Victoria Marie - Interesting Take

It's not for me. I have a lot of albums and was running out of shelves for them, so I asked my husband to build more shelves for me. It brings me so much joy to look through them, even the ones from my CM days. When my 30-year-old daughter comes to visit, she looks through them and reads the journaling. Sometimes she'll make fun of what I've written, but she takes pictures of her favorite layouts.

I also have only scrapped for myself and my family. It's probably different for Victoria and others who have been on design teams.

I also wonder if some of the older albums, from when Victoria's spouse presented as male, feel in-authentic now. My daughter's former partner has transitioned to female, and I'm unsure about how to scrap older pages from when they were together. I'm not even sure which name to use in my journaling since there have been several name changes. (Of course this would be a non-issue if I kept up with current photos.)

^^^^ This right here. I love this.

If that brings her happiness, go for it.

For me, I’m not going back and redoing a layout. And I LOVE scrapping the stuff that isn’t “core important”. I mean, who is to say what is important anyway?

I understand feeling overwhelmed with products/pages/albums/tools, but my solution will not be to throw out completed layouts or albums. I like seeing the evolution of my style and the different products used on each page.

I have thrown away a handful of layouts that I didn't love after I finished them, but I remake the layouts with the photos. I also have no plans to remake 12x12 layouts into a smaller size.

This is exactly why she's doing it, from what I gathered from her instagram stories and her facebook group. She has a lot of layouts that she had to create for contract commitments and she doesn't need to keep all those.

As for me, I've been scrapping longer than her but don't have nearly as many layouts/albums, so I'm keeping all mine for now. If I get to a point where I don't have as much to scrapbook, I may go back and redo some of the earlier layouts I did that were more Creative Memories (in the early days) style than I like now but until that time comes, I'm keeping all mine.

I've never heard of her, but what's she's doing is not for me. It's very interesting, but I simply am not interested in doing the same.

I make my albums for myself. My kids can do with them as they wish later, and I make that very clear to them now. (I don't want there to be any feeling bad on anyone's part about just trashing them if that's what they wish to do.)

If they want to digitalize all, some, none, that's fine. If they want to alter them in any way, again, fine.
If they want to pull a few favorite layouts and that's it, that's fine, too.

But I don't currently have any plans to redo any albums to their current preferences.

I changed the journaling on a layout earlier this year because DD found it insulting and I asked on this board about it, but I would not change the size of my albums.

I am considering getting a 12 by 12 scanner someday so the kids don’t have to fight over layouts and I can have a digital back up but that’s a huge project…

I have been following along with this and I’m looking forward to her sharing more about the process! She’s going to be making content about what she’s doing and why, and taking us all along on the journey.

Some of it is the contract/DT projects and for sure most of that is going into the bin. That stuff was probably never intended to be kept long term.

But I think some of us just have a part of our brains that push us to re-work things, and some people do not. I follow a few people who have converted their PL albums into digital photo books. And there’s also that minimalist lady Susie Fish who rips apart her pages and reuses them over and over. She is extremely process focused. Shimelle has also talked about one day getting to a point where the container concept is going to kick in and she’ll remove less loved pages to make space for more loved ones.

I have reworked multiple albums over the years. The original albums went in the bin, or got disassembled. I’ve kept photos in some cases, trashed them in other cases. I’ve rearranged 2 volume PL albums and tossed out the stuff that makes me cringe or that’s meaningless to make them fit in one volume. (Don’t worry, my family doesn’t really care about what happened on NCIS or New Girl in 2013, and not all traces of my interest in TV shows has been erased 😆 nothing important has been lost).

I think of it as first drafts, no harm in refining them and creating something better from them if that’s going to make you happier. I also have major space issues, and no one was/is looking at the old albums. Not even me! So what’s the point in keeping them as they are? I’d rather rework them to be easier to store, and in the process I can adjust some things, add some perspective, tell better stories, and toss out the stuff that doesn’t speak to me any more.

I totally understand why this approach is not for everyone. Sometimes I ask myself why I’m wasting time reworking old stuff instead of doing something new. But in the end it feels right to me, for me and my family.

I wouldn't get rid of or re-do any of my layouts.

I have replaced yellowed epoxy embellishment, with something else (sticker, die cut, etc...) on a few layouts
I also tossed all my yellowed epoxy, some of it was brand new. Creative Imaginations yellowed the most (in my opinion). 
Wasted so much money, on that worthless junk.

I have replaced some of my "scrapbook furniture", that was no longer serving me well.
I had rolling hanging file carts, which I loved....they held a lot of product, which made them HEAVY  to push, pull, move around. 
I switched to bins on top of 2 x 3 cube units. The bins hold much less, so they are not as heavy. 
The four cube units are longer and take up more floor space, than the four file carts.
I was sad to let the carts go....but I am happy to not have my back and neck hurt, from pulling the carts out of the scrapbook closet every time I scrapbooked. 

This is very much my intention- one day. I don’t have the time or energy for it at present, but will eventually digitise all my scrapbooks to take away any potential burden on those who will have to deal with them at some (hopefully very distant) point. 

I did that a very long time ago whe' I switched from 12x12 to letter size. I hope she doesn't regret it like I do.

I follow Victoria Marie on Instagram, and I love her pages. I hadn't seen her posts about this, as I really only look at posts showing layouts.

Absolutely I have done this! I cannot stand to even look at my early layouts, and I sure as hell wouldn't want anyone else to see them. They're awful. I have re-scrapped some of them, and when I eventually find the negatives for my daughter's baby/toddler photos (pre-digital), I will re-scrap every single layout. The only reason that I haven't already re-scrapped all of my early layouts is because I cut all the photos into stupid shapes, and I can't find the negatives to get the photos reprinted. 

It just sounds like so much wasted time when new pages can be made. I understand the need to downsize but cutting all of them down? I have no idea how that would work- it would ruin the whole balance of the design so you'd have to rip it apart and start over. Too much work and stuff is bound to get ruined in the process. Just reprint the photos you want and rescrap them.

I have gone back into old layouts and removed epoxy and flair and yellowed vellum tape. I also didn't use a huge amount of patterned paper when I started so I went back into some of my layouts and added patterned paper and extra, more up to date embellishments. I've greatly improved some of them. But I never went through the "sticker sneeze and cut photos into shapes" phase of scrapping, and I started in that era. I've always been happy with my pages, some of them just needed tweaked.

My scrapbooks are probably all going in the bin when I die. I'm okay with that- if my nephews want some layouts, that would be nice, but I don't expect it.