How far behind are you?

2008. Yes, you read that right. I have photos in chronological order and try to scrap that way but usually hop around. So far behind. We just went to universal studios in Orlando and I just want to scrap those pics since they are recent but I feel like I need to catch up!!!

I just celebrated my 28th wedding anniversary. I’ve had the paper, embellishments, pictures, etc for at least 15 years. They are still sitting a box for me to finish. I took 10+ years off and I’m just getting back into the groove. I really, really missed the creative outlet scrapbooking gives me. Like so many others I don’t want to put a deadline on it. I scrapbook for me, not for anyone else, so eventually I’ll get around to doing that wedding album.
Currently I’m working on an album that I started before my break. A 2006 Disney trip!

Ugh. I am a week behind being done with a 2022 project life album, but I have not kept up with any of the kids's albums (they are all 6-7 years behind), and I have a bunch of half-finished PL albums and vacation albums from past years. There is zero chance I will ever catch up.

I could have written your post word-for-word! I don't feel "behind" and have never had the philosophy that every photo and every memory need to be scrapped. Sometimes I skip an event because in the background, something else was happening that brings negative associations to the event, or I'm uninspired by the photos, or I have a specific group of photos I want to scrap. I scrap what I want and don't think too hard about feeling behind. I have made thousands of layouts... no one is going to say it's not enough! 

Disclaimer: I'm a digital scrapper.

I have everything from 2002-2019 scrapped. 2002-2006 is mostly layouts of my former stepchildren, and I'd like to print those pages into a book for them someday to have as we are still in touch. I do not scrap chronologically but I do store and print in chronological order.

I have Shutterfly albums of my digital layouts from end of 2006-2015. The type of albums I print there have a maximum of 110 pages, and I usually have 2 per year. However, they charge per page after the first 20 so I have to wait for their unlimited pages sales, which happen a few times a year, to get my albums printed. 2016-2019 are complete but not printed yet. 2020 is mostly done, especially the COVID bits, but there are a handful of photos from the end of the year that need to be scrapped. 2021 & 2022 are in various stages of doneness. I am combining the COVID pages from 2020-2022 into a separate album but am including them in our family album as well.

Since I'm digital, I don't create separate albums for the kids, etc. Everything except for vacations and Countdown to Christmas (December Daily) goes into the yearly album. When the kids graduate from high school, I will likely go through all my layouts of them and print one single book for them with the "highlights" of their first 18 years.

Besides 2020-2022 in general, I have one more page in our 2022 vacation album to make and I need to decide if I want to rescrap or just print my haphazard imitation of Countdown to Christmas for 2014. I'm also toying with the idea of scrapping my partner's & his children's lives before we met but I'm not sure exactly how many photos there are or what types of things they include so we'll see.

I just pick a photo and scrap it. It could be from yesterday or 30 years ago. That’s the way I have always done it and it works for me. My kids and grandkids quite often look through all my books ( there are quite a lot) and always enjoy them, so I guess I’m doing something right.

I just scrapped a photo from 1995. So yeah, I am a little behind. 😉😁

I'm not at all current. I started scrapping in 2006ish and then took a break from it starting in 2010 when my husband and I moved aboard a sailboat and went cruising. I wasn't by any means "caught up" on everything I wanted to scrap when I left off in 2010 -- and now I am really far behind.

I want to scrap ALL THE THINGS from 2010 to about 2019, but it is realistically not going to happen. So what I'm doing now is printing out the highest priority photos from that time period and putting them in pocket pages in albums. I hope to go back eventually and scrap a bunch of them, but in the meanwhile, I want them to have "homes" and be accessible for viewing.

And when I come across a good match between scrapbooking supplies and photos, I am scrapping the layouts at random -- but trying to put them in order in my albums as I make them.

I have been prioritizing scrapping past adventures over everyday life, and I was totally OK with that in 2020 through 2022 because I really don't want to remember every horrible detail from the past couple of years anyway. Ugh.

But I decided to try to keep up with everyday scrapping starting in 2023, because I do think it is important to tell the stories while the memories are fresh in mind.

I wish I had at least kept up with journaling during the time I was out cruising, but I didn't do it consistently. I have bits and pieces, here and there, of journaling that I wrote when I had a story I knew that I would want to remember. But most of those memories are now either lost or have faded somewhat with time -- a real bummer to me now that I am trying to put it all together in scrapbooks.

This is such a fantastic suggestion -- thanks!  But unfortunately, I lost all but the last couple of years' worth of my emails during a forced Windows update from Microsoft awhile back. Whatever change they made that time completely scrammed my email. I was furious! My husband somehow was able to figure out how to rescue the last 2 years worth of emails, but everything from before that is gone.

I was also able to rescue some of the older trip-related emails I sent to my husband's parents, because I cc'ed my husband on some of them. I emailed them back to myself from his in-box. I have thought about asking them if they have any of the others, but I haven't done it because I don't want to be a nuisance.

There was no carrying a phone when we were traveling; you need a different phone / plan for each country, and I gave up on even trying with that. So I don't have any texts from that time period.

I was bad about maintaining my blog while we were out cruising, but I do have my old blog posts to draw from. So at least there's that.