I Love Scrapbooking, but I'm So Overwhelmed!

As a demonstrator with Stampin' Up!, I get this question a lot!! I have found, both personally and from my customers, that it's easiest to start with the most current photos, and work your way back. So if you have had a recent birthday for one of your children, take some of the photos and make a page or two. You don't have to scrap ALL of your photos - you just want to create the essence of the day or event. If you feel stressed by a 12 x 12 book, start with a smaller 6 x 6 book.

It really is up to you if you want to do a book for each child, or do a family book. Or, you can do both - Do a page or two for each year of your children and do a family book or books. Try not to stress out about which direction to go - this is a fun hobby! Once you start, you will get figure out what will work best for you. Get together with a friend or two and scrapbook together!

Good luck and have fun!

I do not have children but my sister has 3 and she got interested in scrapbooking and what she has done is she has one book for each child. Since most cameras are date stamped you can put the pictures in order by date. If you might want to use the same picture for each child get a copy made. Take the photo boxes and put the pictures in order front to back and then when you start your book start with birth and go from there. You can get as detailed as you want or just do major events or even just if you have a cute picture of your child in the tub make a "Bathtime" page. Rotate working on each child's book until you get caught up. Then it should be easier to keep up to date. Just a thought, have fun.

I get duplicates of all of my pics so that I can make a "family" book and then a book for each kid so that they can have it when they move away from home. This also helps, because I'm kinda wotking on two books at once... There are really so many ways that you can do your kids' books (there's no wwong way) but I've basically done 1 book for their first year because they change so much... like a 'bathtime' page, a 'naptime' page, a 'eating' page, pictures with relatives, etc. and then I go on to the next book putting things in chronological order... birthdays, Christmases, other holidays, etc. It can take you years to finish all of your projects and if you want it to be a hobby, don't stress about it, enjoy it (I just scrapbooked today and was working on my step-daughter's book and I'm only working on 2004!) so the main thing is to keep your photos in a photo safe box, in chronological order as best as you can, and be sure to mark the back of the pictures with the date of the pic and who's in the pic (especially when your kids get older and it's a classmate or friend you might forget the name of). Have fun with it!

I also have three little ones and love scrapbooking, but rarely find the time. I have gone a whole year w/o working on a page. My children love to look at what I get done. I have a book for each child. I have made a list of special days/events and I rotate working on each of their books. I haven't even made it through the first year yet for any of them, but they always get excited when I add a page, no matter what it is. I figure anything I get done is better than not doing it at all. Have fun with it.

I did a book for my son's first year and a book for a Disney vacation. I would stick to a limited theme for each book so you don't get overwhelmed.

I stuck to major first year events...birth, coming home from the hospital, baptism, first bath, birthday, christmas.

With our vacation I did the same...here is where we stayed and then a page or two for each theme park.

My cousin is a doing a week by week book (one page per week) as her son grows. If you can keep up...

I love to scrapbook, too, and thought I would never get back into for a long time once I had the girls since I gave up my scrapbooking room for a nursery. Now, I do all my pages digitally. I use Microsoft Picture It and Photoshop Elements 6 software but I am not an expert. It took me a short while to learn to do it but now I think it is so easy. No mess, no need for extra space and I can have several pages printed off for several albums. Instead of buying several sheets of stickers, I can just use fonts for alphas I find online; that savings really adds up! I did find a great site http://ikeagoddess.blogspot.com - she posts tons of freebies everyday so you can get into the digital aspect of this hobby for free. When you are ready to print, shutterfly has albums you can do and there are other sites (just do a search) that offer printing services for 12 x 12 pages or if you do standard pages you can print right at home. Archiever's and Polka Dot Potato are two other sites that have printing services. And there are plenty of online sites to buy digital kits that you will use over and over or incorporate into hybrid scrapbooking where you can do a little digital and a little hands on paper scrapbooking. I really love www.oscraps.com and The Sweet Shoppe. I try to scrap photos in order that they happen but I find myself jumping around to the pictures I like or feel inspired by the most. All this talk about scrapbooking, I wonder if I have time to do a page now? Have fun!

there's a lot of different things you can do. I use to work at a scrapbooking store and I also scrapbook. These are some of my ideas. You can do one for each child. Live ultrasound pictures, then newborn pic, and continue on in that book untill they graduate. You can then put the book out for their graduation party, or give it to that child when their grown and move out. You can also do a family book pitcures of all of you. Or you can do vacation or trips in one book or a book for each trip or vacation. You could do a book with pics of your wedding and reception. There are a ton of different things you can do.