Welcome to another blueprints: conversations in album design post. Today, we’re turning the discussion back to project 365 albums.
I posted a message via twitter a few weeks ago asking to see your completed project 365 albums. Thank you to everyone that sent me links, it was such a treat for me to get a glimpse into your life! The albums I poured over was beautiful and unique – and no two albums were organized exactly the same.
Today we are showcasing two very different project 365 album – one organized by month and the other by theme. Even if you’re not doing the photo-a-day project, I hope you’ll stick around to check out these albums because their organizing system can easily be applied to any set of photos.
A special thanks to both Brittany Farrer and Gina Fensterer for allowing me to share their albums.
Stunning isn’t it? And she managed to knock out both a photobook and a calendar. That’s just off the charts brilliant.
I asked Brittany to share her album making process and this is what she wrote:
There wasn’t too much of a method to my madness; this all started because I wanted to make myself a 2010 calendar using my 2009 PAD pictures – I just chose pictures I liked to represent highlights of 2009. I wasn’t overly concerned with getting every single picture included (that’s what I have the blog for). When I realized that I could use the same templates to create a photo book as well, all I had to do was adjust a tiny text detail and I was done. My one struggle was figuring out if I wanted journaling. (I decided no.) Maybe next year I’ll include some journaling – but quite honestly – I really, REALLY like having a book that is just photos. I don’t often spend so much money and time on projects that don’t include journaling, but I love the end result! I also loved that I got two different items (calendar + photo book) out of one project (doing very little work). I may sound like a bit of a commercial for Shutterfly, but man alive, that was awesome! 🙂
Awesome indeed! Are you thinking what I’m thinking? I want to make an album just like Brittany’s. In case you’re wondering what she used in her layouts, here’s the full supplies list:
Supplies by Ali Edwards – Hand Drawn Overlay Grids 8.5×11, Days + Months Hand Drawn Brushes, Photography Hand Drawn Brushes. Book is 8.5×11 Shutterfly hard bound book.
summer
signs of young children in the home
I asked Regina to share her album making process and this is what she wrote:
At first I wanted to scrap all the photos, and use awesome templates and kits. I really admire all the scrappers who do that. I had to accept my reality of being a mom to three children plus pregnant with our fourth, that if I was going to finish, I had to skip the beautiful kits and templates. This is why I {heart} Blurb.com!
I started out thinking I’d lump my pictures by week, having 6 photos spread between a two-page layout, then another two page layout with one photo that was my favorite from that week. When I started trying to group and arrange my photos like that in Blurb, I didn’t like how it looked, so I brainstormed for another way. Also, there were just some weeks that had more than one photo I loved and wanted to have on a page all by itself. I really had to stop for a few days and think about it, deciding what I thought would be best. Usually when I start scrapping or grouping photos or doing any crafty project, I just dive in head-first with no real plan in mind. I figure the creative juices will be enough. Not so, it turns out! I learned from doing the 365 book that it really helps to set a goal and figure out at least a general plan for how to reach that goal.
For me, it helps to have a deadline. Since my 365 was from October-October, it was easy for me to set a goal of being done in time for Christmas. I made my whole book for me, and then made shorter versions as gifts for family. With the deadline in place, I knew this project would actually get done!
Okay, so deadline–check. Organization–not so much. I’m horribly organized. Thankfully, I did have all my photos saved in a web-version folder, since I had blogged all of them for that year. My folder was called “365 photos”. From there, and from my blog archives, I could find the higher-res photos I wanted in the book by searching for the right date folder. This is NOT the easiest most efficient way to do it! What is helpful is to have (in my case, since I blog my photos) is a folder for web, and then another folder to hold the edited high-res files. Lesson learned.
Blurb did help me out a bit, though. I could import iPhoto libraries into blurb, and just scroll through all the events to find what I wanted! So, once my photos were in place in the blurb/iPhoto library, I scrolled through them to find some themes or patterns in my photos.
I was pregnant and then gave birth to my son during that year, so there were a lot of baby pictures, and a lot of pictures of my girls. I knew right away there would be a “family” section.
We also do a lot of baking and trying all kinds of food around here, so I created a “food” section (turned out to be small, but hey, it worked).
All the flowers and nature and landscape photos found themselves grouped into the “nature” section.
Other photos of random places that weren’t really landscape photos became a “places” section.
I’m pretty sure I also created a section at the end for other favorite photos from the year. Within each section, I tried to group the photos on pages that made sense. So, there are some pages that only have pictures of my son, but they are from several different months. I also liked to group black and whites together.
I started putting my pictures in each section, and realized I didn’t remember what I was thinking when I took every photo. It was great to have blogged all the photos, so I could revisit old posts and copy and paste what I blogged into some text sections with my photos. Most photos don’t have any words at all. Most do have dates, but some don’t. Some dates just weren’t that important to me! If I was making a professional book that people would want to buy and have on their coffee table, then I would probably have dated all the photos and at least put a short title or caption with them. But I’m no pro, and while photography is my passion, it’s only a hobby. My family doesn’t care if every photo has a story in words or a date. It’s the story we remember with the photos in our hearts that counts.
That said, if I had to give one simple piece of advice to all your amazing readers, I would say keep the photos, words, themes (if you want to do themes!), layouts all about YOU and your photos. If I have sections and you like the idea, run with it. If you hate sections, do what works for you to organize. Come to terms with yourself, what you can realistically accomplish, set a goal to finish, and have fun!
Great words of advice Gina! Thank you for sharing your process with us! For those of you that are wondering, Gina created her book using Blurb‘s bookmaking software.
Audrey and I welcome your questions and comments via our Formspring accounts or the comments section of our blogs:
I love the opportunity to peek into other people's organizational system and books they have previously done. Thank you Liz + the ladies for sharing these incredible books and the inspiration.