I was recently reading the blog of one of the scrapbooking industry’s personalities. On it the person in question mentioned having 52 completed scrapbooking albums to date. (I’m thinking it was Becky Higgins but I could be wrong about that.) I nearly fell off my chair. FIFTY TWO ALBUMS. Arrrghhhh! Not that I’m criticizing BH in particular (if it was indeed her). No doubt there’s plenty of other career scrappers with similar numbers, perhaps even some of you have similar numbers, or soon will have.
So how does one end up like that? Quite easily – a distinct lack of long term planning. When you first thought about scrapbooking, did you sit down and plan the long term implications of your hobby? No probably not. Neither did I.
A Case Study – Jill’s 2007 Digital Photos
I’d like to put myself forward as your typical family happy snapper. I take the occasional photo of my two children (just because) and I also like to record special events such as birthdays, Christmas…that type of thing. I probably take around 15-25 photos per event.
In 2007, I took a total of 624 digital photos. I wondered how many albums that might translate to over my children’s 18 year childhood. Let’s see…
- 624 / 12 is an average of 52 photos per month.
- Assuming I scrap four photos per page, that’s 13 pages per month (52 / 4 = 13).
- If I scrapped 13 pages per month, that’s 156 pages per year (13 x 12 =156).
- If I scrapped 156 pages per year over my children’’s 18 year childhood, that’s 2808 pages (156 x 18 = 2808).
So what would those 2808 pages translate to in terms of albums? Let’s make a further assumption here first – I tend not to fill an album with more than 50 inserts, or 100 pages double-sided. (Some of you may use more per album, or less, but bear with me for the purposes of this illustration.)
2808 pages /100 pages per album is equivalent to 28 albums over 18 years.
28 albums! And if you’re like me and have more than one child, that’s possibly per child! I feel positively ill. I can’t imagine presenting one or both of my children with a couple of CDs worth of photos AND a pile of 28 scrapbooking albums each upon their entry into adulthood. What about you?
So I hear some murmurs about the other assumptions. Yes of course, you’re absolutely right. I assumed I would scrap every single photo. I assumed I would put 4 photos on every page. Let’s look at those particular assumptions up a bit closer.
Assumption 1 – Even if I scrapped only half the photos I took, I’d still have 14 albums to present each child on their 18th birthday. Still a ridiculous number, don’t you think? Or is it just me?
Assumption 2 – What if I didn’t scrap four photos on every page? If I’m scrapping quite a few single page layouts, the mind boggles at how many albums I might end up with then.
The other factor I began to consider is the dollar value attached to scrapping in this way. I don’t think I have the budget to cover 2808 pages, do you? If you assume an average page cost of $5, that’s $14040 over the 18 years, or $780 per year. Not to mention that $5 per page is probably a very conservative estimate these days. A page cost of $7 translates to $19656 ($1092 per year) and $10 per page translates to a whopping $28080 ($2340 per year). All I have to say about that is OUCH!!! *fainting*
Planning Your Scrapbooking For The Longer Term
If I’ve scared you as much as I just scared myself, you may now see the need to tame the unwieldy beast your scrapbooking hobby could become. You might even consider planning your projects more efficiently. But how?
For me, I’m going to plan my scrapbooking from a much longer term point of view from now on. I’ve formed a personal goal of 2 albums per child at age 18. To achieve this goal, obviously I have to reduce the above figures significantly. After some quick calculations, I’ve worked out that I need to cut the rate of my scrapping down to about one page per month of photos:
- 1 page per month = 12 pages per year
- 12 pages per year over 18 years is 216 pages
- At 100 pages per album, that’s approximately 2 albums to present to your child at age 18.
If we compare this to first scenario I gave you, I think you’ll agree it compares quite favorably.
Other strategies to reduce achieve my goal might include:
- Eliminating or minimizing single photo pages (and pages with less than four photos).
- Maximizing the number multi-photo pages.
- Not scrapping every photo, choosing only the best photos/or a representative set.
There are probably other strategies I could add to this list. I’d be interested to hear any further suggestions you might have. 
Related posts:
- Scrapbooking Roadblock Busting – Planning
- Reassessing Your Scrapbooking
- Scrapbooking Sketches July 09
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
The title of your post certainly got my attention!!!!
I think some people are scrapping too much – but I suppose it comes down to their choice.
