1000s of pictures later, where do I begin?

Hello, I'm overwhelmed and I would like to hear from anyone who seriously began scrap booking after becoming a grandmother (mother of 4) and accumulating thousands of photographs (sorted by date at least!) We were in the military for many years and took advantage of as many local sites and experiences as possible, and every chance we made it home.
I'd like an album for my husband and I and one for each child and grandchild, but does that mean I'll have to copy the some of the special selected prints that more than one child is in? And where do I begin?

Sounds like quite the undertaking! You could just start with the photos that inspire you. Just start creating and then sort layouts into albums after. If you get bogged down you with who gets what photo and what layout you might lose the desire to start this project. But if you come across special photos make sure you have extra copies of them. Hope that helps!!

I feel for you.. I can't really help you.. I just scrapbook a picture or pictures that feel like fun to me... It keeps me from getting overwhelmed... My albums are crazy.. One page will have My son as a baby and the next page He is a teenager on Halloween and the next Family Reunion and next page my dogs and then my son as a Baby again... I have thousands of pictures too.

I started scrapbooking 3 or 4 years ago. My Kids were already grown, except for one and He is a teenager..

I wish you best of luck and I'm sure there are very awesome scrappers here that can help you with ideas..

I don't like to scrap the same pictures over and over so for me, I might use one of the photos for one book. With that amount of pictures, you are bound to have more for the other books, KWIM? That way you don't get bored. Not every grandkid will get every picture but that way every book is unique AND the grandkids might like to get together and look at the books together!!!

Sounds like a nice project!!!

I would suggest taking one page and at time and don't get overwhelmed!!! 1,000 pictures is a lot, but one page isn't!!! Then on to the next page!!!

I go with the flow. I start with the ones that are special to me. I don't have a magic way to do so. I have three daughters and two granson so I started making albums by topic or by person and put their pictures there. SOme pages are very simple, others are more elaborated. I do one project at a time. I try not to think about the many hundred of pictures waiting to be scrap!

I do scrap the same pics over and over. If both my boys are the main subject, they both get the picture in their album. To make this easier, I do the two pages almost identical. This makes it go a lot faster and I don't have to put much thought into the second one. (but my kids are only 13 and 9 so I don't have a much catching up as you)

I started scrapbooking afther my hubby passed away making scrapbooks for his family ( 4 brothers and two sisters ) to his memorie with pix i had vron his childhood to his died. ther was also pix with family mambers, he in the service , in germany, back in USA... He passed away on marz the 18. 2004 and i had all 6 scrapbooks finish to the familie reunion on thanksgiving in november. it was all the same but the appriziate the work i did .
Afther this i love to make scrapbooking
Now i starting scrapbooking for my grandkids ( 4 and 1 living in Montana i'm in Texas)

The best advice I was given was to start with the current and go forwards. Then when I have time to do a few older pages.

I try my best to keep the current stuff as up-to-date as possible and when that is done I allow myself to do a few back pages.

Have you considered scanning the photos and making digital albums? I think digital scrapbooking can be much faster and you can make multiple copies of each album, or make different albums but on the layouts that you want to include in multiple, you can. This might help you get caught up and not be too repetitive. Then the ones that are very special or with lots of memorabilia you could do traditional scrapbooking on those?

I would say if you want seperate albums for each child and grandchild then yes, you will need to make copies of certain pictures. Your photos are organized by date, which is AWESOME! I would take it a step further and put the photos in piles per the album they will belong in. Go ahead and get the certain copies made that need to be made, and maybe start with your newest grandchild like has been said (easier to scrap current things= fresh in your mind). Also you can start a word document for each album collecting information that you'd like to include in the journaling. The birthday/ weight/height/ birth time of each child/grandchild, the month/date certain events happened. Also are there other items that will go in the albums like ticket stubs, pressed pennies, other mementos? If so you could organize those into the piles of pics per album also.

Sorting photos is actually what got me involved in scrapbooking! I had dozens of filled photo albums of generations of family, both nightstand drawers crammed full of pictures AND a large box in our closet full of photos, momentos & school papers from my 2 children's childhood. One day my daughter & I went & bought photo boxes & I took one drawer; album; handful of photos at a time & sorted them into sections: by person, vacations, Christmas, birthdays, our yard, our house, etc. Once that happened, I could easily gain access to the type of pictures I wanted to consider for a page lay out. It took time, but go slow & that should help ease the overwhelmingness. I would sort while watching tv, waiting for dinner to get done, while listening to music. That was 5 years ago. Organizing my picture led to organizing other areas of my home. (Magazines, cleaning out the attic, etc) I felt a great accomplishment & our family has looked at those boxes of pictures more than we ever did in the drawers or all those albums! GOOD LUCK!

