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Scrapbooking Multiple Kids : AEzine Reader Comments December 2007 MULTIPLE KIDS RESPONSES From Skipper: I just wanted to share what works for me with scrapbooking multiple kids. I have 6 children. 5 boys and one girl. From the beginning, I have done a "family scrapbook". Now within this book are many individual child pages including birthdays, special achievements, and just plain precious photos. But also in this book are special family moments, including holidays, every day life, etc. So I have, in almost chronological order, about 4 complete scrapbooks (fat ones) that the children LOVE to pour over and show off (to each other and everyone who visits). My theory in this is, no matter what, my children's lives are full of each other. They will have thousands of special memories together. And I truly don't want to waste a moment making 6 separate books with the same memories or thoughts or pictures. And I am also paying special attention to focus on individual children as appropriate and take advantage of every unique moment and personality we have in this home! My plan is to be able to present to my children individual books as their "growing up" present....when they graduate college, get married, or whatever they decide. In those books will be copies of all the individual layouts for that child, PLUS special family memories, "brothers" layouts, "sister and brother" layouts, etc and the fact that they are copies means I will be able to have MANY flat pages rather than a few fat pages in one book! Meanwhile I will have my books until I grow old. I do want to note that I do have 3 SMALL (6x6) albums that are for special things like my daughter's heart surgery, my 2 sons' trip to disney world with my mom, and my oldest son's very first theatre production in which he was the main character. ===== From Melanie: I have four children, 15, 13, 4 and nearly 2. I made them each a scrapbook/album from birth to 1 yr of their own, and from then on, all my layouts go in family albums. So Birthdays, grocery shopping, walks in the forest -whatever, all go in date order in our family album. That way I make {family} albums we all enjoy, of our life as it happens. Hope that helps bigger families that scrapbook:) === From Julie: Just got your newsletter (love) and have been reading your book every spare moment (also love). I caught the question about how you handle scrapping the same event for multiple children. I do scrap the same events for both of my kids, but the layouts look completely different. In addition to random “for the art of it” pages I do, I keep three running albums, one for each child that they will take with them and one for the “family” that will stay with me. So, each event is technically done at least three times. For my daughter’s book, I will focus on photos of her and tell her “story” as it related to each event (a trip to the apple orchard, Christmas, etc.). I will do the same for my son from the point of view of what was important to him that day. And, for my album, I will give an overview as a whole. I don’t use the same products for each album, and I don’t even necessarily do them at the same time. It might be weeks or months between when I actually scrap each album. This way, it does not seem repetitive and it actually feels like three separate events. ===== From Jill: I have two kids and the thought of making 2 of every holiday & vacation LO sounds so much more like work than fun. I don't want scrapbooking to become to difficult or I would lose my motivation. I have a family album every year and separate albums for each of the kids. In the family album I make LOs for every family activity such as holidays, vacations or everyday events that include both kids. If a LO pertains to just one child, it goes in their personal album (birthdays, friends, sports, lost tooth, etc). So no, their own albums don't contain much about family events but they can fight over the family albums some day! I also find that I have started making some single page LOs with one particular child during a holiday or vacation (from their perspective), if I feel inspired, but it is not a duplicate of the family album. Who wants to become an assembly line? ==== From Chrissy: I have two kiddos, so I thought I would respond. In the beginning, when Felix was just a little guy, it seemed like every picture I took of him had his big brother, Simon, in it. If the story pertained to both, I would create a seperate LO for each and tell the story from their point of view. I usually stuck with the same design, even the same picture if it applied. As Felix has gotten older and started to develop more of his own personality, I've noticed that I'm not making many duplicate LO's. Hope that helps. I'm including some examples. The first set is an example of my using the same LO, just different pictures. The second set is an example of using the same set of pictures to tell two different stories. === From Christen: I have 4 kids. The way I decided to handle this was to have a family album that I scrapbook everything that is important to me. I also have an individual