Viewer Melanie Leno sent in a grand idea that seemed to me to be a wonderful suggestion for anyone who would like to get into scrapbooking, but is just too overwhelmed by the whole thing...either too many photos piled up, or too many products to sort through, or too little time--or a combination of all three.
Melanie too felt a bit frustrated by all of the above, but she has solved the dilemma by thinking small instead of big. To begin with, she purchased some of those little 4" x 6" photo books that are available in every drug store, photo store, card store, etc., and designated one subject or special occasion or event to one book. In the case of some of her Christmas pictures, she consolidated even more. She selected just one or two photos for each year and has perhaps 10 years worth of Christmases in one little album. But this is not to say that she just sticks the pictures in the books and lets it go at that. No...she puts together an attractive cover decoration (much easier to do on a small scale) using decorative paper, stickers, stick-on letters, etc., and inserts it into the front sleeve (figure A). The photos are cropped and placed on appropriate decorative paper, and necessary information such as dates and names are included (figures B and C).
Another larger scrapbook is one done with the plastic slipcovers that hold three 4" x 6" photos lined up vertically (figure D). Here Melanie uses the same idea for decorating, but where necessary she will use an entire photo section to include her journaling (figure E). Both methods do the trick, both are very attractively done, and both succeed in not being too intimidating. The results of Melanie's work is proof of that.
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