Scrapbooking: A Mix of Traditional Pages and Pocket Pages

Sorry for having "disappeared" the last few weeks. Between trips, deadlines, and just feeling a little under the weather, I was having a hard time getting everything done, which is also why the post is late going up this week. But at least it's going up!

At a crop last weekend, I was getting a little overwhelmed with the amount of pictures I still had to scrapbook for our trip to California. We weren't sure when we'd be able to go back (loved California!) or that our children would be able to come with us. With them all being adults with jobs and schooling, we're never sure when they're schedules will allow them to join us so we do our best to enjoy and document the time. Which is why I end up with about 500 or so photos to scrapbook.

For some of the events, I had a ton of pictures and wanted to use them all, but I having a bit of trouble thinking of new ideas for traditional layouts. I usually do two page layouts, one page having the title and the other the journaling. Some of the places we visited needed more than two pages, so I started incorporating pocket pages into the layouts.

One of the methods I use to mix the pocket and traditional is to "sandwich" the two types of layouts.  I start with a traditional "beginning" and "ending" page and add in the pocket page (or pages) between the traditional pages.

The beginning and ending page to the traditional layouts I create. The journaling isn't complete as I prefer to journal at home rather than at retreats. Since I'm always a little distracted at retreats (talking, singing along to music), I usually have a mistake or two in the journaling block.

 Since this layout was of the Rose Garden and I had taken duplicate pictures of some flowers and cacti, I was able to pare down the photos. I only needed to include one pocket page which allowed me to have another eight photos. (Another layout I completed (which I'll share another week), I used more pocket pages as we had tons of photos to include.) I match the pictures in the pocket to the traditional page it'll be next to. Since the left page had the title (used the Rose Garden sign picture) and one of the rose bushes, I placed the rose pictures on the "front" side of the pocket page.

The end page of the traditional double page spread had cacti pictures so the "back" side used those photos. I really wanted to use the vertical picture so I trimmed it in half and matted it on card stock. It was the only place I could see to include it and have the layout flow together.

The Lost Photos

There's nothing like moving your craft room to find those pictures you thought you had printed, then convinced yourself you imagined, only to discover those photos existed after all. I completed my daughter's childhood album (from birth to high school graduation) and was disappointed that her preschool graduation pictures disappeared.

 She had worn a graduation cap that was a similar color to her high school graduation cap and I wanted those pictures in her album. The pictures were not in the drawer I kept her photos in. I looked through her brother and sister's photo drawer and they weren't in there either. I gave up, figuring those photos only existed in my mind.

Two weeks ago, I was finishing making the move to my new office/scrapbook room. There was a three drawer plastic storage container I had avoided. Cleaning it out would be a huge undertaking as it was a hodgepodge of newspapers, brochures from places we traveled, formal pictures from proms, yearly school pictures, and anything else I had deemed save-worthy at one time but had no official place to store them.

Among the newspapers I was saving were the black and white photos I had printed of her preschool graduation. Somehow, those pictures got mixed up into my where-should-I-put these sorting pile. Since I had to rearrange the pages in the album (an easy task since I use a three-ring binder and found another set of pictures that required a scrapbook page), I chose a color scheme that blended well with the layout that has her preschool diploma.