Scrapbooking?

[bridesmom]

Have I totally lost my mind??? After reading Beth's post about the photo albums I decided it was time to get off my keister, and get all the boxes off the cupboard and start getting them organized! I wanted to do 2 books for my two kids, and one of my family (my parents etc) and one for my life with DH. This has been on my list of things to do for 3 years now and it's time. I decided to head to Walmart and see what they had, crap! Expensive stuff! I bought 2 albums and some inserts and some paper, came home and pulled out the photo boxes. I have since thrown out a whole bag of stuff that are just ugly pictures, and separated most of the stuff into 3 boxes. Then I started to figure out what I want to do and have done 1 page for DD and 2 pages for DS. No fancy embellishing, just pictures cut up and put onto a page with some info written on it. It's been fun going through the pictures and thinking about what it was like being young and just married and all the hopes and plans you have for a future together. But things happen, and people change and grow apart, but I want to leave my kids with the memories too. Does anyone else out there scrapbook?? Do you go all out and do all the embellishing, or just plain jane like me?

I also plan on doing a small table book for each of the two kids with some of the choice pictures that I just don't want to give away. I figure since their birthdays are in May and June I may be done by then (hahaha)

[HeyJudee]

I have a sister-in-law and her 3 daughters who scrapbook. They do fantastic work...but it is really time consuming and expensive. My cousin had a coffee table book made for her daughter for Xmas. Her daughter is into rowing so she took pictures from the various rowing events and went on-line to design & order the book. I think she said it cost around $30 for the book and it was unique. This is what I would suggest...as I'm not really into scrapbooking.

[DorothyL]

My daughter spent a fortune on scrapbooking materials and then decided she'd rather knit socks.

[kjh9835]

I spent a forture too a few years ago and made books for my MIL and my mom of my family's pics thru the years 1991 when Joe and I got married until the current year, maybe 2005 or so. I still have the supplies but they are now "kids crafts" as I do not have time or desire to drag it all back out.

Much easier for me is to put all the pics I want to use on a memory card or jump drive, take them to CVS, put in the photo maker kiosk, edit/resize, add borders/backgrounds from their mulitple options, etc. and have them make the book. They are nice, bound books and when I get them on sale, not alot of money. It is time consuming to sit at CVS and decide what you want but you'd spend the time at home anyway along with distractions that you do not have at CVS. You can scan them at home and save or scan them at CVS. I do mine at home so I don't have to drag all my single pics to the store. I did one of our vacation pics for us and one for my mom, getting ready to do a book for mom that has pics of her and my stepdad Jim in it from their years together.

Kathy

[Bama]

DD and I did a little bit of scrapbooking a few years ago. It is way too expensive and time consuming for me. I prefer the Plain Jane type albums like you. I think sometimes a page can be so busy it takes away from the actual photographs. IMHO. After working on a few pages, I told DD if I'm going to put this much time into one page, it will be framed and on the wall. Not hidden most of the time in an album.
We used some of our supplies to make thank you cards when she graduated high school, and we enjoyed that more than the albums.

[HeyJudee]

Kathy, there are places on-line that you can upload the photos and setup the books and then order them delivered to you. You can do it from your own home. My cousin ordered on-line from a photo shop here in Ottawa. My niece did the same thing with the quilt calendar she gave me at Xmas. She uploaded my photos and designed the calendar using http://www.kodakgallery.com. There are lots of places available for these types of things.

[Mom of Six]

Kathy, there are places on-line that you can upload the photos and setup the books and then order them delivered to you.

My DD uses Snapfish. I got a calendar with Family pictures & everyone has their picture on their BDay month

[kjh9835]

One of the girls at work uses vistaprint.com. I may have to check them out and see what all I can do from the comfort of my home in my nightgown!

Kathy

[bridesmom]

I didn't buy a lot of stuff, just the two albums, some mounting tape, some refill pages and a small package of paper. I would like one more album for my mom and dad's early pictures, and that's it. I will go look at albums again on my next day off, back to Walmart, cause Micheal's is outrageous expensive and on line is more expensive than the Walmart.

[Bama]

Laura, both Michael's and Hobby Lobby run 40% off coupons pretty often. You can use them for almost anything that's not already on sale.