Vacation Mini-Book or My Pictures Were Scrapped Before There Even Was a Swine Flu

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I have taken a few really great vacations. You know the type: sun, clear water, beaches, beverages with tiny umbrellas. I also have boxes of vacation photos. Piles of vacation photos. In fact, except for the giant manila folder of childhood photos that my mother sent me, they are the one pile of photos I never seem to get to.


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The hundreds of photos that are normal for a vacation are very overwhelming. Scrapping them would dominate my usual family event scrapbooks. Since most of my books are chronological, putting in 8-10 layouts of vacation pictures seems to slow down my frenzied pace. Of course, this leads me down the path of vacation albums.


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I took my first leap when I did an online digital album for last year's family summer vacation. Since I had 217 pictures (after editing) it seemed like a reasonable option. It worked out well. It was quick and was delivered to my door by FedEx a complete package. While it was done, I missed the part that makes scrapbooking fun for me - cutting and gluing small pieces of paper.

This year when I saw the spring break photos, I knew I had to do something different. While hanging out at my local scrapbook store, I saw a couple of mini-albums that really inspired me. They were small in scale and simple in design. I saw tons of potential for scraplifting great ideas. Since I was spending the day in the workroom at the store, I decided to put a plan together. I picked up the chipboard cover, background paper and metal rings at the store and spent the rest of the afternoon planning each page of the album. Once I got home it was pretty quick to put together. I didn't buy any other paper or embellishments. Instead I was pleasantly surprised at how I seemed to have everything I needed right in my own stash. (Granted, I have enough patterned paper to file an insurance claim in case it starts on fire...). The smaller 8x11 pages forced me to limit the pictures and the design to some basics. I was even able to scrounge enough varieties of ribbon to cover the metal rings.

I did have a grand idea of cutting out custom-made letters to create the titles on each page, then I realized with the space constraints, I needed a lot of really small letters. Instead I just mixed and matched from the multitude of tiny black letters I keep in a pile.


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Best of all, the album was done two weeks after the vacation. It was awesome. Now all I have to do is repeat this same fantastic feat of scrapbook magic with the other piles of vacation photos.


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