LOM Album Re-Organization

I originally set up my Library of Memories system two years ago and have truly enjoyed the freedom it has given me to scrap inspirationally (rather than chronologically). In fact, I shared a photo of my brand new LOM albums in my very first blog post in the spring of 2010. The LOM system allows me to store my layouts by topic rather than chronologically. (You can see the journey my layouts take before they reach these albums here.)

This past week I embarked on a re-organization of my LOM albums. Originally I had decided on six main categories for my LOM systems, however I found that I needed to tweak these a bit in order to more fully customize them to fit our lives and the way I scrapbook. I now have five main categories, some of which have expanded into multiple volumes due to the number of layouts I've created in the past few years (and the addition of some created before my system was set up!). Here's a look at the albums on our memory shelf.

As I was working on my re-organization, I set up new albums, updated the spine labels (I had used very thin string to tie the circle tags to the binder clips, so I updated that with thicker embroidery thread), and added section tabs to several albums.

My first category is Robbie & Melissa (this is the category Stacy Julian - creator of the LOM system - calls All About Us) and is represented by the black and white albums. I currently have three albums in this category. The first album houses layouts about me and Robbie since our marriage ten years ago. This album is divided into three sections - Together Forever, Robbie, Melissa. Rather than create section pages, I have opted to put divider tabs in the album to aid in navigation of my albums.

The two solid black albums house layouts about us prior to marriage. For now, these albums include layouts in ANY category that are stories/photos about the time period before we were married, however I may change this and integrate these layouts more fully into the system as these albums fill up and I continue to live with my system.

The three pink albums are my Family & Friends category. I originally had many layouts about our family (& especially my nieces & nephews) integrated into our other category albums, however I decided I wanted those albums to more fully reflect our story and have these family layouts grouped together. I ended up with three albums - one for Family & Friends and two for Nieces & Nephews. The first album has tabs with sections for Family layouts and Friends layouts.

Although they are still part of this category, I decided to change the name of the next two albums to Nieces & Nephews. The layouts in these two albums are in roughly chronological order, however it wouldn't be uncommon to find a layout with a story from 2007 after a layout with a story from 2010 next to a layout with photos spanning four years. I created a title and dedication page for the first album, and then just a title page for volume 2. (These match my original title & dedication pages - I pulled the sketch I created at the time, making it quick & easy to put these together.)

My third category is Days We Celebrate (the blue album), which has section tabs for anniversaries, birthdays, and various holidays.

You may have noticed that some holidays are missing, for example Valentine's Day and Halloween. This simply means that either we don't do much to celebrate that holiday or I haven't scrapped any layouts about it yet. The other huge omission is Christmas and that's because I decided to give this favorite of my holidays its own album and color. The red album houses Christmas layouts in roughly chronological order. Since this was a new album, I created a title page & dedication page for it also.

And because this album is practically full, I went ahead and created a title page for volume 2 so I'll be all ready when it's time to add a second Christmas album.

Our green album houses layouts for the Places We've Been category. Currently these layouts are also arranged in somewhat chronological order, however I'm pretty sure I will eventually go through and categorize these layouts into sections based on the type of place - Historical Site, Texas city, Places Around Town, etc. The album is not quite full, so I'm going to live with it a little longer before deciding on sections.

I do, however, have our Travels Abroad separated out into its own album (the dark maroon on the right of the 2nd shelf). We have traveled abroad three times together, and I have scrapped each trip with a different background paper to designate the sections in this album.

My final category is Things That Matter and incorporates many aspects of our everyday lives - home, vehicles, food/eating/ cooking, hobbies, etc. This album contains the most section tabs, and I'm looking forward to adding additional layouts throughout the course of the year as I have a huge list of ideas that I've created based on inspiration in the current Twelve workshop.

The best part of this re-organization process was the fact that I got to enjoy all my scrapbook pages as I reviewed what was in each album! These albums are one of the Essentials in the LOM system. I'll be reviewing/updating/reorganizing another essential, Category Drawers, over the next couple of weeks.