I'm awful - 90% of the time I just don't even take pictures (just don't think about it). LOL People get over it though...after they finish being annoyed that no, I can't show them pictures of that trip because I didn't take any, and no, there aren't any pictures from me of my hubby dressed up as a french maid this halloween. ;-) My mom does the one on top the other in the frame thing. My sis and I bought her a few really nice frames, and she just puts the most recent pictures on top, with the others still in the frame below. Saves photo album space and shelf space. I am the "keeper" of the family photo albums (ironically enough), so I have the photo albums (all 2 of them, the thin magnetic albums) that have my parent's wedding pictures and early family pictures from the 70's & before in them. They mostly sit languishing on a shelf, though I did get into one for a baby pic my sis needed of herself for work recently. Other than that, no one looks at them. When I went to Paris, I took all my pictures digitally, and bought postcards everywhere I went. So my scrapbook from that trip is very simple - my postcards, and my favorite digital pics printed out and pasted in the scrapbook, along with brochures, etc. No fancy stuff, just the stuff I got in paris. The rest of the pictures were deleted, and I don't miss them at all. 5 of my favorite postcards are in a very nice frame that I have hanging on the wall (one frame for all 5). It does me no good to post pics online for family - most of my relatives really aren't "online" as per se - they'd rather have a "real" copy sent in the christmas card or whatever. I did send a wedding pic with our announcements - our other wedding pictures were done by the parents, and my MIL got a small photo album and put prints of the digitals in there, I just added the "real" prints my dad took, and that's that - no fuss, no muss, and it's small (5x7 album), so it takes up very little room. :-) For grandkids, my grandma has 22 (I think?). A couple years ago, all of the aunts & uncles got together and bought a huge frame, and had a mat cut that would fit pictures of all of them, plus all the grandkids. One frame, all those pictures. Now when Grandma gets new pictures, she just has to put the new one in that frame, and everything is in one place...no tons of pictures on the wall anymore. :-) I have very few family photos actually framed and sitting out - a wedding pic from my sis (because thier expressions are hilarious, and it makes me laugh), a professional picture of my parents, and one from my grandparent's 50th anniversary. Anything else I get just gets tossed in a magnetic photo album - no fuss or anything else. That's where my wedding cards are headed too, very soon. :-) I would suggest you just keep some magnetic photo albums on hand, and when you get those cute little photos, stick them right in the album, and don't worry about anything else. Or get one of those huge frames and a mat cut with room for each grandchild, so you can have them all in one place. That will be easiest for you, and much easier on your walls! ;-)

I started back in 97 when my dd was born- today she turns 9! I did her baby book and it was ok. Then I discovered Creative Memories and all the stuff out there. I redid her pages- thanks to double prints- and it is much nicer. I used to use a 3-ring binder and page protectors from office supply store. I used solid paper as my page. I used some stickers and a little journalling. I have since taken all those pages and put them into CM albums. Now I use the regular white pages and use the colored paper for frames or accent strips. To organize and make things go faster I use an easy method. I have a binder with sleeves in it. When I develop film I separate in dated or event order. Then I divide by what pics would fit on a page. I drop those pics into sleeves. Then I take paper that matches the pics and drop it in the sleeve. I may put some stickers in there too. Then when I go to scrap, I just grab a sleeve and work that page. I have already picked out the stuff for the page, just need to assemble. Unfortunatly, I have a digital camera now. It was so easy to develop film and then sort out the pics. Now I have to download onto a CD, take to a place or use an online service. I have not done this yet, which explains why I have over 600 pics to print, and at least half I need doubles of- one for my dd and one for my ds albums. One nice thing about digital is that I can print only what I need, so I may print all my dd birthday pics for her album, but only print a few for my son to have in his. Hey soggy6- aren't you the one with the pool that had plaster then switched to ptec after a crack or something? Are you going to, or do you know about, the event at Newburg Hall down by Sac State on 4/29? My CM gal and her friends are having an all-day event. After spending last year doing the build, it will be nice to spend a day scrapping. I am taking all our vacation pics- the ones before we had kids- and getting them all into albums. Won't be super fancy like my kids books. The goal is to have them in an album instead of not.

I'm not sure what the brand name is, but I got it a Sam's Club. It's a huge pack (about 700 sheets). It has almost every color you would need to scrapbook. On the package it says "Great for memory books and Scrapbooks." The only problem I have with it is that it's a little bigger than 8 1/2 x 11" so I have to trim it a little to fit my pages. It's a different consistency than regular construction paper- The reason I asked the question is that before I knew the importance of acid-free products, I tried using regular construction paper, and it faded and yellowed very fast! I wouldn't think these would since they are acid free. Does anyone know? I assume it is the acid that caused the reg. construction paper to fade.

IMHO Ancient Page is the best, it is permanent,(but water clean up), archival (acid free) dye based, comes in tons of colors. Available from Color Box. It comes in large and small stamp pads, also in the "pads" made to be used in the rolla-graph stamper wheels. I used to work in a stamping store and this is what we recommended for scrapbooking.