any hints for doing a 100 page album

[DebraB]

Thanks in advance for all your hints. Most of my scrapping has been single pages doing challenges, choosing 1 or 2 kits at most to finish it. I am going to tackle a 100 page album of our 72 day cruise from last year around south america, antartica, and up the amazon. I have the journaling done. Planning on 8 1/2 x 11 wide. Should I try to pick 5-6 kits to use so there is some consistency to the album and not having to make kit choices on every page? Trying to figure out if I should limit it to 2 pages for every port(40 ports) or do however many pages I need and if it ends up being 2 albums that is fine. I am planning on elements to add a touch to the layout but focus will be on journaling and photos. Anything else I wouldn't even think to ask.

 

[breoni]

Debra, I'm in the same boat (see what I did there)? We had a two-week cruise (just a tad bit shorter than your 72 days... wow!) earlier this year and I'm just now tackling that project. I've also completed the journaling and I've created an outline of which memories I want to capture (I made this in chronological order).

The first pages I created was a template to start each day. The ship provided a daily newsletter, so I took the cover page of each newsletter and added a couple of smaller photos of things we did that day. I did the first day, and then only changed out the newsletter and smaller photos. So I was able to very quickly create what I'm calling my "chapter" pages (each day is a new chapter). On the days we went ashore, those chapters are going to have a lot more pages than on the days we were at sea. But that gives my book a consistent thread.

For the rest of the pages, I'm not limiting myself to templates or kits. I plan to use whatever best tells the story I want to remember. However, for past trips, I did use the same template pack and kits to be able to create layouts very quickly (like when we were at a Disney park and it made sense to use the same kit).

Regarding your question on pages... I always just create as many pages as I need with the focus being on my favorite memories. Then, knowing that Shutterfly only allows 110 pages max, I pick out my favorite layouts. Sometimes I "cheat" and place all the unused layouts on the back cover like you're looking at thumbnail images on a screen. If I get stuck, I MAY let my dear hubby have a vote. Ha.

Actually, he's usually in on the process. During the trip, I always bring a small journal where I can take notes of our adventures. We will work on this over breakfast and I make sure to capture his memories, too. Then on the way home, it's our tradition to recap our vacation with our "top 10" moments (and sometimes our bottom 10, as well). I also typically include a "by the numbers" page for him... how many miles did we travel, how many ports / countries, etc.

Hope this is helpful, and I can wait to see some of your layouts!