What is your approach to how you decide what to scrapbook?

Prepping dd's infusion and once she is is running, I will reply. This is going to be an interesting read!

Oh and for years I no longer scrap chronological. While my albums were that way, I always scrapped what spoke to me.

I have a running list of pages I want to make. It's the planner in me.

Anyways, as we do activities or events, I make not of them. Before I make a layout, I look at the list and pick what makes me excited.

I have scrapbooked Halloween in the spring and Christmas in August. School photos months later.

I used to scrapbook very traditional 12x12 layouts--it was all very event focused. Trips, big celebrations or family events, and of course lots of layouts of niece and nephew when they were young. I scrapbooked a lot with my mom. She put a lot of pressure on me that things that were happening in my life were not significant enough to scrapbook--because I am not married and do not have children, there was really no point to it. Eventually, I just got to a point where I had very little to scrapbook. I dabbled in art journaling and took some classes, and while I really liked it, I did not love it the same way as I loved scrapbooking.

I kept going with my 12x12 albums scrapbooking some trips, and added in some pocket pages to deal with the tons of photos I took. This gave me an itch to try "project life"--it took a long time to get over the idea that my everyday life wasn't worth documenting and last year I finally did a hybrid monthly PL album with my pocket page spreads supplemented by 12x12 layouts of my favourite photos/stories. This is the happy medium for me, and is my favourite album.

ETA:  I apologize in advance for how long this post is!!!  I had no idea it would end up that long.

well, right now I'm not scrapbooking at all, but I'll answer your questions, sort of, anyway.  Right now I'm in a year-plus scrapbooking hiatus mainly brought on by the stress of moving, my depression related to moving and my mom dying early this year, etc.  I don't think I've printed or gotten photos printed for at least a year, and I'm not sure when I will again.  My photos currently live on my computer hard drive or on my phone, or very rarely, Instagram.     

I only scrap when I'm feeling GOOD / HAPPY.  I scrap out of order and whatever subject I feel like, dictated by what sparks my creativity-- the colors or subject in the photos, buying new paper, whatever it might be.  I just can't make myself be creative when my depression is bad, or when we're in the middle of stressful life events, etc.  And I don't scrap 'bad' stuff- my albums are all happy memories... which is good & bad (our first dog died suddenly, and I never made any pages about her when she was alive, so I still haven't scrapped any pages about her).  Since it's been a number of years, I might be able to do it now.  

I would call my basic scrapping style sort of retrospective photo-journalism:  lots of fact-based journaling, lots of (decent quality) photos, and fun embellishments that give me an excuse to play with all my stuff (patterned papers, punches, washi, rickrack, ribbon, dies, etc.).  I mostly use sketches for page design, because I don't like making decisions about 'designing' the layout- I just like 'filling in' the spaces with my pics and embellishments.  And I call it 'retrospective' because I'm usually scrapping long after the events have occurred.  I do my journaling in a retrospective manner, too- no trying to 'fake' the journaling like I was writing it at the time of the event.  (I put the layouts in my albums by topic, mostly in chronological order, though- see below for an explanation of that.)  


Here's an example of my scrapping 'retrospective photo journalism' style:  we went an exhibit of Samurai armor and artifacts at the local Phx art museum-- the exhibit was *fantastic* and I took at least 300 pics.  I probably printed well over 100 of them in various sizes, including 4x6, 3x4, and 2x2.  I think I made at least 6-8 two-page 12x12 (?) layouts about that exhibit, probably with some 6x12 layouts mixed in. The journaling is mostly about the history of the Samurai (I did internet research and took notes), pics of details and facts about the items from the exhibit.  The pages are decorated with handmade embellishments and borders, I used some Japanese design papers, punches, etc. on the pages.  Most of the pics are of the exhibit items; there are a few pics of my DH or me at the exhibit, but *we* are not the focus of the pages or of my journaling.  So that's at least twenty 12x12 pages about ONE half-day trip to an art exhibit.  

Every once in a while I will also do what I call 'coffee table art book' type layouts, where the focus is on one-- or a few-- really good photos with little-to-no journaling, maybe just a name/date, and more 'formal, artsy-style' embellishing, to make an 'artsy' style one or two page layout.  Those also get put into my albums chronologically depending on subject / date.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I started scrapping the mid 90s (?) at a CM sponsored get-together, chronologically (of course!), in strap-hinge albums.  I started doing 12x12 2-pg layouts because I liked the amount of space to 'decorate' with fun stuff, and because I didn't want to crop my photos or leave very many out.  (that was back in the days of film, remember! lol)  Almost from the first, though, I had more than one album going because I wanted to focus on a couple different things- one album was fixing up my first house / garden; another was the places I visited, family holidays, etc.; a third was mostly college and high school pics and memorabilia.  I loved BH sketches, CM sketch books, and Memory Makers magazines (remember them?), using punches, making page borders, etc. and always made a point to put at least basic (who, what, when, where on my pages, as much as I knew, anyway)

I very quickly fell 'behind' and got disenchanted with the feeling of having to work chronologically in those horrid (IMO) strap-hinge albums that I never could get the hang of, lol. I would 'leave space' for layouts in the album and hope I would come back to do those layouts, but I never really did. I'm pretty much of a themed / event scrapbooker, as opposed to documenting 'memories and moments.' And I lost interest in scrapbooking 'another Christmas' or 'another whatever-event' but trying to figure out a way to make it different / interesting to me. (if that makes sense)

So I quit scrapbooking for maybe-- 4-5 years, or more.  I still made cards, and I started art journaling.  When I 'found' scrapbooking again, I think it was because I had seen some stuff about Stacy Julian's Library of Memories system.  Scrapbooking 'people we love' 'places we go' etc. instead of scrapbooking every year in order.  I also found that they had come out with D-ring albums!!   And the heavens parted, and angels sang! (that's kind of what it felt like, to me, lol!)