Wow, you've already got your photos sorted chronologically! That's a big first step.

Now, instead of worrying about everyone having the same photo in every book, think of what stories you want to tell. Say it's a visit to someplace special. You've got some pictures with one person in it, some with another person, and some with everyone. Break that group into piles, so that you have a pile that concentrates on person A, and a pile that concentrates on person B, and a few pictures in each pile of the whole group, or the scenery. You then tell the story with an A person central character, and then the B person gets their own version of the story.

Does that make sense to you?

Work one story at a time, with a person oriented focus, rather than everything, all at once.

For some pages you may have several photos to a page and for others you might only have one

Annie gave a really good piece of advice - make notes for future pages - keep up your journaling.

Even when we are travelling or on a cruise ship I set aside 10-15 minutes every day to write out the events and details of the day in my computer. Sometimes I write out my thoughts and feelings about the day and if I learned any interested details about a place or statue or whatever, I make a note of it.

Its one long WORD file that has the date and the info and keeps on going - right now it is 40 or 50 pages long but every page I scrap (I scrap chronologically), I go to that file and see what I wrote for that day.

When I get ready to scrap the page and add the journaling it is done. I just have to edit it and no details are lost of forgotten. Makes future scrapping so much easier.

I like to get my feelings in some of my journaling about the event and weeks or months later those thoughts are long gone but they are in my journaling.

Great idea..I may follow your example!

Here are some hints that I hope will assist you!

1. Let go of the idea that you need to scrapbook EVERY photo you've taken. It's not possible, so you'll be a lot better off if you just let go of that notion right now.

2. Decide what you want your end result to be. An album for each family member? An ongoing family album? A life-long hobby that you'll keep contributing to?

3. Decide if a traditional scrapbook is your best approach. Maybe a photo book would get you the results you want with a fraction of the time and cost. I ADORE scrapbooking, but sometimes when I have a ton of photos I opt for a photo book. It's a great option for sports seasons, vacations, etc.

4. Break it down. I have a post I wrote on creating your first scrapbook project. PM me if you want a link!

Let us know how it's going!

I agree with Jarvae that you might want to consider digi-scrapping. It can be quicker than paper, although sometimes it takes me longer because I can play around with so many options. However, once it's finalized, it can be saved to a file for each person that you want to have it.

Then you can still paper-scrap pages that you think you'll enjoy getting your hands dirty. Sometimes you just have a "need" to have ink under your nails and glitter in your hair (or your fur baby's hair ).

I'm almost 66 with 4 kids/5 grandkids and also have a ton of pics and I'd love to scrap them all...but that's not very realistic! I'm working on a high school grad book for my oldest gd, but need to finish it up since her sister graduates in 1½ yrs. so I'll need to begin her book. I'm also working on a Halloween album that has pics from the 1920s with my mom & dad dressed up in costumes through current years. I also have a travel one going that is mostly trips to visit our #2 child, but since different family members go with us, there are pics of everyone somewhere in the album.

I'm making one of each album. Granddaughters get their grad books, but I'm keeping the rest and they can fight over my dead body for them eventually, but I scan every picture I use, plus every LO, so there are digi copies of everything I do for everyone to have their own copy. Just make sure to have back-up copies of everything you do in case a hard drive decides to die.

I'll also put a DVD in the back of each album with the photos used, plus the LOs, so they can easily be viewed on a TV or whatever. I keep the original scanned photo, plus edited versions so one picture might be on the DVD four or five times with color/cropping/lighting variations. If I go to the effort to edit a pic, I save it, even if I decide not to use it...I might on another LO and the editing is already done.

Have fun and enjoy reliving the memories~Judy

Also, as you get ready to scrap, you might ask your friends and family who have been along for your life's ride to think about stories that they remember.

My mom remembers many more of the cute stories from my kids' early years than I do. I was too busy being "mom". She was enjoying the freedom of being "grandma". She'd go home and think about what had happened during that day. I'd be home trying to clean up the messes that had happened during the day. At the time we had different perspectives :>)

I try to find out what my kids remember about things we did. It's amazing that we all remember the same thing, but in different ways. Of course I remember things correctly :>) But each viewpoint can be a fun part of the journaling. "He said, she said" type of journaling. ~Judy

Thats a good idea Mrs Driver about a dvd I might need to lift that one x

Anne

I also am just starting out. I am a mother of 5 boys and grandmother of 11. I just sorted a huge box of my pictures of the grandchildren. I started with the first born grandchild and started. I see it being a bit overwhelming. You'd spending on what type of book you are doing. If it is for yourself, child, grandchild? I chose to do one for each grandchild.