I prefer to take candid shots of my kids (except for the obligatory Christmas Shots to insert in my handmade Christmas Cards).
When my kids were babies I wasn’t into scrapping so I have lots of candid shots – not so much of the gorgeous baby feet/hands shots etc. (I often think I am SO happy I wasn’t scrapping back then either as I know I wouldn’t have spent as much time enjoying my kids as I tend to be an obsessive type of person and turn my focus off what I should be concentrating on).
Like I said first up – I think it comes down to personal choice but it wouldn’t hurt to stop and take a good old look at ourselves now and again.
Luv Sandie
I guess if you are thinking only about the end result then maybe this makes sense, but for me, I find that scrapbooking is a creative outlet, something I like to do everyday to make me feel happier (like exercise). I’m less concerned with the end result and more concerned with the process. Its scrapbookers, after all, who are always saying “enjoy the journey” right? So I’m not worrying about the final destination of my scrapbook pages, I’m just having fun making them. And, by the way, I usually create more than one page a day and I’ve been scrapbooking for over ten years, and I have no idea how many scrapbooks I have – but I’m pretty sure its more than 52!
Sandie – Yes you’re absolutely right. The way you scrapbook is a completely personal choice and obviously there’s no right or wrong with that. For me, visualizing the 52 scrapbooking albums got me thinking about my own situation and scrapbooking goals. Hopefully this article plays “devil’s advocate” a little and encourages people to consider their own situation and goals a bit more. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Katie – I’ve no doubt you’re not alone there in just enjoying the process and obviously there’s nothing wrong with that if it works for you. I just wanted to highlight the implications of the way we scrap for people who might not have thought about it before and who might just find that’s actually a problem for them.
For me personally, meandering along without direction wasn’t working. I wasn’t enjoying the process. Planning long term projects and working towards a clear goal has really helped me. Perhaps it might help others too. If that’s the case, great. If not, no harm done. Thanks for sharing your particular situation.
I’m like Katie – I scrapbook for the creative outlet and not with a specific goal in mind. I don’t scrapbook every little event; I don’t scrapbook chronologically. Very early on in my scrapbooking “life” I realized there was no way I wanted to get caught up in that whole “gotta give each of my children scrapbooks of their entire lives” business. Very likely they won’t be interested in having them when they leave home…it’s the sort of thing you get interested in later on in life (eg when you have kids of your own). Personally I have very few photos of me as a child because most were lost in my parents’ house fire…but I don’t feel in anyway deprived because my mother didn’t scrapbook and I don’t have albums documenting my childhood (I actually remember lots of it quite well though because I was there!)
At some point I’ll probably have to find somewhere to put more scrapbooks but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. In the meantime I’m having fun with my creative hobby.
Hi Julia, thanks for sharing your thoughts. I’m sorry your childhood photos were lost, although you seem to have a fantastic outlook about it.
It wasn’t my intention to bring up the age old creative expression vs documentation (or the art vs hobby) debate. I think it’s fantastic that you (and Katie too) enjoy your scrapbooking the way you do. My view is, whatever works for you is perfectly fine by me. Hopefully the reverse side of the coin is true too, and creative people such as yourselves can respect those that simply cannot, or prefer not to, follow a similar path.
I’ve actually done a bit of a cycle over my 9 years of involvement in scrapbooking. I started out as a “documentor”, probably because I started out with CM and then I was seduced by the “creative side” if you will. I never really felt comfortable there and I think it’s probably one of the reasons I stopped scrapping altogether. More recently, I find myself being drawn back to my roots and I’ve rediscovered what actually works for me.
I take issue with the thought that we can scrapbook too much on many levels. From your post it is suggested that we are
1. Haphazardly taking on a hobby without thought to where it will lead us over time.
2. Disregarding or not aware of the cost of said hobby.
3. Potentially creating a burden to send our children into the world with.
In response to the first one, who really ever thinks out a hobby and goes where will this take me? What will I have to deal with in 20 years because of said hobby, or even 5, or 10 years. In regards the second I could write an essay. ALL hobbies cost money, some more than others.
In particular the cost concern annoys me on 2 levels. Firstly, it is not something that disappears, at the end of the day, month, year, decade there is something to show for it. Unless of course you are a hoarder and not a scrapbooker.
