Behind on your album: do you have to scrap in order?

It often starts innocently. A busy month, a house move, a parent who's ill. You'll get to it later. And then suddenly there's a year of photos waiting, or three, and every time you open the album, what you mostly see is everything that isn't in it yet.

You're not the only one. Almost every scrapper is behind on something, and many of them have found a way to enjoy it again. It starts with one question: does it actually have to be in order?

Chronological or not

Scrapping in order has real advantages. Your album reads like a book, from the first page to the last. You can see straight away which periods are still missing. And for a baby album or a yearly album, it's often simply the logical format.

But there's a trap in it too. If you insist on starting at the beginning, you get stuck on the first year you have hardly any photos of, or on a period you'd rather not look at yet. Meanwhile, things are happening now that you want to capture, and they have to wait. That's usually where the backlog comes from.

That's why many experienced scrappers feel you can let it go. Scrap what moves you, when it moves you. A photo you keep coming back to, a story that's just come back to you, a theme that fits a kit or a challenge. You can sort out the order later.

A middle way works best for a lot of people. Decide per album:

• a yearly album or children's album can be in order, but with loose pages
• a travel album or an album about one subject gets filled whenever you like
• old family photos get an album of their own, separate from the rest

Keeping up with the present and catching up on the past

The biggest mistake is trying to catch up on everything at once. Then the present falls behind too, and the pile only gets bigger.

Turn it around. First make sure you keep up with the present, but keep it light. A few photos a week in a pocket album, a short line on a card next to them, done. A trip is best scrapped just after you get home, while everything is still fresh. That way, at least the backlog doesn't grow any further.

Work through the past in regular, small blocks. For example:

• an hour a week for an old year
• or take turns: one scrapping afternoon for now, the next for the past
• or one old event a month, with the rest of the time free

Make a list of what you still want to do, per year or per event, and cross off what's finished. It feels good, and it shows you're making progress.

What makes catching up much easier: a diary or calendar where you briefly note what you all did. If you keep one, you'll still know later when the cake was cut and why everyone in that photo looks so tired. Together with the dates on your photos, that's enough to bring an old month back.

And give yourself time with difficult periods. Some stories you can only tell well later, once you have a bit more distance. That isn't a backlog, it's simply waiting for the right moment.

Working faster without it looking any less lovely

Speed is rarely about rushing. It's about making fewer decisions per page. A few things that really make a difference:

1. Repeat a layout, the way a page is put together. Choose a few go-to arrangements you like, for example one large photo with two smaller ones, a title and a short bit of text. A sketch, a drawing of a page arrangement, helps with this.
2. Use one paper collection for a whole series of pages. You don't have to keep choosing again, and it gives your album a calm feel.
3. Work in batches. Print the photos for ten pages in one go. Cut all the backgrounds in one go. Make a few base pages at the same time and fill them with photos later.
4. Set a timer. Half an hour per page, and when the alarm goes off, it's finished. You'll find that a page that's done gives you more than a perfect page that stays on the table.
5. Try at most one new technique per page. Do everything else the way you know.
6. Use pocket pages for busy months. Photos and cards in sleeves, no glue and no complicated layouts.

For the really big gaps, you can also go for a printed photo book. Not full layouts, but the best photos with a few lines of text. Then that year is on the shelf at least, and you can always add a few handmade pages later.

Does it matter if you don't record everything?

No. Really, it doesn't. An album doesn't have to be complete to be precious. Nobody will leaf through your book in twenty years and count which weeks are missing. They'll look at what is there.

An album isn't an archive. The archive is your photos, kept safely in folders or boxes. The album is for what you want to tell. That can be a selection, and it can be the little in-between moments rather than every birthday.

If it helps, let a few periods go on purpose. Choose the five stories from each year that you really want to keep, and let the rest be. That isn't giving up, that's choosing.

Not using photos twice

If you scrap out of order, you run the risk of using the same photo twice, or forgetting one. A simple system prevents that.

For digital photos:

• put what you still want to use in a folder called To scrap, and take it out as soon as it's on a page
• or give used photos a colour label or keyword in your photo app
• or keep a list with the date and the photos on each page

For prints, a box with two compartments works: to do and used. If you like to be sure, put a small pencil dot on the back of a used photo.

Sometimes using a photo twice is perfectly fine, by the way. If you have several children who each have their own album, a photo of both can go in both. And scrapping an old photo again, years later and with a different story, can be really lovely.

Putting an album in order later

The nice thing about not scrapping in order: you can still put everything in its place later, as long as you plan for it from the start.

• Choose an album with rings or post screws, or another system with loose pages. Then you can simply slot a page in between the others.
• Put a date on every page, even if it's just small, in pencil on the back. Then you'll know exactly where it belongs later.
• Keep an overview of your album, on paper or in a spreadsheet, with one line per page and empty lines for what's still to come. That way you can see what's missing and which pages go next to each other.
• If you scrap digitally and have your books printed, wait to print until a year or theme is complete enough, or print single pages to put in a ring binder.

There's also another approach that some scrappers choose on purpose: a page with old photos goes in the album for the year you made it, not the year of the photo. Your album then becomes a record of what was on your mind, and that tells a story too.

Just start

Pick one thing today: a recent photo that moves you, or one old event from your list. Make a page of it, put the date on it and add it to the album. An album doesn't get caught up in one go, but page by page.