No more albums?? MercyTiara video

Nope.

I can't remember the last time I watched a Mercy Tiara video. I used to watch her all the time, and I adopted a lot of her methods. She took a break, though, and I never got back into the routine of watching her videos.

Honestly, I think this was a lot of work to solve something that (in my opinion) isn't a problem. I can't figure out if she reorganized in order to get friends and family to look at the layouts more frequently or if she's trying to save space. It also seems really wasteful to get rid of the albums. Hopefully she has given them away or is repurposing them. She is also using more page protectors, I think, because she's not putting the pages back-to-back. I think her family is temporarily looking at these layouts more because she is making a point of testing this new method. It seems more complicated than having books. I know that when my adult daughter comes to visit, she helps herself to the albums on my shelves. If my husband asks about an event, I know exactly where to go to find a layout because my albums are labelled. I don't need to rifle through a box that might be under other boxes.

If she likes it, though, that's what matters. I have enjoyed watching her over the years and will make a point of going back to her YouTube channel more often.

I used to watch her videos but haven't for a long time. She said in a video once said she doesn't actually look at her layouts once she makes them.  I guess the box method makes sense if you aren't going to look at the layouts...  

I haven’t watched the video, but several years ago, I took all the 12x12 layouts that I had in (lots) of albums, pre-(my) PL style. Some were full 12x12 binder albums for like 15 pages! And they are all pre-2008 ish. I put them in a couple totes from Staples, put paper around the edges and on the lids to block out light, and snapped them closed.

Part of the motivation was it 10-13 years post divorce. Also, I found I didn’t often look at those, and I was running out of bookshelf space. I am “digital curious.” I hybrid scrapbook, but I’ve strongly considered moving to photo books. Anyway… I didn’t want to invest in more shelves or space for shelves. I gave the albums to a local lady that scrapbooks.

I’m at the point now where I am considering putting away some full albums, same reason. I’m tempted to put away all but the last 3 years of albums. I have well over a decade of DD’s (usually 2 6x8’s) and a bunch of 6x8 trip albums. I rarely pull out an old PL album, but everyone likes the DD’s and trip albums. I also have 3 Creative Memories albums super full of Christmas’s that I will leave out.

The 9x12 PL albums I’ve done since 2014 or so are full. And the album itself doesn’t take up (a lot) of extra space. Those old Doodlebug and Michael’s ones do though. So I could see getting rid of the 12x12 albums.

ETA: I took small post it note flags and stamped the year and page of the album it came out of for each page I removed from the albums. It really didn’t take long once I figured out what I wanted to do. Then I tiny attacher stapled it to the page protector (where the holes are.)

I think I’m going to go back and do this to ALL my albums. I live in fear (maybe a little too dramatic, but not much!) that something will topple the shelf and the binder rings will snap on 40 albums and I’ll be buried in a pile of page protectors, ephemera, photos and words.

She said that the Kallax cubes hold 4 albums or one box and that she can get 6 albums worth of layouts in a box...so she would be saving some space. Because 6 cubes would either hold 24 albums or 6 boxes (36 albums equivalent)

I had a surprisingly strong immediate reaction to even just the preview pic for that video---a very emphatic "Absolutely not!".

Then, to be fair, I did watch the first few minutes of the video, got as far as her opening the box and pulling out a few layouts, and then my "Absolutely not!" was joined by "Nope!" "No freaking way!" and "Aw hell, no!".

I'm very glad it works for her, and I can certainly agree that albums are expensive, plus they do allow dust into top loading pages, PLUS you often wind up with a bunch of different sizes, colors, finishes, etc. over many years of scrapping, which can be annoying.

But despite all of that, I will absolutely not be keeping my own finished layouts in anything other than albums.

Initially, I thought oh hell no. But after watching the video, I can see where that method could be useful IF you had a Kallex system, which, I do not. So not for me.

Mercy Tiara showed in the video that she was storing two layouts back to back per page protector.  Regardless, I couldn’t use that system.  I like my albums. Fortunately I’m not a YT content creator or a prolific Scrapbooker so I haven’t got dozens and dozens of albums 🤣

I don't like the box idea.
I think it would be awkward to show the layouts to someone. Have to pull them out one at a time, hold the spot, then slide it back in.

I prefer the ease of flipping through an album (I use binders).

OK, looking back, it does look like she stores two layouts in one page protector. I think I misunderstood when she highlighted what she does with two-page layouts, attaching them with paper ribbon.

From some of the comments on her video, it looks like several people are considering doing this to save space. I do like the indexing idea and have considered doing this for my existing albums.

I kind of love this idea and it is something I am going to consider. As it stands now, all of the layouts I made in the past few years are stored upright in 12x12 canvas boxes without page protectors. They are in no particular order and organizing all my layouts is in the top 5 of my list of big projects.

Not having pages in albums is a non-issue since most are already in a box. No one is flipping through anything...once I finish the layout and show it to my husband, it goes in the box to never see the light of day again. Same as the layouts I have stored in albums.

Her index system is impressive but I don't think it's something I want to spend so much time creating but numbering the page protectors is genius!! 

Definitely food for thought...thank you for sharing!

It makes a lot of sense when you watch the video. She already has her layouts in digital form, so they're more like archives now.

If I could sell all my albums, I would consider doing the same, except I would label the box by themes - people, places, etc. Also, I'd probably create subcategories.

And again…if you are creating for internet content or as a product advertisement…most of us don’t create the volume of pages that she does