Almost Complete

I recently thought of something I wanted to add to an album that was "finished". It's my family album that spans 2001-2003. In 2002, we moved to our new home and I made sure to chronicle the move and include pictures of the new house. But after I saw a friend's album where she had put pictures of their old house right along side those pages, I relized I had been remiss in not including those as well. My daughters were so young when we moved, they don't remember that house - and the pictures will be interesting for them someday. And it will be fun to see the decorating and trends that were popular.

So I opened that album to see how I would insert a page in the middle of the album and if I had enough pictures to make it work. I really didn't want to move any pictures/pages around, either, as I don't recommend doing that. I was surprised to discover that I had several pages that weren't finished in this album - and keep in mind, I had moved on to another family album in 2004! The unfinished pages vary... some needed journaling, some were missing pictures, some just had words I wanted to spell check before I wrote them down!

I was frustrated, because if I'm going to take the time to scrapbook, I don't want to go backwards and work on something I thought was already finished. So the moral of the story? Well, easy... just finish your pages. Now, I know a lot of people (myself included) scrapbook with a bunch of people and want to go back later - when it's quiet - to journal. Understandable, but use journaling cards (I can get you some, or just use scraps of paper) to bullet point what you'd like to journal about. That way, when you DO go back, the journaling will be quick. Then, mark the page with a bright sticky note that is visible (and ugly) so that it reminds you to go back and finish that album/page.

Does anyone have other ideas? How do you make sure your album is "done"? In the meantime, I almost have these 8 pages in this old album completed. I had to search out some old pictures and make some phone calls to finish the journaling/stories but at least it's almost done... again.