I do a decent amount of custom scrapbookin (although I wish I did more - sometimes! :) I just finished an order for a baby boy first year album. I use ONLY Creative Memories Scrapbooks, pages, and protectors. I personally had to learn the hard way, despite being told, not all proudcts are created equal. When it comes to albums, you get what you pay for. Since I believe so strongly in the products, I became a consultant also! This soft cloth baby boy album has the birth pages attached to the first few pages, but the rest of the year pages I put in a sleeve and tie it all together with a ribbon. I do this because each baby and story is different. They might not get their first tooth until 6 months, instead of 5. This allows the mother to put the pages in cronolgical order or whatever order she likes!
When you open up the cover, this is the first page you see. When I do custom orders, I like to keep them simple, yet complete. I scrap my own albums in this manor too. I like the photos to be what you look at, not all the othe stuff on the page. So I pick a few things to add to the page to make it "full" but not overwhelming. In doing custom pages, I like to make a finished page so you could just go in and attach your photos, but if you wanted to add something more, you could.
Not every page will have room for added things after purchase. But with a big busy page like this, I don't feel that anything else is needed. When I made this page I imagined being home to a photo of an adorable baby boy close up or maybe a photo of his parents kissing his chubby cheeks. :)
Some pages I leave a lot of room. These pages are great for adding your own touches after purchase, but also to add photos where you want. You would also then have the option to do some journaling. I think it's important to write in your own handwriting at least some of the time, no matter how much you hate it. Now that my grandma is gone, I treasure the few notes I have from her and so wish I had more. It's such a powerful connection to her and your family will feel the same way about your albums!
*LOVE* these stickers!
Mommy pages are my favorite for doing in boy albums. It's the one place that everything girly is ok. The page is about mom, but the photos are about the child. A page like this is a perfect meeting of those two things!
Bath time photos and pages are one of my favorites. The pages are so fun to do as there are so many possibilites to me. Most kids LOVE the bath, so its an awesome time for some great photo ops! (Don't worry, with a little practice, you'll figure out how to shoot the pic without anything showing you don't want!)
This is another example of a page to add as many or as few photos or even more embellishment as you like. This teddy bear is actually fuzzy and so cute! He was an obvious choice for this simple page.
Again something simple, but so easy! This is a great example of the type of page you'd see looking through my personal albums.
So there's a few peeks into what I've been creating lately. I'm currently working on finishing up a few of the projects I've started (I have extreme crafter ADD) I am so guilty of starting something but not totally finishing it! Things like dry time annoy me. I get so excited about what I'm making, I hate waiting for things, so to cure it, I'll start somethings else! ;)
If you want to see more of my scrap pages, you can check out my fan page or my website and of course there are a few in my etsy shop.
I'd love to see what you've been working on! Leave your link in the comments and I'll stop by!
