in 2018 i . . . made tons of photobooks!

I have always been a record-keeper.

• By the time I graduated high school, I had ~20 complete journals (nevermind that I threw away about half of them since they covered in detail how much I liked my high school boyfriend and I didn't need that info anymore). I don't journal on paper anymore, but I do write blog posts.
• I currently have eight 3-inch binders full of scrapbook pages on my bookshelf. And that doesn't include the ones I got rid of [more on that in a minute].
• I started this blog shortly after getting married in 2012, and I've published more than 340 posts (which averages to five posts per month, which is actually surprisingly high given my much lower rate of posting over the last year or so.)

Clearly, I keep my records in many ways. I've always loved photos, though. I got my first scrapbook supplies before I was 10 years old (which was a mistake, because my first scrapbook pages are literally hor.ri.ble), and I've been scrapbooking ever since. Over time, my style has changed (of course), but I've always loved the creative side of scrapbooking.

However, a few years ago, I decided that I was going to switch over to digital scrapbooking starting with the year 2015. Around this time last year, I was finishing up my final scrapbook pages, when a blogger I'd been following for years (who has since passed her blog on to her sister) posted about who she uses for digital photo books -- Mixbook. It was perfect timing, since I hadn't yet decided who to use.

As I read through her post and looked at her book, I decided that's exactly what I wanted. 

While you can add tons of elements like you can with paper scrapbooking, you can also keep things quite clean and just focused on the photos. That's always been my struggle with paper scrapbooking -- spending all this time making it beautiful, and then people either only look at the pictures or only look at the scrapbooking, but have a hard time deciding which to focus on! Not to mention the fact that the pages you spend so long crafting get covered up by pictures or can only house 2 photos.

I also loved that you could put so many pictures on one page -- up to 16! (And you can actually fit more if you want to do it manually.) Another struggle with paper scrapbooking -- the max # of photos per page is usually 3-4! This was perfect since I was taking so many random pictures of Ada every single day.

So I'm pretty sure I started scrapbooking (on Mixbook) pretty much as soon as I read the post, because I had already completed my book less than two weeks later. I started with a "baby's first year" book for Ada.

Within a few more months, I had completed a 2016 and 2017 book, and 2015 was completed other than a big family trip for which I needed to gather photos from other people. I also quickly decided that I needed mixbooks for my whole marriage, not just starting with 2015, so I scanned/took pictures of my scrapbook pages from 2011-2014 and added them into mixbooks.

here's an example of some scanned scrapbook pages, now in a mixbook

I love digital scrapbooking for many reasons -- 

1. It's quick. I can easily stay on top of scrapbooking instead of constantly falling behind. My 2018 book is complete through October. I've had a busy week, but I'll get November done within a week or so. I just scrapbook one month at a time, and it takes a couple hours max. Really the most time consuming part is going through pictures -- deleting duplicates, picking my favorites, etc. The actual scrapbooking part probably takes less than 20 minutes once I've made my photo decisions.
2. I can put tons of photos in. 
3. I don't have tons of photos to throw away after scrapbooking [because I always use to print too many and then eliminate a bunch in the scrapbooking stage. With digital, all the elimination process is digital!]. 
4. The books are so thin and beautiful! My actual scrapbooks are so big and bulky. 
5. While books are expensive (~$100 each -- I ALWAYS use a 40-50% discount to get this price), I feel like my money is better spent. And if I actually bought my own scrapbook supplies (remember, I just used my mom's), I'm sure the cost would be the same or higher for paper scrapbooking when you factor in photos and supplies. 
6. Journalling is so much nicer! I never have to worry about the scrapbook pen running out of ink, and I don't have to practice what I write before I actually write it on the scrapbook page because I can always backspace or add to fill the space I have. Plus, it's typed, so it's always legible :)
7. It's portable! I can scrapbook anywhere with wifi, so I've scrapbooked at my mom's house, my sister's house, my sister-in-law's house, and at various other places because all I had to bring was my laptop.
8. If my house ever burns down, I don't have to worry about rescuing my prized (and heavy!) scrapbooks -- I can just re-order them! I loooooove having that peace of mind that the records of my family can be easily replaced.

I finally got all the pictures from all my family for that big trip in 2015, so I was finally able to print my 2015 book and complete all my Mixbook items from my 2018 list (make a 2015, 2016, and 2017 photobook, and scan my scrapbooks from 2011-2014 and turn them into photobooks).

In case you're interested, here's some info about how I do my books. 

• 12x12 blank books
• 16 square photos, with some photos stretched to fit 2, 4, or even more boxes.
• Hardcover - soft touch matte
• semigloss pages
• Veneer Two font for the year (front and spine) and the months; Carolyna Pro Black font for any event titles (like "Christmas" or "Russ's Birthday"); Georgia font for captions (size 8) and paragraphs (size 10).
• The cover will always be a great family photo from the year, and the first page of the book will be the family newsletter we sent out with our Christmas card that year.
• I've decided to do a "baby's first year" book for each of my kids, as well as a "0-18" book. The 0-18 book will have roughly 8-10 pages for each year of life, including things like birthdays, Christmas, Halloween costumes, family trips, school photos, and special events. With Mixbook, I could print duplicate books of all my family yearbooks, but I just think 18 books would be a bit much, so I opted for two instead. The 0-18 book will be a great way for my kids to see snapshots of their whole childhood in one place. I'm truly SO excited for my 0-18 books. I might even make one of my own childhood.

So there you have it! More info than you ever wanted to know about my digital scrapbooking adventures :) My mom has been in a paper scrapbooking group for more than 12 years, and I was even part of the group for two years. Now I can join the group whenever my schedule allows because all I have to bring is my computer! Some of the ladies in the group were interested in digital scrapbooking, so I created a mini course and taught them how to use Mixbook. If you're interested in my course, I'll sell you the PDF for $10.

Are you a scrapbooker? Tell me about your process!