book for each of my kids...it has first day of school, birthdays, halloween costumes and awards, and more individual type of things that they are into. It has maybe 3-5 pages per year plus drawings and school stuff that I know they'd want to keep. I only kept it up through elementary school for my daughters, at that point they wanted to start to doing their own albums and books. My youngest is a boy and is in 6th grade, I'm not sure how long I'll keep it going for him, as he doesn't seem as interested in taking pictures and working on it himself. === From Catherine: I'm the mom of six kids....yes,I know, it boggles the mind. But here's how I solve the multiple kids issue. I have almost always scrapped 8.5 x 11 for family "events". I started out separating the stacks of pictues by who was in them and scrapped multiples of each event. I quickly discovered that this would eventually drive me out of my mind...not to mention how amazingly time-consuming it was. Enter the color copy. I scrap an event only once with a good cross-section of photos and then get color copies made which go into my kid's binders. I keep the originals. That way everyone gets the event documented. === From Noell: I have three kids, and for a while I did a page for each of my kids on each event. Then I realized it was holding me back, slowing me down, and ruining the whole hobby for me. The second and third layouts of each event were obligations, not acts of love or passion. So, I changed my perspective. I decided I was scrapbooking for me and the books I make are mine, even if they are about my kids. When I am ready to give them up (most likely not until I die) my children can divide up the pages. And here is the key to the way I see it: if one or all of them want scrapbook pages of every single event bad enough, there is no reason why they couldn't scrap those events themselves! Why do we think we have to do it all for them? Instead, I just print copies of photos for each of my kids to keep for themselves later. ==== From Laura: I have two boys, aged 4 1/2 and almost 7. I began the older one's scrapbook before his brother was even a twinkle in his daddy's eye, so the book was always thought about as being "his" book. Once the little one arrived, well he needed a book (or set of books!) too! As it stands, they each get an album per year of life. Yikes! I'm looking at 36 albums sitting on my bookshelves by the time they graduate high school! Not to mention the process of "handing them over" when they establish a homestead of their own. I've begun considering combining several years (particularly the school years) into single albums in order to solve this problem, but I would never consider making only one family album, and here's why: No matter the event, be it Christmas, Halloween, or a vacation, each boy has a very unique experience and that is what I am trying to capture in the layout. The boy who was scared to go on Splash Mountain but did it anyway should get a very different layout about that experience from the one about the boy that doesn't know the meaning of the word fear and was game to try anything once. I seem to be alone in my thinking on this among my real life and online scrapping friends, but it's working for me, and does not compromise my creativity in the way combining these experiences would. I have cut down on the "duplicate" layouts. Those that would essentially be the same in both albums - the family portrait, the obligitory boys-in-front-of-the-Christmas-tree picture, etc. I pick one boy to "get" that layout and call it done. So, there's my take on scrapping multiple kids! Surely I might feel different if my "multiple" was more than two, but right now this is right for me! In addition, I think people who scrapbooked before they had children (unlike me - my older son's album was my first project) would be more likely to see their child's baby pictures as just part of the album(s) of their life, rather than specifically done "for" the child. === From Ronda: I have three kids and they each have 2 albums of thier own, one baby album (basically the story of the first year of thier life and another album that focuses on stuff that relates directly to them, ie sports, activities, friends, personality and characteristics basically layouts that feature them or thier perspective. Everything else goes into family albums, for us that means a vacation book that highlights our family vacations each year, a christmas book, a halloween mini album, and a general book that encompasses anything that doesnt fit anywhere else, thats where the everyday stuff goes. Thanks to you now it doesnt even matter what size I feel like scrappin. We have lots of mini books that they look at all the time, they are well loved. This works good for us, someday they may have to move some of the pages or figure out who gets what album but it wont matter, they are all full of great memories, good times and real life. === From Anne-Camille: In your newsletter I read that you were wondering what women do about scrapbooking more than one child? I have three children and I do NOT scrap 3 pages of the same event. For example, a friend