Album questions & rambling

My albums are all a mishmash of colors. Most were bought on clearance. I also use some 3" binders found in the school supplies section.

I have my page protectors on the bottom shelf of a bookcase. The shelf is only about 10" tall, so I store 8x8" albums on it, and the boxes of page protectors next to them, horizontally. Fifty count of 12x12's box on the bottom, then a hundred count of 8.5x11" box on top. I can just reach down, & grab one.

When the kids were little it was probably 1 year per album. Now that my kids are grown I can easily get 2-3 years in an album. I don't scrapbook anything and everything like I did in the beginning of my scrapbooking days. All of my divided page protectors are in 2 12x12 albums. I love this system. I tend to always have a few extra albums on hand. Right now I have about 5 of the patterned BH PL albums that I bought at Scrapbook.com before they were discontinued.

I fill two 12x12 albums per year. I think I scrap similarly to you... mostly pocket pages with traditional layouts sprinkled throughout. I do one pocket page spread per "week" (or close to a week, sometimes I fudge the dates a bit so vacations get their own spread, etc.) using Design A page protectors. Then I add smaller inserts with pocket pages or traditional layouts to highlight other stories as needed. My traditional spreads are typically from story kits but cover things that are timely for that month or so (not always in the week they happened so I can put pages back to back that fit the same page protector). I also create mini albums/layouts about other subjects that go into other albums, but these are my primary albums for the year. I have been doing some form of annual album since 2012, started pocket pages in 2013 and have used my current format since 2016 and I don't have any intention of modifying it anytime soon... this works for me.

I buy my albums 4 at a time. This is because I store my completed albums in a kallax in the living room and 4 fit per "cubby." Ideally all of my albums will match, but companies discontinue colors/styles or go out of business, so this way I have a guarantee that at least the cubby will match. This has happened a few times. 2015-2016 are in vanilla WRMK. Then I switched to BH white with gold hardware for 2017-2020 (two cubbies worth). She discontinued those albums so I have to switch colors for 2021/2022. I ended up going with white scrapbook.com with silver hardware and I just purchased 4 albums at the Christmas in July sale. I tend to start looking to buy the next 4 albums when I am 6 months out from needing the first one (or in the second half of the year prior... so July). I like to start looking early so I can wait for a sale, but this year there just happened to be a good one in July so I didn't need to wait. I haven't used the Michael's albums, sorry.

I store my page protectors in extra albums that are in a cubby in a kallax in my craft room. Thankfully I have a 12x12 album that had an error on the front so I got a free replacement. I wouldn't want to use it for an actual album but for storing page protectors it works fine. I also have a 9x12 and a 6x12 album that I use to store those sized page protectors. I have some extra page protectors in boxes in my closet, but that's just because I stocked up on them when BH stopped making them/when there are sales. So I have A LOT of back ups. I never want to worry about running out of basics.

I primarily use the Michael's albums (especially since WRMK albums are gone now). They seem to hold up just fine. I don't have my albums by year they are more by subject or event (i.e vacations, Christmas, scouts, etc).
I still have a few post bound albums but I'm going to move the majority of those layouts to the 3-ring albums by Michael's which eventually I guess I'll sort loosely by year. I have a couple of post-bound albums I'm keeping - one is a Sesame Street album I used for my son't first birthday and one is the K&Co baby book with the picture on the front - I used that one for my son's baby book. I also kept the Boy Scout specific post bound albums from K&Co since they were specific to Scouts.
I'm not a chronological scrapper so my albums are a mish-mash of years at this point. Someday I'll try to get them organized by year - ha!

I do monthly pocket pages, use Project Life 12x12 albums and mostly PL Style A page protectors. I do one album per year, and generally end up with between 30 and 40 page protectors in each album. This year for obvious reasons it will likely be closer to 30!

I have 4 more PL albums on hand, but they are getting really hard to find, and expensive, so I may pick up a few of the Scrapbook.com 12x12 3-ring albums to expand my stash. I don’t mind the mix of album colors on my shelves. But then I am using mostly rounded corner PL Core Kits (couldn’t pass up the TM pricing and I probably have enough on hand for 20 years!) so I’m not too picky. I find I can get a lot more done using the Core Kits and just embellish a lot of the cards as I use them.

I keep a few boxes of the 60-count BH PL page protectors stored flat on a shelf in my craft cupboard. I think I have enough on hand for this year and the 2019 album I’m also working on, plus the four extra albums I have, if I keep it to 40 pps or less per album.