Why I Changed From Category Albums to Chronological Albums (& a new video!)

If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time, you know that I love my Library of Memories system based on Stacy Julian’s approach to photo organization and inspirational scrapbooking and taught at Big Picture Classes. There are many components to this system including a Digital Workflow, Storage Binders, Category Drawers, Cold Storage, Library Albums, a Memorabilia File, Connections Layouts, a Cultural Memorabilia Box, Materials Files, Square Punch Picture Drawers, an ABC file, Story Cards, etc. The system is designed to promote inspirational scrapbooking – creating layouts when you’re inspired about what inspires you at the moment. All of these components work very well for me . . . except one.

Stacy’s Library of Memories system incorporates albums based on categories – All About Us, People We Love, Places We Go, Things We Do. When I initially set up my system and for a couple of years afterwards, these category albums worked well for me. However, after a major re-organization of my albums in early 2012, I realized that I was not enjoying them and rarely looked through the albums unless I was adding in new layouts. At the same time, I often pulled out my chronological photo albums from 2003-2006 when something triggered a memory from one of those years and I wanted to see what else had been happening around that time (or occasionally to prove to Robbie that I was right about the chronology of something we were discussing!).

This realization got me thinking about the category albums and Stacy’s reasoning for them. Basically her premise is that often stories and biographies are grouped by topic or category (like the TV mini-series The Century, which was a documentary on the 20^th century), so it made sense to her to organize her stories that way. Many of you know that I am an avid reader, and I realized that the stories and biographies and autobiographies that I enjoy the most are the ones that are told in a chronological order (with occasional flashbacks or flash-forwards). I tend to think of events within the time frame that they occurred.

About this same time, Shimelle offered a class on album organization based on the way she organizes her own albums. The Cover to Cover class helped me decide to return to chronological albums for each year. I took all the layouts out of my Category Albums and sorted them by year (but I forgot to take a photo of them all spread out in piles on the dining room table!). I then put albums together for each year – some years have one album, some two, and one even has three albums! I do also still have one Category Album along with numerous theme albums and mini-albums. All these albums comprise my LIBRARY and I love it!

As with Shimelle’s albums, most of my albums are “in process” – meaning that they are not complete and I am still scrapping photos and stories from those years. However, this past fall, I took my 2007 albums and went through them looking for “missing elements” based on Shimelle’s suggestion to look for missing photos, missing stories, and missing perspective. I made a list of pages I wanted to create to complete the album adding in these missing elements and including cross-referencing for theme albums I had created with photos from that year. I completed the 2007 albums (2 volumes) near the end of 2012 and have created a video for you sharing a look at one of those albums.

I must tell you that I have no intention of scrapbooking my layouts in chronological order. Those of you who visit my blog often know that one day I might share a layout with photos from 1986, the next post might share a layout with more recent photos, and then next one might share a layout with photos from 2010! I especially like how my Library of Memories system allows me to scrap inspirationally – my Storage Binders are full of photos ready for me to scrap, my Category Drawers hold photos that I am “aging” for Connections layouts, my Square Punch Picture Drawers hold photos I can pull to add to a layout anytime, and my Memorabilia File and Cultural Memorabilia Box are close at hand allowing me to add memorabilia to many layouts. So, the only change I’ve really made is the final resting place of my layouts.



I’d love your thoughts and feedback on these changes and on this new video (my 2^nd video!). I appreciate those of you who left comments on my first video last summer and have tried to incorporate some of your ideas. However, I have to admit that I still probably talk a little too fast and I just can’t seem to keep my hands from moving most of the time. (I’m afraid if I lost my hands I wouldn’t be able to teach or talk! LOL)