The Busy Mama way to Scrapbook

This is a very beautiful page
 - I did not make it

I have previously written abut scrapbooking and how much I do/do not enjoy it.  I love the beautiful, colorful, memorable pages.  The way that memories are captured and preserved in such a creative way.  These are so much more fun to look at than the old photo albums my grandmother has.  It's just a book with a photos.  No words, no real organization, and no story with the photo.

So pretty -
again, not mine

As a mom of 6, I do NOT have a lot of time for scrapbooking.  I barely have time to eat, much less put together a beautiful page like you see above (not my work!).  I have friends who make time to do this.  I admit I am rather envious of their talent - and time.  But, alas, that is not where my time is spent.









I love digital scrapbooking.  It has come a long way in the last few years, but I keep it simple.  Walgreen's is usually my preferred stop, but Walmart also has great options.  Walgreen's is just closer, and there is no construction getting there.  Check out Walgreen's digital scrapbook pages - not just a book.  Disclaimer - I am in no way compensated for telling you about these products, but would happily accept any and all compensation!





In one of those rare moments of purging, I went through some boxes in my bedroom.  They had been there since we moved in (I refuse to tell you how long that has been!) and realized that I have 3 boxes of photos, scrapbook pages that had been started, and miscellaneous items to be put into a scrapbook.  Some of these photos were several years old.  Before I used a digital camera all the time.  Some were even from high school.  Digital cameras weren't even a thing back then!

Digital scrapbook from Walgreens.com
Linen cover, 8.5x11 classic

Digital scrapbooking is great for current photos.  I have made several of these books - usually after a special trip/ mission trip.


They are really easy to do.  All you do is go to walgreens.com  or any other photo shop, upload your photos, then place them into the book.  Walgreens has a feature called autofill.  This was great for my oldest son's graduation book.  I didn't have any particular place/order for the photos, so this made it extra quick.
Then I just filled in captions, and had the book finished in under an hour!

Finished page of my digital book

So what do you do with 10 years of old printed photos?

What do you do when you have CPS workers coming and they want to see the kids life book?

I have 2 great options! I will show you one now - one later :)

For that box of photos from before digital cameras, high school, school photos, band photos, etc, I bought a regular 12x12 scrapbook.

Regular 12x12 scrapbook from Hobby Lobby - about $15

Then I grabbed my stack of photos and wrote as much of a description as I could on the back.  The most important information is NAMES and DATES.  Armed with a stack of cute scrapbooking paper, and photo corners, I put the pages in and called it a day.

These photos were just placed on a plain colored page

What a difference when you use patterned paper!

I got a little fancy here (on the right).  I still finished the page in under 10 minutes

So, you see that it's not super fancy, but the photos are being enjoyed!  That is the most important thing to me.  The kids show the book off to friends, the baby loves to look through it, and I notice people looking through it when they come visit (it sits on the end table in the living room).  I have received many compliments from this book.  No one is criticizing the lack of decorations (if they did, they wouldn't be invited over again!), or even mentioning the embellishments.  The just comment on the main focal point - the photo.  Isn't that what this is all about?

Note:  I use the photo corners instead of glue so that the photos can be removed and the writing on the back read one day (by my grandkids?), or the photos can be hung in frames, etc.  There is nothing glued to the photo or in any other way hindering the photo from being copied or moved to a new location one day.