Wedding bells are ringing

It seems I'm surrounded with people getting married or talking about their weddings. Often there is a lot of stress about scrapbooking wedding photos and getting your album perfect and ready for others to see. Some are even so ambitious that they end up promising albums for in-laws or other family members! It can be quite intimidating sorting through all those photos from the big day.

I thought I'd share a few thoughts and try to relieve a little stress if I can. First of all, when it comes to the day itself (if you're a bride-to-be), there are some fun little projects that you and your girlfriends can do before your wedding. Take a look at this picture below (sorry the first one is blurry, I swear it's from bad lighting, not how many drinks I had). It's the letters "L" "O" "V" "E" in white ink on rocks. You can do this with white or black ink, usually stayz-on permanent ink is the best. The photo below that is the same concept but on rocks as place settings for everyone. Look for the rock that says "bride" next to the star fish.

(photo above by Chris Boar)

For those of you who are already married and are ambitious enough to attack your own wedding album I have a few suggestions that might help you know where to start. It can be so overwhelming.
1) Start by selecting the "must have" photos. Remember you have maybe hundreds of photos of the day, but your scrapbook album should have only your favourites.

2) Decide how you want to organize the photos in your album. For example, do you want sections dividing each part of the day?
Bride getting ready
Groom getting ready
The ceremony
The wedding party
The dinner
First dance
Throwing the bouquet and garter
The real party

3) Organize your photos for each section. This step will be more important if you have limited space, like if you only want to do a certain number of pages because it's a gift for the in-laws and well, you don't really like them that much...yet. Doing a 9" by 9" album will change things significantly versus doing a 12" by 12". I usually recommend the 9" by 9" as a gift and saving the bigger one for yourself.

4) Start scrapbooking! I could get into more OCD details here, but this is really the creative part and everyone is different. It depends how you like to look. At this point you might want to find ideas. I often will look through the Close To My Heart Idea Book for inspiration, or even Becky Higgins' sketches, these are great resources to have! Some people like to sketch out what they are going to do before they do it, others can just go with the flow. The important thing is to do what you are most comfortable with. I would recommend trying to do a section at a time. You'll start to see some progress and you'll more than likely feed off of that satisfaction and won't get so discouraged easily. This is a big project so be proud of what you do accomplish!

Email me if you're working on something like this or have other ideas. I'd love to hear from you.

A new year calls for roundups
As I start 2008 refreshed and ready for lots of scrapbooking, I remembered that almost two years ago I found a fantastic suggestion from a fellow scrapbooker's blog. I thought that since this is my first post for the year, it would be a fantastic time to share that with you.

Katie, the scrapbook lady (no really, that's what she calls herself) developed this idea of a monthly roundup. The idea is that it's a summary of all the main events that happened in the last 30 days so that if you don't have the chance to scrapbook that month immediately, you have all the key events and milestones recorded so you can go back to it at a later time. Isn't that fantastic? I love the idea of taking stock of what's happened, especially since I have a horrible memory!

What I'd like to do is share with you my version of the roundup. I've taken the questions from Katie, the scrapbook lady, and adapted them slightly. Thanks for the inspiration Katie! Here are my questions:

What books and/or magazines did I read this month?

What old/new music did I listen to this month?

What movies and/or tv shows did I watch this month?

What gifts did I give and/or receive?

Who did I spend time with and how?

What illnesses or health concerns did I have?

What new foods, recipes or restaurants did I try this month?

What special or unusual purchases did I make?

What were this month’s disappointments?

What were my accomplishments this month?

Anything else noteworthy to record?