It's like the old cliched question, How do you eat an elephant -- one bite at a time.
Just pick a way, chronological, event, person and dig in. You will find your way through and you will enjoy the journey once it is done.

God Bless you. Maybe you can decide to have one baby album and one childhood album per grandchild.That narrows the field somewhat. Go through and pick out 80 of your favorite photos per child. Start there. One photo at a time.

I started scrapbooking about 6 years ago because I wanted to do an album dedicated to my mom, who had recently passed away. When I completed that book, my plan was to start working my way through my kids, so they could each have one, and then go back and do my childhood...but best plaid plans of mice and scrapbookers....

Now I've completed two baby books, working on the third, for my 3 grandbabies, all of who were born within the last 4 years. I have two full books of pages that are in no way chronological whatsover, but are photos that inspired me. AND I have a Project Life-ish album in the works that is a loosely chronological exploration of our lives after my fiance and I got together.

I think you do what inspires you most and let the book tell you which way to go. If you think chronologically, scrapbook that way. If not, pick a favorite photo of one of your loved ones, and tell the story, then that one will inspire another favorite picture, and so on. I think you can do pages that don't have a specific album home until you're done and then it will be, "a-ha, so and so will love this page!"

I'm going to throw something else out there....Project Life. Check out Becky Higgin's blog. She has videos of several people that have got caught up on years of scrapping by using this system. It might help you.

My girls were 4, 11, and 15 when I started scrapbooking. I have to take smaller bites of the huge project of catching up. The first album I completed/got up to date was Halloween. I pulled every picture, from every Halloween since they were born and got dow to business with all of them. I do pretty well about keeping current stuff done, but as far as going through the older stuff I have to narrow it down some. I did their births, and subsequent birthdays, our wedding, and am starting on Easters now.

Wow Samaclean--my kids were 1 5 and 7 when I started--and I started with Halloween as well...Halloween layouts are fun and easy to do--It has been 8 years of scrapping for me now--I have 2 family albums, a Christmas album, a travel album, and an individual album for each of my girls. I just scrap what photos I like--Im going for the snapshots of life, not completeness....

Cheers,
Diana

I am new here and I am in the same situation, I have grand-babies I have been wanting to scrap for a couple of years, went out bought supplies but then never could get started,i thought there is no way my albums will look like I want them to... so I have so many pictures and I decided this was my year to start. I have been reading blogs etc, and learned there is no wrong way,I can say this I am glad i did take the time to read and research because i learned so much. As for my pictures I am starting with the present time and going forward,if i have the time to go back and back older then i will if not I am putting those old pictures into regular picture albums, like project life.....pictures with some jornal cards here and there....I was going to do a seperate book for each child hmmmm no way and as stated would be the same pictures over and over....I look forward to future post and I wanted to say I love the site and Thanks to everyone for all they do for us beginners

I started about 2007 and only went forward. I would like to do a book of my husband and me when we were dating - it may or may not happen.

One of the ladies on the Flapper boards gave me a great idea and I love it and am going to do it...

She is putting all her layouts in the computer and having Snapfish or SHutterly - forgot which make albums for her. She gets them with coupons and they are not that expensive.

I am keeping all my layouts in their original scrapbook albums and I am only doing them once.

I plan to scan them and then make a book for each of my sons with their stuff but they will be copies of the layouts and professionally bound for a coffee table book. I will make a book for each of our trips. I may do one of just holidays or Christmas - using all the layouts throught the years. WIll do one for my grand daughter later but they will all be from scanned in layouts in different books.

THen my ideas is to keep a few books of the original works that I really love - my very favorites. The rest I will just pack away. So if yo want to see my China layouts they will be in a bound book. A few of my very favorites may be in the dimensional scrapbook but onlyh if they are my very favorites.

We go to Hawaii twice a year so I will put the scanned images from Hawaii all in one book.

She is actually taking her older books apart because she is so happy with the way the bound books are turning out but I do want to leave my very favorites intact.

I especailly like that idea since a lot of our layouts have both of my sons and my granddaugter and I can make a book for each of them.