What worries me most is the third one though. The fear that our albums will be burdensome to our children. That sending our children into the world armed with childhood memories and proof of our love for them, and their love for us, and each other is a Bad thing is very worrying to me.
Beyond that however, I have no plans on sending my kids forth into the world weighed down by my albums. They need to wait till I die before they will get them. LOL. Instead I plan to send my children armed with 3 (possibly 4) specific albums just for them.
Each of my children for their 4th Birthdays will receive an album entitled “We Hope”. My oldest child has received his. We read it together sometimes. As he learns to read he takes it and reads it to himself, he has always (for the last 18 months) curled up with that album when he cant get my attention and needs to feel important in the world. My 2nd born will get his in a few weeks when he turns 4. My DD and my yet to be born baby will also receive one of these on their 4th B’days.
They will also be given an album on their 18th B’day’s very similar in style. Probably more of a “We are proud of you”, “Look what you have achieved in life” “Remember when” type album.
Along with that I will probably also do up a survival in the real world album for each of them. Things like basic/favourite recipes, reminders of housework tasks that need to be done each week, the remedy for a hangover, etc.
As well as that I may well do an album of them over the years. At this stage the prospect of keeping up with family albums, baby albums (we just seem to keep having more) and all my gift albums, handmade cards etc is a bit overwhelming. Maybe when they get bigger I will be able to focus better and create them each an album doing one or two pages a month just dedicated to them, for now, keeping up is just out of reach as it is.
I guess thinking about my plans was good. I have not changed my thinking. And I certainly do not think I could possibly ever scrap too much. Each of my pages is created with love and a desire to capture that and share it with those I do love. Even the pages I create about bad things, hard times, work etc are done with Love.
Can one ever really love too much??
Hi Amy, thanks for your comments. Interesting point of view. Some of your projects sound fabulous.
You’re admirably leaping to the defence of your beloved hobby. However, I’m not making an attack on scrapbooking itself. I think it’s an valuable and enjoyable pastime or I wouldn’t be involved with it myself. I don’t see anything wrong with simply asking a question. My main objective was to get people thinking about the issue. How much scrapbooking is “too much”? Obviously everyone’s answer is going to be different.
I agree that not many people consider all the long term implications of a hobby when they first get involved. It was merely an observation, not a criticism. I think you might have missed the bit where I admitted not planning anything in the beginning myself.
What I am suggesting is perhaps some of us do need to step back at some point and reassess what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. There’s nothing wrong with trying to find a better way. Newcomers to the hobby can also benefit from learning about some of the potential pitfalls. Note I said “potential”.
You seem particularly concerned about me pointing out the potential cost of scrapbooking. I’m interpreting what you’ve said to you making the point that “memories are priceless”. You’re right of course! No disagreement from me there. Again however, I’m not seeing anything wrong with getting people to think about whether their method of scrapbooking is sustainable in both the short and long term.
On a personal note, my family was hit hard during the global financial crisis. My husband lost two jobs in the last 18 months. One job he’d had for 8 years. We had to sell our home to survive and today we only have 2/3 the income that we did previously. So yes, I’ve had to look very hard at how much I’m spending and on exactly what. That includes my scrapbooking hobby.
This post really alienated me. While I understand you are talking about yourself and your own expectations and participation in this hobby, it seemed to generalise quite a lot and referred to scrapbooking as an obligation and burden. If you don’t like scrapbooking anymore, don’t do it. It is a hobby that should enhance your life and if it doesn’t – stop.
There are no rules for scrapbooking. You certainly don’t have to spend $5 a page, in fact I doubt that many of my pages would cost that much. And even presuming $5 a page at 13 pages a month (which is way more than I would enjoy producing) $780 a year works out to only $15 a week, about the cost of going to see one movie.
Your formula for working out 28 albums (or 14 if you scrap half the photos) presumes that you would scrapbook each event in each child’s scrapbook. I wouldn’t have thought that you would scrapbook child A’s birthday and include it is child B’s album.
Hi Delanie. Yes there are assumptions made in the article and as we all know, making assumptions does have its limitations. It’s a merely a rough illustration, please bear that in mind.
You are completely correct when you say there no rules for scrapbooking. I agree! I think you’re taking my illustration a little too literally. For the record, I don’t think I’ve ever spent as much as $5 on a page. I have heard of people spending $20 or more per page. (Mind you if that works for them…great! Right?)
Thanks for sharing your reaction. I appreciate it.