of mine also has three children- she makes 3 identical pages for each child's book. "EXHAUSTING!!!," I say!!! When I have photos of the three of my children (like from vacation or the Pumpkin Patch)- I make one page. I figure when it's all said and done my children will have a LIBRARY full of sb pages to choose from. When they are grown- they can pick and choose which pages of them they want to keep for them. When it comes to their individual things: birthdays, dance recitals, 1st day of Kindergarten, etc... I DO have individual books for them for those events! === From Roni: Regarding multiple kids...I am the oldest of 8, have 2 daughters, 3 grandchildren, multiple nieces and nephews, and am 'behind' on scrapping if you can call it that. I did get overwhelmed with the process of recording things in chronological order. As soon as I threw that 'albatross' out the window I opened up a new way of life. SO, I too, do what inspires me. I have lots of duplicate photos, so I do my book and save the extras for the girls (and grandchildren) to scrap for themselves. My view of the moment might be totally different from theirs, that's a given, and I like to see what they feel. I have had my granddaughter scrapping since she was 3 years old...at that time it was very simple - she puts pix on paper. Then it developed from there and now at 8 she and the 10 year old GD do elaborate pages, and the 5 year old grandson just sticks his pictures on the page however he can. And those pages are the most precious to me. I like to do little books/projects (keep them in a basket) of events and moments. I don't feel the need to scrap every second of every day. I am finding that I can sum so much up in a photo and a couple of words. This is such a big topic to put into words, but reading what you and others share is so wonderful and helpful. I think we just have to relax and enjoy the process and the journey. Life is full of so many little moments, those are the ones that make me smile. There is no right way to do it or wrong way - it's what is your way. === From Monique: I have two daughters (7 and 13) and I scrap everything separated for both girls. Sometimes with the same pictures, but sometimes with different photo’s or different subjects. And also do I make pages about them and the things that are important for them. It’s a lot of work, and no, I’m not caught up (I scrap what I like, 4 years ago, or yesterday) and it cost’s me a lot of money (all the papers and embellishments) but I want them to have there own photo’s and pages (and thank God, my friend has a very big scrapbookstore, so….) They both have very big scrapbooks, but they love to take a look at them. I don’t scrap with pageprotectors (I don’t like the look and feel of them) so my pages don’t always look very clean, but with an eraser and glue … These are the books of my daughters! === I'm Anna from Sweden. I have 5 kids, 21,18, 6, 4 and 4 years old, and spent a lot of time thinking about how to handle that in my scrapbooking. I'd like to share some of my thoughts about this and I hope you'll excuse my language mistakes... First I did separate albums for each one of my kids, and one family album. That meant 6 ongoing albums, and I like to scrapbook all my pictures so that was a lot of work. I also have twins so I did the same LOs in both their albums, and when there was more than one child in the picture I made separate LOs of that for everyone in the picture, so if I had a photo of all 5, I scrapped the same picture five times.... What finally made me re-think my way of doing this were a couple of things: Time. It took me ages just to tell one little story. Creativity. It became kind of boring doing the same thing so many times. When to stop? My oldest daughter is 21. She has her own home, living with her boyfriend. And I still scrapbooked her life! I started to worry about that there was so few LOs in her album, when I realised that I had to let go of her baby album before she has kids on her own.... My family album. Which was also rather boring. I spent all my energy on my children’s albums and what went into the big family album was pretty much the leftovers, the photos that I thought was not good enough to put in the children’s albums, and that didn't make me feel very creative when I worked on the family album... The big picture. I started thinking about when my kids are grown and leave home with their albums. Would it be fun to have an album with just you in it, and hardly a picture of anyone else in the family? Or would it be more interesting to see what our life was about with every member involved? So, I decided to start doing just ONE album (and it was a really big decision, that took me months to reach :-)) and all stories about everyone goes into that. To tell a story just once gives me more time and energy to be creative so I can do it in a way that makes me happy about it, and the album now reflects our life in a much more fulfilling way than it did before. I've done this for two years now, and I have two big albums from every year, so there will surely be enough albums for all of them! I don't think that it will matter that