heritage, or just for me I plop the pages in in no particular order. I think I would find it hard to pick categories like the LOM system. I'm just glad I manage to get them printed!

[mummytothree]

I don't scrap chronological so they just get stuck in an album for each person!! So I have a these albums:

Hubby & Me
Me
Family (these are for pages that involve more then on kid in the photo)
Oldest DD
Youngest DD
Oldest DS
Middle DS
Youngest DS
Month In Review - these are my end of the month pages...one each month
Daily December Albums - I do a new one each year
30 Days of Thanks Album - this is a new one this year.

One day as my kids get older and I get caught up on scrapping I might undertake the project of shuffling pages around into some type of order but really I don't think I will!!! My kids look at our albums daily and never have they once said why are these pages out of order!!!

Oh and I store mine in cheap walmart 8.5x11 3 ring binders I(I stock up at back to school time .97 cents apiece) and standard 8.5x11 page protectors ($3 bucks for a pack of 50). I've been doing this for about 3 years and it works great for me!!

[jessica31876]

One album for holidays (Independence Day, New Years Day, Christmas, Halloween, Birthdays, Easter etc), one for each of my kids. One for myself and one for my husband. One for our pets & other animals and finally one for events, places & trips (events are non-holiday things like car shows or picnics, places are things that are interesting to me but not necasarily fitting into any other categories like nature photos) and trips are for like Sea World, IOA, the zoo etc).

[rach3975]

Originally Posted by mnm_y2

My boys are 9, 7 and almost 4.... and my 9 and 7 year olds have a lot of layouts about them and many with the 2 of them in the page. They were so excited looking through their baby ones through more current.

And I realized I need to print some of my 4yo's layouts! He kept asking where he was in all of these!

My kids are 9, 6.5, and almost 4, and the same happens when my youngest looks through albums from before she was born. The more recent albums have plenty of pages about her--probably too many, since she still likes having her picture taken., But she also likes to look through the ones from when her brothers were babies and then gets upset when she isn't in any of the layouts.

[Freckles]

Chronological. I aim to have a printed photobook for each year. I have a scrapalbum for my AAM pages and seperate babybooks, but everything else goes into the yearly photobooks.

[Keely~B]

So I'm a rebel, I have an annual scrapbook, a D ring, I scrap and stick them in the book. That's it, I don't scrap chronologically either. It works for us. My kids love looking through them and don't care that they aren't broken down or themed.

[QuiltyMom]

I only print in books, and then chronologically, even if it's a special book such as a vacation. When I paper scrapped I had two books for the kids I had to keep up with, but now I make one book and print it out twice. It's the only way I can keep a handle on everything.

[maryinaz]

I have multiple albums per child from birth through 12th grade. I also have a sports album for each of them.

I don't scrap chronologically but I do a big push to fill in the gaps by their high school graduation party so I can put out the books for guests to see. (I currently have a senior so I doing a push for him now.)

Once they graduate, they are off to college and there will be fewer pics to scrap (they are BOYS after all), so I'm not sure what I will do. Maybe start another book?

I just can't wrap my brain around doing it other than chronological since life IS chronological and my books are a life story documented. That's just me though.

[mnm_y2]

I think my issue was that my books (to me) were just too big in the yearly format. But to me it also makes sense to have it in chronological order.

Taking out the specific layouts and putting those in their own book (also in chronological) order has made me happy.

I will still do photobooks for vacations, special events and such. But for now, I think I am headed in the right direction.

Now, to buy some ring albums and sleeves.....

[kristijoy]

I just got my first photo book for my son. It's Jan-Jun 2012 (the first half of the year). I love it! It's so much smaller than the big chunky ring binders and much more pleasant to sit with it on your lap and look through it.

I"m going to continue to do his items chornologically so I can keep doing these photo books (probably 2 per year). The other items I do, like BOM, or other family members, aren't usually chronologically created so I have to put them in plastic sleeves chronologically in the ring binders.

[KateD]

I should add that the albums I have going so far, except for the boys' school and scout albums, are MY albums. I'm planning to put together an album for each of my boys with a collection of digi layouts as a HS graduation present. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to make those albums chronological or by topic. Maybe a bit of both?

[mnm_y2]

Originally Posted by kristijoy

I just got my first photo book for my son. It's Jan-Jun 2012 (the first half of the year). I love it! It's so much smaller than the big chunky ring binders and much more pleasant to sit with it on your lap and look through it.

The books are much nicer to look through -but it's hard for me to do the books because I don't scrap in chronological order.

