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Friday, March 21, 2008

How to take 18 years, and document them on 100 pages

1) First you have to go around and gather up all the photo's you can find, of your subject. Look in all the nooks and cranny's on your computer, as well as through all your old photo albums, and the boxes of photo's you may have laying around. Don't forget to call all the relatives, and ask if they by chance have any they can share with you.

2) Scan any photo's in, that aren't already on your computer, and if possible try to con someone else into scanning some photo's in for you also, so you don't have to. This is important, because it lets you do other things, like other layouts, cleaning that you always put off, because you're on the computer way to much, or even reading a book, one of the things you used to LOVE to do, till you discovered digital scrapbooking.

3)Next you make a folder for every year, and distribute all of the photo's into the correct folder. Its very important to have a few photo's for each year, and to know at least the year of each photo, so you can put the date on each layout, so future generations can know when the photo was taken. Of course you will always have some that don't have the date written on them, so in those you just have to try to guess and get as close as possible. I always tell myself it won't be the end of the world if my guess is wrong....hopefully I'm not lying to myself.

4)Next you double check, and make SURE you have gotten all the photo's from other people that you can, after all, you want to make sure you don't run out of photo's before you get to the end of the 100 pages.

5)Now you go to each years folder, and separate the photo's into groups. If there are several photo's that go together, either they were all taken on the same date, or were all taken on the same vacation or something like that, you put them into their own folder. You do this for ALL of the years folders.

6)Now its time to go back and figure out how many layouts you think there will be for each year...writing them down as you go, so you can go back and add them up.

7)You get out your calculator....because Math was never your best subject, and you want to make sure you get the right answer, and start adding...."WHAT? NO WAY, THAT CAN'T BE RIGHT!" so you go back and add them all up again...groan....and say to yourself "I'm in trouble!!!!!"

8)After figuring out that you have WAY to many photo's, kick yourself for begging everyone for their photos, although you ended up with some great ones, you hadn't seen before, you start going through and seeing what you can possibly live without and put it in a reject folder.

9)Grab that calculator, and add the pages up again...start pulling your hair out, when the answer is STILL way to high, sigh, and go back to rejecting even more of the precious photo's that help to tell the story of your loved ones first 18 years including a few "years" folders, that didn't have very many photo's in them, even though it was really important to have at least one layout for each year.

10)Several boxes of tissues later (which were needed to wipe away the tears that fell, for each rejected photo) you are finally down to 100 layouts worth of photo's. Send up a prayer that you counted right, and didn't reject some that would have been better to use, than some others you kept.

11)Write down an outline of what each of the 100 layouts are going to be about, in your notebook, so you can mark each one off as you do them. This is a very important step, as it helps you to get over the trauma of all those rejected photo's, because you ADORE lists! They make you feel good, and as you cross each one off, you can feel like you have accomplished something.

There now, don't you feel better already?

12)Later that evening, once you are recovered mostly from all the trauma of organizing 18 years worth of photo's, get on your computer, and blog about it so you can warn others that it is IMPOSSIBLE to cram 18 years worth of memories into 100 pages!!!!!!!!!!! Don't even try, unless you have lots of hair to spare, several boxes of tissues, and a strong heart that can handle seeing yet another of those precious photo's rejected.

Feel free to show anyone else this guide, who maybe thinking of attempting the same thing I did. You may very well save their sanity.

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As you have probably guessed, I managed to finish getting the photo's of Kali organized today. It was not easy, there are to many I had to leave out....and I'm hoping I left enough pages for the next year and a half's worth of photo's. There really aren't that many pages left, soooo I could be in big trouble! LOL Anyway, I was feeling silly, so had to do a "guide" for anyone who thinks they want to take 18 years worth of photo's and put them into a 100 page book....not going to happen, unless you don't take that many photo's.

BTW, that isn't really a "layout" up there, I just wanted to "illustrate" my "guide" with a "pile" of photo's. *snicker*

Now that I've wasted way to much of my evening on this silliness, I better get off here and get to bed. Before I go, I just want to say if you haven't already, you really should go check out Blushbutter's newest kit!! Its got some beautiful colors in it, and can be used for many different kinds of layouts! I made myself feel better this afternoon, by downloading it, even though I may not get to play with it, till next week. Its really beautiful, as hers usually are.

I hope you enjoyed my silliness a little, *giggle* thanks for the comments, both here on my blog, and through e-mail, have a great weekend!

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:19 AM

    I loved your 12-step program of "How to take 18 years, and document them on 100 pages"! I did a wedding album for my d-i-l and used 100 pages...that was for just one day. I'm really in trouble now! Thank you for your wonderful blog and I appreciate your sense of humor!
    Nana to 3

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  2. Anonymous10:18 AM

    *lol* That was VERY amusing... I don't think I would even try... At least not with my kids. I can almost do a 100 page album for each of them, just on the pregnancy and their birth! ;)

    At least you have all the pictures, even if you don't use them all... Cause you can keep those! :D

    Julie

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  3. Anonymous10:37 AM

    HEy make sure u put prom (there are 2 of them), graduation, senior pics, and my wonderful boyfriend in there. I have more pics of him and me that are better that i will have to send to u cuz he is very important to me. and the other ones are a must have in there cuz u only do them once or twice. lol.
    Glad u r pulling ur hair out instead of me lol. U do have plenty of it so ther is no worry. lol. ok. ttyl

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