they'll get one or a couple of random years, because that year will tell them so much about our life. They also got their first years in their own albums so I'm very confident that I've covered everything important :-) Dividing the albums between the kids is not something I think about now, they are just going to stay with me until someone asks for them, or maybe for as long as I'm around... I still have my baby albums with my parents, and look at them when I visit. But I just had to know that this would work out in the future before I could let go of my idea that they all must have their own separate albums from birth to adulthood... In addition to that one big album I like to do mini albums from special events or stories. The kids love to look in them and I keep them in a basket in the living room (wonder where I got that idea....) I have mini albums from when my son learned to ride a bike, about songs we like to sing before bedtime, from a show they did in pre school, a lot of things that meant much to the children, and they can look at them as often as they want. This new approach makes me a happier scrapbooker and I'm learning more and more to focus on what's really important, what I'd like to tell, rather than just write about what's in the pictures and feeling that I have to scrapbook every single photo I ever take. === From Paula: I have three young children: Quinn (5), Keira (almost 4) and Kaelan (almost 3). My husband and I adopted them each as infants from Korea. I think maybe because of the loss I feel for having missed the first few months of their lives, combined with loss they will likely experience as a result of adoption, I feel compelled to help them "remember" their histories from the point at which they "came home" to join our family. I keep one scrapbook for each child for each year of their lives. (This one-album-per-child-per-year thing just ended up coincidentally, as each album filled up around the time of their next birthdays). I create pages about everyday events and observations, of which holidays and special events always seem to be included. I find that some pages, usually holiday pages, have the same (or similar) content from child-to-child. I may use a common theme/layout/paper choice for all three children's "common" pages, but I often find the story angle I want to tell for each is a bit different, and may call me to take a different approach for each. Often I feel compelled to "soften" my daughter's pages... I can't resist "feminizing" her pages, while the boys' pages I appreciate the challenge of maintaining a "boyish masculinity." I too am currently using the American Crafts 12x12 3-ring albums. (I'm excited to see the cloth ones you mentioned in your AEzine... gotta try these.) I enjoy the freedom of using a variety of page sizes, depending on each layout's needs, and embrace the creative challenge this presents me in the way of considering the surrounding pages that may "peek" from behind a smaller page. In addition to the three children's albums, I like to create thematic mini-books for our family and those who visit our home to enjoy. For example I have one for Father's Day (completed), Halloween (added to each year), Play (completed), Christmas (yet to be started and added to each year), among others. I also have mini-books I've created telling everyday stories of the children's experiences. One is the story of our visit to the local fire station. Another is about seeing a tree removed near our home and then watching it be ground up by a mulcher. One other is about three dogs we watched in a car in front of ours in line at the drive-through Starbucks. For each child for Christmas, I plan to create "lifebooks" that tell their stories (with the limited information I have) from the time of their birth, throughout their first few months living with a foster family until the time each left Korea for their new lives in America. These are such crucial stories I hope will help to bridge some gaps in my children's histories. In writing this, I realize that we all must have personal motives for creating scrapbooks specifically for our children that reach beyond being a creative outlet for ourselves. Each child's story is so unique, with challenges, everyday moments and successes. I can't imagine too many people who could possibly be "caught up" with all they want to say. And although I sometimes wish I could tell all of my stories as they occured, I realize that telling them at some point is what I value. I want my children to remember the stories of their lives, and hopefully by my telling telling these stories through photography, writing and my own artistic expression they might have one more indicator of the depth of my love for them. === From Lyndall: Thought I’d share what I do for my kids. I have 2 girls, 8 and 6yo, and a 21 month old boy. I started scrapbooking to make a baby book for my daughter 8 years ago now. I ended up scrapbooking almost every decent photo as it seemed simpler to combine a babybook and photo album in the one place. That was in the era of film photography. As the other kids came along I just continued the family album