After I found D-ring albums, I started scrapping whatever pics / event I was inspired to work on at the time, and putting the completed layouts into different 'topic' albums based on topics that made sense to me:  1) "Places we Go: Southwest" (for trips in/around AZ);  2) "Places we Go: Midwest" (things we did when we went back to visit family);  3) Hawaii Trip (a two 12x12 album for a two-week trip; still not finished-- oops!);  4) My Childhood & memories; and 5) Our Home and Family.  But they're still mostly 'event' style layouts in those different albums.  Somewhere in the late 20-teens I also started doing Project Life style albums with divided page protectors, but I stopped that pretty quick- I realized my laundry or grocery store trips wasn't something I wanted to memorialize.  My PL albums turned into monthly layouts of 'random, non-event' photos. 

I wouldn't consider ANY of my albums *done* or *complete* in any way- the closest to 'complete' would be the two-week Hawaii trip albums.  I also don't use mini-albums for scrapbooking, I don't do paint splattering, etc. on my SB layouts- my 'randomness' and the smaller book style / sizes is all reserved for my art journaling.

(eta:  I take it back-  I do have one ornament-shaped chipboard album in-process that is photos of my favorite Christmas ornaments.  I also bought a couple classes and kits for making mini-albums, but if I ever make any of them, they won't be for 'event-style' photo layouts, but will be more art-journal style, for quotes, my favorite garden flowers, etc.)

The only way I can scrap is with definitive end dates of something where I can put everything into a mini and move on after I'm finished. I couldn't imagine scrapping chronologically in the sense that this entire scrapbook is the year 2021, or 'here's a little bit from every month in the year'. I've tried the PL style a couple times over the years but always come back to the thought of I'm a boring AF millennial and there's rarely enough going on to warrant an entire album. "I had a bad mental week and binge watched 22 episodes of Fringe between Saturday and Sunday" isn't something I care to memorialize

So mini books work best for me! December Daily, WITL, trip albums, a day hike we took, seasonal/e.g "summer fun", a small tag album on the flowers we planted last year that I promptly killed in the California sun, etc lol. I love seeing people's spreads on IG and think "oh that's beautiful I could do something like that!" but.. nah, I couldn't lol.

I also have to create in the moment. If I don't get something finished within a month or 2 after the fact it will NEVER get done. So I'm one of those people printing DD photos every couple days to keep up with it because I know if I don't the album will either sit dormant or be half finished.

I prefer to scrap events. One album per event, maybe 10-12 pages (both sides). I also have an over-stuffed album of miscellaneous photos.
Here for the past year I have been unable to get out to my studio, because I can't leave the Queen by herself. I am hoping to get a social worker in 1 or 2 days a week to give me some alone time.
I'm starting to think Alzheimer’s is contagious.

Lord give me patience ... because if you give me strength, I'm going to need bail money to go with it.

Interesting question jeremysgirl and again, I am so sorry for your loss. I know what it's like to hit a block in scrapping due to grief. Since I lost my sister last Christmas day (somewhat suddenly, and I am 28 yo in case that is relevant), I haven't been able to scrap last Thanksgiving (our last holiday with her) or obviously any photos of Christmas eve.

I scrap mostly chronological, within the year or so. So like right now, I am working on 2022 but not in exact order. (I did leave room for me to finish last thanksgiving if I feel up to it though. Not sure what I am going to do with the Christmas eve pics)

But I think the bigger question is how do I decide what photos get worthy of being scrapped? I don't have a hard and fast rule. Whichever photos are speaking to me, whether its:
--significant event
--significant people in my life** caveat below
--fun memories
--just because I want to be creative with a particular photo

**I scrapbook for me. I occasionally make mini-albums for baby nieces and nephews but that aside, I scrapbook my own personal memories. I obviously include others in my pages, but they are the guest stars. So in practice what this means is, I don't scrapbook their own personal events and milestones unless it's from my perspective.

I also have a National Park Album that I am adding to as we go on our travels. However it does kind of bug me that those aren't folded into my regular chronological albums. And then there's the question of what about the layouts on the same trip that weren't of the actual national park??

Ok but what do I do with photos that are more everyday life?
--I group photos together. So I have a few shots of "Spring" photos (pictures of flowers, hummingbirds, etc) that aren't super significant on their own, but could make a nice page together about spring.
--I am planning on making a mini album about my dog. I cannot keep making 12x12 layouts about just him being cute on the couch lol!

I am always open to new ideas and suggestions too.

Thank you jeremysgirl

I pled the 5th on how many albums...but I've been scrapping for 20+ years...

I'm not about to count them -and the ones in 3-ring office supply binders aren't complete, just the ones in actual 3-ring albums...