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walkitoutI don't seem to ever come up with new ideas; I always come up with ideas that other people have had before. The first example of this that I can distinctly recalled involved my first digital watch, a swingset, and my 7 years older sister grilling me about whether I really had figured that out on my own, or if someone had told me about it before. Really, the law of the pendulum is pretty damn exciting even if you aren't the first person to figure it out and it would have been more fun if she could have entered into the spirit of the thing.
But never mind that now, I'm here about a completely different re-invention of the, er, scrapbook. After I got over my never-leave-town-lest-it-be-destroyed-in-my-absence issues, but before I left permanently to marry R., I took a series of long-ish road trips (about 3 weeks -- I never got the hang of keeping the condo, bills, etc. running for longer periods of time than that). I collected all the bits of papers -- tickets, receipts, brochures, etc. -- that passed through my hands on these trips and collected them in page protectors and a 3 ring binder. I used to joke that if I ever took up scrapbooking, that's how I would do it.
Little did I know, that's kinda how current scrapbooking got started a few decades ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrapbooking#Modern_scrapbooking
But I never had the energy to mount the items on something before dumping them in the pockets; I figured if I ever got that bored, I could do it later, but I would at least have the souvenirs all in one place either way.
As part of the decluttering project, I started collecting all the photos in the house into an empty file drawer. I also started collecting frames, but there were more photos I wanted framed than frames and, honestly, some of the frames were not very attractive, so I took to buying minimalist, black painted wood frames and using those (except I did buy 10 Disney frames because of the mickey ears in the corner and using those for WDW souvenir photos. I figured I'd have them in a drawer for years to come, but they are actually all up on the wall or easel-style on top of book cases already). After getting through school photos, Picture People, Yuen Lui and Jane McDonogh photos, I realized I had an enormous number of photos still in envelopes that people had mailed me over the years: good friends from college who had gotten married and had kids, cousins, friends of R. and family on his side, etc. So I started collecting files of those (usually labeled "Cards & Fotos", or similar). I found about four such files, and was really impressed with myself for getting a whole ton of these into sheet protectors (or 8x10 pockets), at least as a place holder for a better arrangement, when I realized there was a gallon zippy bag and a stack of those photos sitting on top of a filing cabinet right in front of my face.
*sigh*
Oh, and I found another file down in my hutch.
It's an open question how many photos there are lying around, but I will say this much. The genealogy project had the unexpected benefit of creating a knowledge system that contains my entire family's birth dates (ditto for R.'s). The scrap booking project is going to have the related benefit of putting within quick access the birth information for virtually all of our close friends' children.
Will this result in me actually sending people birthday greetings/cards? Unlikely. But you never know. I never would have expected to have gone this far down the path to photo albums.
Oh, in case you are curious, here's what I am currently using:
Ultra Pro Platinum 5x7, 4x6 and 8x10 Hologram Pages
The 5x7 have 2 slots; the 4x6 have 3 (1 horizontal; two vertical). All three styles are letter size. I'm using Pioneer Fabric Frame Memory Binders with D-rings. You cannot overstuff these because there's no locking mechanism on the D-rings, so if you put too much weight in the binder, the rings will start to open up and the pages will slide out.
But never mind that now, I'm here about a completely different re-invention of the, er, scrapbook. After I got over my never-leave-town-lest-it-be-destroyed-in-my-absence issues, but before I left permanently to marry R., I took a series of long-ish road trips (about 3 weeks -- I never got the hang of keeping the condo, bills, etc. running for longer periods of time than that). I collected all the bits of papers -- tickets, receipts, brochures, etc. -- that passed through my hands on these trips and collected them in page protectors and a 3 ring binder. I used to joke that if I ever took up scrapbooking, that's how I would do it.
Little did I know, that's kinda how current scrapbooking got started a few decades ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrapbooking#Modern_scrapbooking
But I never had the energy to mount the items on something before dumping them in the pockets; I figured if I ever got that bored, I could do it later, but I would at least have the souvenirs all in one place either way.
As part of the decluttering project, I started collecting all the photos in the house into an empty file drawer. I also started collecting frames, but there were more photos I wanted framed than frames and, honestly, some of the frames were not very attractive, so I took to buying minimalist, black painted wood frames and using those (except I did buy 10 Disney frames because of the mickey ears in the corner and using those for WDW souvenir photos. I figured I'd have them in a drawer for years to come, but they are actually all up on the wall or easel-style on top of book cases already). After getting through school photos, Picture People, Yuen Lui and Jane McDonogh photos, I realized I had an enormous number of photos still in envelopes that people had mailed me over the years: good friends from college who had gotten married and had kids, cousins, friends of R. and family on his side, etc. So I started collecting files of those (usually labeled "Cards & Fotos", or similar). I found about four such files, and was really impressed with myself for getting a whole ton of these into sheet protectors (or 8x10 pockets), at least as a place holder for a better arrangement, when I realized there was a gallon zippy bag and a stack of those photos sitting on top of a filing cabinet right in front of my face.
*sigh*
Oh, and I found another file down in my hutch.
It's an open question how many photos there are lying around, but I will say this much. The genealogy project had the unexpected benefit of creating a knowledge system that contains my entire family's birth dates (ditto for R.'s). The scrap booking project is going to have the related benefit of putting within quick access the birth information for virtually all of our close friends' children.
Will this result in me actually sending people birthday greetings/cards? Unlikely. But you never know. I never would have expected to have gone this far down the path to photo albums.
Oh, in case you are curious, here's what I am currently using:
Ultra Pro Platinum 5x7, 4x6 and 8x10 Hologram Pages
The 5x7 have 2 slots; the 4x6 have 3 (1 horizontal; two vertical). All three styles are letter size. I'm using Pioneer Fabric Frame Memory Binders with D-rings. You cannot overstuff these because there's no locking mechanism on the D-rings, so if you put too much weight in the binder, the rings will start to open up and the pages will slide out.