chronologically year after year enjoying the process…but slowly getting “behind”. Life got busier. Now, in the digital era, I find that I make less pages as I don’t need to print every photo and there are other electronic means to record the day to day details…. Also I am doing less as I can no longer afford to stay up into the wee small hours scrapping and overly fussing over one page! – different priorities now. Friends who do multiple pages for family albums and albums for each child asked me what I would give to each child if the pages were all in together. That seemed to be the main concern. I am thinking that each child can have the album/s of their first 1-2 years. Any pages that are precious to me, I can scan and print – maybe even print smaller (6x6) for myself or others that the page pertains to. It will probably mean more for them to have the real thing than for me to hold on to them. I think by that time I’ll be living in a house that has wall to wall albums and I’ll be more than ready to pass them on. It’s not a perfect plan, but I am ok with it. When I turned 21 my mum gave me one album of a collection of memories and photos. I plan to make a more reflective album as a gift similar to the one my mum gave me. Each child will also have a school album of their own. Another thing that helps is to “tag” the digital photos with names, birthdays, christmas and favourites and other things that will make it easy to put together a disc of favourite photos over the kids childhood and then put together that gift album. A blog is also a good way of keeping up to date with words and photos without the crafting when time is tight. Hopefully that will also last as a digital archive of memories for them in the future too. So I try to keep it simple and not double up === From Cami: With 2 girls 3 years apart, I felt it was important to document their individual "story". I have scrapbooks for each of them through age 5 - filled with first tooth stories, Christmas fun, etc. - stories unique to them. Since they began Kindergarten, I have a Stacy Julian-based idea that each child has a school scrapbook. The rest of the photos are in more of a family scrapbook which is loosely chronological. === From Mieke: About your question for scrapping for more than one child in a family: I only did once one same layout 3 (!!!) times: one for me, and my daughters both wanted the LO soooo bad...I did it with pleasure, but never again! We have so little time and so much layouts to do...why on earth make one twice??? This is my solution: they( my girls) are both beautiful, very different personalities, and I make nice pictures of each one of them, but on different occasions. Then I make a layout for both of them but since the pictures are different, i don’t have to make the same pages and they are very happy with the personalised layouts! === From Heatherle: When I married into a six year old son (the perfect age - - ready to craft right next to me from the minute I got him), I tried to make a scrapbook for him and then a seperate family book. I gave up once I realized I was doing nearly identical pages. Then I had a new home that needed work, and another child and took a scrapping hiatus. Now, when something is really important for my children, I make a mini book, sometimes even a whole 8x8 album. My son is now 15 and he has an 8x8 album documenting building RC airplanes with Daddy, and a weekend trip they took to go to an RC fly in just the two of them. My daughter has a book with just Disney pictures, and my son has one framed photo of that vacation that is meaningful to him, and so forth. The same events don't hold the same level of meaning to them usually given the fact that they are 10 years apart. We still have family theme albums about holidays and vacations and sometimes we just have the photo sleeve albums with a scraibbles note slid in. This seems to work for us to do themed stuff only since I don't keep just one big book. I am thinking of playing with that idea this year, though, and may have to modify what is working now since I want to have a record of our daily life as a family. I also am trying to make an 8x8 album capturing a point in time for them every few years. When my daughter was 2 and a half, I made a life artist type album showing her books, and her hobbies, and her triumph over diapers and her favorite stuffed horse (actually got the idea when you made a layout of Simon's room and took it to a larger scale). For my son, I made an album with an edgier feel documenting his same interests at nearly 15. Now that Matti is driving and starting to have hobbies and friends that don't include us so much, I think I am going to arm his little herd of girls in his mixed gender friend group with some disposable cameras, or maybe I will start my own My Space and hack into everyone's pages and make a book about that, or have everyone send me stuff from their cell phone cameras. I have nearly nothing of my teen years, so I think he will appreciate having that story when he is an oldster like us however I end up telling it. And this is a time when he is making decisions that effect who he will forever