Confessions Of A Scrapaholic

Library of Memories Goodness

I took the next step in my LOM organization...section tabs! Now that may not be exciting to you, but to me, it is soooo much fun. Of course some of my favorite stores are Staples and The Container Store so you know I am an organizational nut (and did I mention that I am nesting?)

On to the section tabs. Actually, let me explain my color coded albums first. Each color is a different subject: All About Us, People We Love, Places We Go, Things We Do and School of Life. As you can imagine, each subject has many different subcategories. The tabs make it easier to find the topic you are looking for. Very library-esque, yes? Ideally the section tabs would be inserted just behind my "section" layout, but I haven't done those yet. I simply slid the tabs between two layouts in the page protector.

To create these section tabs I used the cardboard that comes with my printed layouts from Costco (12x18) and cut it to 12.5" so that it peeks out just above the layouts.

I then cut pieces of color coordinated cardstock (of course) to 2"x4", folded it in half and glued it to the bookmarks. I then glued the circle tabs on, making sure that the titles were just above the cardstock. Here is a closer view.

It is the last week of my Library of Memories class. *sniff* If you ever have the opportunity to take this class I would highly recommend it to anyone. I have had so much fun. I mean come on, scrapbooking and organizing? Enough said.

I also keep forgetting to mention that I updated my Pregnancy Journal. I try and do it weekly. Click on over if you want to see my every expanding baby bump. OK, so bump may be putting it mildly. Hehehe.

Can You Guess?

What movie did we watch for Family Movie Night this week? Here's a hint.

Any guesses? How about one more clue.

If you said Finding Nemo, you would be correct. Zoë's new favorite evening activity is playing Go Fish with her Finding Nemo Go Fish Card Game. (Super fun if you have little ones. She plays with her cards facing up on the table so that we can help her.) Honestly, she watched about twenty minutes of the movie then wanted to go play her game, but that was fine with me. It was a Nemo themed evening...it's all good. And yes, we absolutely had fish sticks for dinner. Hehehe.

Do you like the cupcakes? They turned out so cute! (Truthfully though, the cupcake in the photograph is the only one with the seaweed. The fruit roll-ups were a huge pain to attach to the cupcakes.) I have a few tips for those of you that want to make these in the future. One: Buy the Betty Crocker Black Decorating Gel for the eyes of the fish and the White Decorating Gel for the bubbles. I used the gel for the eyes and it looked and worked 100x better than squeezing white frosting bubbles out of the ziplock bag like the book suggests.

I also wanted to share this handy little tidbit with you. Check with your local grocery store bakery about decorating cupcakes for you. I got the idea while Zoë and I were flipping through their book last week looking for princess birthday cakes. They have cakes for TONS of movies...Madagascar, Harry Potter, Cars. I asked the baker if they would be willing to decorate 6 theme cupcakes for me instead of creating a big cake and they said YES! So for $12.00 and with 24 hours notice they will whip up Family Movie Night treats for me. I consider it a bargain. I spend way more than that every time I go all out to make fancy cupcakes. And Zoë will have the little figurines to play with during and after the movie. Treats and props for $12.00?! You can't beat that.

* * * * *

Now for some scrapping talk. First, I used Dani Mogstad's new Deep Blue Sea kit to decorate my blog post above. If you buy the kit before June 6th you will also receive the coordinating accordion album FREE! I also picked up the Lil Grad kit by Melissa Bennet this weekend which I thought would be cute for Zoë's "School of Life" album that I am working on. It comes with a FREE coordinating album as well as long as you purchase the kit by June 6th. Can you say perfect preschool teacher gift?

I have gotten quite a few emails about the products I used in my Library of Memories. Here are the specifics...

• The albums that I use are "We R Memory Keepers" D-Ring 12x12 leather albums.
• I found the coordinating polka dot ribbon at Michael's and JoAnn's. They are a mix and match of different brands. The ribbon is tied directly to the metal label holder.
  
• I used 1 1/4" Avery metal rim tags for the spines and the interior section dividers (pictures coming soon.)
• I used a 1" circle punch to punch out the photos/labels for the inside of the metal tags, which I adhered with this awesome liquid glue (perfect for hybrid projects.)
• I attached the metal rim tags to the album spines with 1/8" thick foam dots

I think that is about it. If you come up with any other questions feel free to post a comment or send me an email. Before I go I have to share another layout. This one of Zoë's first time sledding. That was a fun day, not that it made me want to live in a place that snowed...

Credits coming soon

My Library of Memories

Looking at these albums makes me happy. Color coded and organized = Happy Maegan.

I finished up the spine labels on my Library of Memories last night. Here is a closer look at the spines of the albums (click to view larger.) I am so pleased with the way they turned out, and now I am completely obsessed with circle labels.