For those that do use 8x8 D ring binders.... what kind do you use? I have some postbound albums but they are not my favorite. i have 2 binders that are American Crafts I believe. not sure if there's good quality ones that others like?

[NeverendingJen]

Originally Posted by mnm_y2

The books are much nicer to look through -but it's hard for me to do the books because I don't scrap in chronological order.

For those that do use 8x8 D ring binders.... what kind do you use? I have some postbound albums but they are not my favorite. i have 2 binders that are American Crafts I believe. not sure if there's good quality ones that others like?

We R Memory Keepers leather D rings are all I use, in 8x8 adn 12x12. They are pretty inexpensive and super sturdy

[mnm_y2]

Originally Posted by NeverendingJen

We R Memory Keepers leather D rings are all I use, in 8x8 adn 12x12. They are pretty inexpensive and super sturdy

Are these the ones found at Target? I thought I read that somewhere? If not - where do you purchase? The 2 ring ones that I do have i bought online a few years ago.

[NeverendingJen]

Originally Posted by mnm_y2

Are these the ones found at Target? I thought I read that somewhere? If not - where do you purchase? The 2 ring ones that I do have i bought online a few years ago.

target may have them, amazon has them, joanns, hobby lobby, michaels.

[mnm_y2]

I have Joanns and Target super close. and Michaels not too far either. Will have to check out today. Thanks!!

[aly321]

I am going to confess that ALL (yes I did say all) of my digi pages are still on my computer. I have not printed any out, or made any albums for this reason... I don't know how to organize them. How dumb right? I love my pages and need to display them, so one of my goals for the coming year is to get them off the computer, and out in the open where everyone can enjoy them. I have such a hard time with chronological, because I do not scrap in order, and if I printed a book, and a page needed to be inserted, it would drive me crazy! Although I love the idea of printed books rather than ring binders. So that is the big decision I will have to make. All of your ideas are super helpful! Thanks!!

[JuliaM]

I don't scrap by theme or chronologically. When I print out layouts, I'll toss them in a storage box until I get a bunch of them. Then I'll add them to the book I have chronologically. Of course, that means I'm always moving pages that are always in the book around.

I do have seperate books for vacation spots I got to frequently that I put all the vacation layouts in. I put those in chronologically.

[KateD]

Originally Posted by aly321

I am going to confess that ALL (yes I did say all) of my digi pages are still on my computer. I have not printed any out, or made any albums for this reason... I don't know how to organize them. How dumb right? I love my pages and need to display them, so one of my goals for the coming year is to get them off the computer, and out in the open where everyone can enjoy them. I have such a hard time with chronological, because I do not scrap in order, and if I printed a book, and a page needed to be inserted, it would drive me crazy! Although I love the idea of printed books rather than ring binders. So that is the big decision I will have to make. All of your ideas are super helpful! Thanks!!

Aly, I didn't print any of my digi layouts for a long time just for this reason! Since you don't scrap in order and therefore it would be a long time before you had a "finished" album to print, my advice would be to print them and just put them into albums in a random order. Then, after you've lived with those books for a while and figured out how you want to organize them, you can change things around and organize them the way you want. And the beauty of printing single pages is that you can change your mind as often as you want. Wait, maybe that's not such a good thing .

When you do get to the point where you're ready to print a bound book of the layouts, you can give those single pages to a family member or put in frames or something. But you'd have had the printed layouts for you and your family to enjoy in the meantime.

[mnm_y2]

Well Joann's didn't have any 8x8 size albums - but I can't believe I had never noticed them at Target before! I am in there often.

I grabbed 3 tonight. 1 for "my" album, and then 2 for my boys. I still need 1 more for my son, and a couple more but there weren't many boy colors. I'll have to go another target tomorrow and see what they have to offer.

[Nettio]

Originally Posted by aly321

I am going to confess that ALL (yes I did say all) of my digi pages are still on my computer. I have not printed any out, or made any albums for this reason... I don't know how to organize them. How dumb right? I love my pages and need to display them, so one of my goals for the coming year is to get them off the computer, and out in the open where everyone can enjoy them. I have such a hard time with chronological, because I do not scrap in order, and if I printed a book, and a page needed to be inserted, it would drive me crazy! Although I love the idea of printed books rather than ring binders. So that is the big decision I will have to make. All of your ideas are super helpful! Thanks!!

What if you started with a printed book of favorite layouts? Like just choose a random assortment and print them out to see how you like them? Then you'd have something people could look thru while you figure out what you want to do.

I do really recommend people print layouts only because from a design perspective they look different and I've found seeing printed version helps with knowing what font sizes to use, depth of drop shadows, etc.