be, so I want to document that process for him. And I want to celebrate that he is really a very nice young man, and super good company, and a good brother. This seems to work for me now and I don't feel like I have to do much to keep creative and productive. === From Karin: I have two boys and I create an album for each. Sometimes I duplicate a layout exactly for each of their albums and sometimes I use different photos or different papers but the same layout to save time. Other times I make layouts based on interests or events specific to each of them. I am totally random on what I scrap, whatever I feel like, not chronological at all and in no way "caught up". The albums hold everything, a collage of Halloween photos, Christmas layouts, some birthdays, sports, a few baby layouts etc. I am on the fourth album for each of them. I consider the albums mine for now but when I am no longer around, they will each have their own. I plan to sit with my grandchildren and show them, "this is your daddy when..." or go through the albums for my own pleasure when I am too old to still scrapbook! I have many different albums on the go but this is what I do for my children. === From Violet: I am an identical twin (both of us are scrappers), and I would suggest to Lynette that the daily event itself could define the layout. If it’s a family event, then it’s a family centered page.. If it’s the first time the twins do something together then it’s a two-some page. But if it’s something that really is all about one child, it could be a page that centers on that child (that might include pictures of other participants too) and might go in their own book. I say this because the tricky thing with twins (especially if they are identical) is that they are very often viewed as a unit, are in many ways remarkably alike, and because of their same age they will experience many of the same things at the same time, BUT at the same time they are two different people trying to individuate from their mother and twin and find their own unique place in the world and build a sense of who they are on their own--apart from being a twin. So when something happens to a twin or a twin does something on their own, that is an important event that helps provide that twin with an unique story amid all the twin and family-shared moments that make up their life. Lynette, is absoultely right! It IS about BALANCE: the twin is a daughter in a family, a twin sister and her own little special self. We all have these multiple roles of course, but I think for twins it particularly challenging to find that balance. When I was a child a friend asked me, "When you wake up in the morning, do you have trouble knowing which one you are?" Of course not, but I have to admit that I can’t tell myself from my twin in the family photos from 0-4 yrs and that is a little unnerving! ;-) Congrats to Lynette for being way ahead of the game--I didn’t get my own baby book from mother until I was in my thirties, but it was absolutely amazing to see a whole book about just me and that those were unequivocably “my” pictures--pictures of just me. When you spend most of your young life being mistaken for the other twin or being called simply “the twins,” it really ups the ante on the desire to be known and seen for who you are--just for yourself. That said, I think being a twin is an incredibly special experience, and I love looking at pictures that show how connected we were and the amazing twin life we had together. Layouts devoted to the twins’ bond would be lovely thing mixed in with the family and individual pages. So I guess, my suggestion to Lynette is to do it all and trust her mother instincts about seeing a moment in her family life that begs to be documented and sensing who and what is the focus. It sounds like as a scrapper, Lynette is ready for new structures and mixing it up so I wish her the very best of luck! === From Elizabeth: Well, I have two sets of twins (4 and 1 and a half) so I had to be realistic about my time! For me, I chose to create a book from birth to 1 year for each child. After that, I have a family book and I crop fun things or moments in our family. I don't bother keeping track of who gets how many pages. . .I just do what strikes me! I figure they each have one book that is unique to them and they fight over the others if they want!!! === From Carol Anne: I have two daughters. When I want to put the same event in both albums, I create duplicate page layouts. I have most of the pictures as common pictures, but one or two that focus on each child. I focus the journalling on each child, although there may be common threads in my writing. So while the pages may look the same, there are some differences. But the differences aren't unmanageable at all. === From Stefanie: I have 3 children, Joshua is 14, Caleb is 11 and Hannah is 8. I have an album of the year i.e.. 2007 and in there goes stuff we do together as a family, mother's day, father's day, back to school, our July holiday etc, then each chid has their own birthday albums, (where I am actually up to date) a double page per year. Each child has a school album, again a