I cannot tell you how good it feels to have this done. I am still waiting for some albums to arrive, but other than that they are ready for my family to enjoy.

I made a big decision last weekend regarding this library. Originally I was just going to include my digital layouts (about three years worth, not bad) but then I realized how much of our story that as leaving out. Zoë has almost two full albums. Kelly and I have less than a handful of layouts about us. They are all in the old school Creative Memories albums. I've been doing this for almost ten years now so you can imagine my horror when I looked through the old albums. Dude. There are no words, besides maybe, "Shield your eyes!" At least I can laugh at myself, right? I was SO proud of those layouts when I first created them. I will scan one of those beauties and post it this week.

Now brace yourself before you read this next section. After looking through the old paper albums I did three things that I am sure could get me shunned in some circles.

1. It became apparent to me looking through my layouts that when I first started scrapbooking I felt the need to scrap every photo I took. I had quite a few layouts that said absolutely nothing. There were pictures of people and a date. No story, nothing. (And they were ugly). Quite a few of them were my baby pictures. Take birthday's for example. I do not need a 12x12 layout of each birthday (that I hardly remember). Instead I pulled one photo from each birthday and will make ONE layout documenting the event.

2. I pulled out a small pile of layouts to recreate digitally. Yeah, they are that bad. The story and pictures are good...the layout is not. I know what you are thinking, "You have a thousand pictures to be scrapped and you are re-doing pages that are done?" Yep. They are that bad.

3. I sliced and diced all of my Creative Memories layouts/albums. For those of you who aren't familiar with the lovely CM strap hinge pages let me fill you in. They are *almost* 12x12 and have thick sides. One side fits into the album hinges, the other is to make for sturdy page flipping. They were the product to have when I started doing this in 1998. Now, I hate them. The 12x12 paper never fit right, you had to trim the sides. And the pages are a bear to rearrange. Oh, and when we first started out, most scrappers didn't put cardstock or patterned paper on the page insert, we scrapped right on those bad boys. Then embellished with lots of stickers. Nice. There is no way I was going to re-do all those pages. Instead I cut the reinforced side off (the side with the staple that went into the strap hinge) and slipped the entire thing into a 12x12 page protector. Super easy. It was so satisfying to spend an hour or so slicing and dicing and then placing the layouts into a nice new album. And now all of my layouts will be included in our library.

I have spent the last week organizing our house. I'm not sure if the nesting has started or it is my normal spring cleaning OCD. Probably a combination of both. I have been looking for months for a bookcase to display my new scrapbook library and I finally found one. It was quite a challenge to find a piece of furniture that would a) be deep enough to hold the albums and b) be wide enough to fit the crazy recessed area in our dining room. To prepare for the bookcase I sold our armoire on Craig's list. It was nice but it really had just turned into a crap collector for us. The drawers were all full of DVDs that we never watched and the cabinet was full of odds and ends that had no other home. After a week, almost everything has a new home. Including our DVD's. I condensed four drawers of DVDs into these cute storage binders. That is sooo much better. (See, I told you I was obsessed with circle labels.) And they will look fabulous in our new bookcase below the scrapbooks. There is a method to my madness...

I will be back with more organizational goodness next week. Good times. I say that in all seriousness. Poor Kelly must think I've cracked up. LOL!

Enough Time

I have added one of my new favorite quotes to the blog to serve as a constant reminder to me. Let's say it (or read it) together shall we?

"There is exactly enough time to scrapbook your most important memories." -Stacy Julian

That is SO true. I remember feeling completely overwhelmed and stressed out when I found out I was pregnant. Why? In my head I was seeing a clock ticking down. I had only nine months to get caught up on all of my Zoë pictures! If I couldn't get a handle on her photos what on earth was I going to do when I had two little ones to document and scrapbook?!? ACK!

I can't say enough wonderful things about the Library of Memories class. I think the most valuable lesson I have learned is that my family will love my scrapbooks, whether ever single photo is included or not. The purpose is not to scrapbook every single photo (who actually has time to do that anyway?) The purpose is to tell the stories that are important to me and to my family.

Originally, I had intended to scrapbook every night and get caught up on all my Zoë photos. I was determined. That was not realistic, obviously (I blame the hormones) and it completely zapped my creativity. Now I am focusing on scrapbooking my favorite memories from the past few years. I have a list of layouts that I want to have completed by the end of summer. It is not a long list because I want to scrap the most important memories. Plus, if my list gets too long I will just get overwhelmed. I know that I am not going to be caught up, probably ever, and I am totally OK with that.

I finished up this layout today during Zoë's nap. (I copied the journaling straight from my blog entries last year. Easy peasy.) It has been on my To-Do list since last summer when I took these pictures and somehow I kept getting distracted. No more! This is one story that absolutely must be told.

Credits coming soon.