Scrapbook Memory Album: I Organized 45 Years of Photos in Only a Few Weeks

After 45 years of pictures, I finally got an album of my OWN LIFE done. I had tons of family photos and made an album for each of my siblings but never got around to creating my own life's album. A few years later, I wanted to get the scrapbook done before something happened and I would never got to do it. So I gathered all my photos, black and whites too, and got started!

How Did I Organize 100's Of Photos Spanning 45 Years?

Well, it was actually pretty easy. I chose to organize them according to the HOUSE we lived in. We moved around alot and I remember the house and the schools I went to for the time periods. For instance, I remember going to Sierra Vista Elementary School when I lived in Fullerton and I was in 4th and 5th grade. The years or age? I didn't remember. We did alot of camping and long camp trips - the year? I don't remember, but I certainly did remember the trip and things that happened. Holidays? Again, who knows what year, but "look at all of us in the photo...I remember about that present or that tree or...... "

How Did I Manage The Memories?

That is one thing that is hard to do - you go through life and think "That was so wonderful, I'll never forget that!". Well, unfortunately, you do forget over time. I looked at the photos and some I could remember and some I couldn't. I had some memories that I didn't have a photo for. We are talking 45 years ago here! So instead of trying to make a memory for each photo, and since there were alot of memories I had and some had photos and some didn't, I decided to journal ALL that I could remember about the time period of each set of photos and add the photos to the memories!! By that I mean, I just sat down and brain-stormed about the "house" or "school" time. Not only things that I remember about myself, but also about my siblings, the house, the school, friends, places we went, holidays at the time - anything I could remember for that period of time. Many of these layouts are 4 page spreads with the journaling as the middle page!

How I Organized It

After my brain storm of memories (few tears and smiles included there!) I went back and I grouped several memories about similar events or times. I put all the memories about my siblings together, then about my friends. Just organized it into an EVENT sequence. I did a double page spread layout showing each house I lived in and the address, phone number (I remembered some of the phone numbers!) and something about each house!! I did a four- page spread layout about all the boyfriends I had! Another four-page spread about all our family camping trips.

Then I Just Made It Look Nice!

I found a fun font and used a color ink and printed it out the journaling on cardstock. Depending on how many memories I had, some pages were 8x10 fully, others were only half a page long. I decorated with stickers and minor decoration and put each paget in a page protector. The ones that were half a page long, I just cut down the page protector to match the half page. Don't clutter the memories with embellishments! Sometimes the memories and photos are all you need to make a layout fantastic.

I did the album in a few weeks. It is not beautifully ornate. It is not choronologically in order. It is not full of embellishments. But it does have as many of my memories I can remember and that is what really matters. The AGE or YEAR isn't the topic of the memory, it is the EVENT and what happened that you are wanting to remember, not really how old you were or what year it was. I look at this album often. It is nice to just remember.