double page per year (I am not so up to date), then each has another album where I put layouts that pertain just to them, usually layouts with lots of journaling and such like - to build them up and encourage them, also to acknowledge their achievements, e.g. beginning to play golf, playing soccer and getting the trophy for "most improved", etc Then my husband and I also have our own albums where I celebrate our likes, lives, work etc. When I am asked who will get the family albums I reply that they can fight over them when I am dead and gone, failing that maybe they could each produce their own scanned versions. Or maybe my daughter will want them and the boys not so much. Who knows, not going to worry about that now. === From Misty: I have two little boys and have recently started organizing my albums using Stacy Julian's system from her Big Picture Scrapbooking book. I have an "all about us" album and a "things we do" album that have everyone's pages in them. I have decided to do a seperate book with school pictures and birthdays for each child for them to have one day. As far as the rest of the pages, I want them stored together with our family pages and I'm just not going to worry about it right now. Maybe when they get married I will go through and pull some of their pages to give them but right now they're just age 4 & 2 so I have plenty of time. I think I would rather create more pages about all the many pictures and memories I have than take the time to make duplicate pages. I think they would appreciate having more stories to read over no matter whose house they may end up at one day. === From Michelle: I only have 2 children, and not twins, but I have been occasionally doing a two page layout, one page for each child. This way, when they want pages for their scrapbook at home (when they grow and move out) they can have their "own" page, but for now they look great together in my scrapbook. Hope this helps someone. I know it is not a 100% solution, but it works for me. === From Michele: I have two daughters (12 and 5 yrs) and to keep my sanity I do not scrap multiple layouts for them. I have one album with separate tabs for each of them and if they are both in the picture, that layout will go under my family tab (courtesy of the wonderful Stacy Julian). Without this method, I think I would go crazy. Eventually, I would love to have separate albums for them because I'm sure that they would love to take it with them when they move out. === From Jenny: I have 3 boys. I ended up doing a two page spread for each month of their life until they turned 2 (it just happened that way) then from 2-5 it's birthdays and Christmas and misc. trips. We live far from family, so it's usually our summer trip home. Even though they are boys, they LOVE looking at their pages and get excited when I add a new one. After that, and I'm just really starting this part, I'm using Stacy Julian's system from her book "The Big Picture" and only doing 5 pages per school year. Now I am finally scrapping for myself! === From Nicole: I have one "album" for each son of mine and a family yearbook. When I make layouts from my two boys I decide afterwards in which album I will put it. Layouts are just in the shape and size as I like to use on that moment, only the three holes for the rings that binds them are always on the same place, the back of the layout is always covered with some neutral cardstock where I can put drawings, crafts and little notes later on. === From Lee: To answer the question you posed- I do keep 2 separate books for my children. Jason is 4, Adam is 19 months. I still do the "big" things- birthdays and Christmas, but I also scrap by season. Each child gets a 2 page layout that has various pictures from those seasons. So far, it works. I am also branching out more, doing single pages that have a particular story to tell. This is very new for me, but very satisfying. That way I don't feel bogged down. Will I always do 4 seasons? Who knows, but for now I will. Oh- and this is a biggie- I use maps to do my pages! They are such a great help to get a lot of pages done in a short time. I also tend to scrap chronologically, which helps me stay focussed and organized. Once a particular season or month is done with, I put those photos away. I feel very strongly about each child having his own books, but if I had more than 2 children, it might be different! === From Debbie: I have two small boys, 5 and 2. Unless they just happen to marry women who love books about their childhood, I know that I am creating albums for today. We have one family album, pretty much one for each year. It has highlights, some big events, some daily stuff, but mostly things I want to remember about their childhood. I do mini albums once in a while that are just about one event. Or just about one boy. That way they each have "their" books but I don't have to scrapbook everything in the world twice for two boys who will grow into men who will hopefully have such productive lives they won't be sitting around focused on their childhoods. (Unless their therapist recommends that!)
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