My 2016 @Home Mini Album

Yesterday I was invited to visit with Tracie Claiborne on her podcast, Live Inspired. Before the show started Tracie asked me if I still scrapbook. I said incredulously, "Of course I still scrapbook!" But then I got to thinking, how would Tracie know this, when I stink so bad at sharing my work! The main reason for this is that I've become quite lazy. When I consider the effort involved in photographing pages/projects and then getting them posted, I generally choose something else to do, ha! But, with my 2017 emphasis on writing/blogging I'm going to try and do better. I'll start with this mini album project that I taught at She Loves Color in October. I'm a BIG fan of small albums that can take the place of a bigger, more time-intensive chronological projects, simply because some years I don't feel like making lots of pages and yet I still want to document the year—AND you can EASILY do this when you step away from a timeline and view your life through a different lens—in this case, your HOME. Remember, chronology is just ONE WAY to organize the photos and stories in a scrapbook. This means there are many, many other ways!

Start by watching this video walk through. I've shared a few insights and tips with the images below. If you have additional questions, leave them for me in the comments and I'll add information to this post.

First of all, in case you don't know, I adore small albums, because the album itself can so readily become part of your story. Here, the inside front cover features 4 nature photos that I took, one from each season. 

I generally work with one coordinated line of product. This project features Simple Stories, Carpe Diem line, which is pretty hard to get now, but I think this line or this line would be adorable for a home album. Plus, if you stick with Simple Stories, you can use their AWESOME cardstock stickers, and know that they will coordinate. They are the perfect size and super versatile for an extended project like this. I essentially used up one 6x6 pad along with a package of letter stickers and a package of sticker embellishments.

The album I used was designed by Heidi Swapp—again, hard to come by—but I think you could use this album that is 6"x9" and comes with a variety of pocket pages. I used each kind of pocket page to create a different section of my story. In the first section, Our Home, I created collages of the interior of our home/rooms using the full 9"x6" protectors. 

I designated the pages with 2, 4"x6" pockets for People in their Places. So, for my kids ... a photo of them in their room and another detail photo or another place altogether. 

The next section is Happy Memories at Home, where I slipped very everyday-ish photos of us doing things in and around our home into the 4"x3" pockets. 

I used some extra 4"x6" pockets to hold photo collages that I created with the Project Life app. And, I created this CUTE quote card using the Rhonna Designs app as a little extra for girls in my class. 

At the very end of the album, is a one-page handwritten story that I created by captioning the photos in the Memories at Home section. 

Early today I used the Project Life app to make these two additional photos, which I uploaded to Walgreens using their app. I LOVE how easy mobile makes using and printing photos! These photos will slip into my last 4, 4"x3" pockets at the end of my album. 

This album features 66 photos from 2016.
It's one of those FUN and DONE projects that allows me to move on and stay current!