Stories Of Summer : Story Arcs For Vacation Albums by Debbie Hodge


AE_StoriesOfSummerBlueLogo_Small
<br />copy
STORY ARCS FOR VACATION ALBUMS
WORDS BY DEBBIE HODGE


When you get ready to scrapbook an album of your vacation memories, there are multiple ways to tell your story. Consciously choosing an approach will give you a structure for planning—and finishing!—a complete vacation album.


Consider these types of story-arcs for scrapbooking vacations:


*A road-trip that takes you to a series of stops lends itself well to chronological scrapbooking.


*If you travel instead to one spot and just enjoy that place—perhaps journeying out only for limited sightseeing—try a category approach to planning your album.


*It’s possible that a combination of categories and chronology works best for your particular trip. If, for example, you take a guided tour, going on excursions and then returning back to a “base” location, you could chronicle the stops on the tour chronologically and then weave in category pages about the constants like your cruise ship or tour group as well as the stories of interesting incidents.


*If you’re someone who doesn’t like a lot of structure and prefers to record your travel experiences in more relaxed way, consider creating layouts that record impressions, stories, companions, and moments. Put together a collage of layouts that reveal the whole without relying on over-thinking.


Below I share the step-by-step processes for planning albums organized chronologically and around categories.


TELL IT CHRONOLOGICALLY

This is a good approach for a ”road-trip” type of vacation. A “road-trip” vacation is not necessarily a literal trip in a car on a road or highway. The “road-trip” vacation is one that takes you to a series of what may be quite different locales over the course of one trip. Read on for the process.


1. REVIEW YOUR PHOTOS



Review the chronology of your trip by pulling out your stack of photos or bringing up the folder of photos in your photo browser on the computer.


2. MAKE AN INDEX CARD FOR EACH "STOP" ON THE TRIP


Label an index card for each “stop” on the trip. Lay out the index cards in a column in chronological order of the trip.


1. REVIEW THE "STOPS"


Look over these cards, and ask yourself:


* Does everything need to be scrapbooked? If not, pull those stop cards and toss.


* Are there points at which chronology doesn’t matter? For example, if you did a couple of different activities in a particular town, you might want all of those pages NEAR each other in the album, but you don’t necessarily need them in the exact order in which they happened. Breaking from strict chronology gives you some flexibility when it comes to fitting in one- and two-pagers. For any of those situations, put all of those cards in a row together.


* Are there repeat visits to a location that could be scrapbooked together on a page? Maybe you made two outings to a particular beach and don’t have any stories to set one visit off from the other in any remarkable way. Pull (and toss) those cards—but make sure to write their stop description on the other card that it’ll combine with.


* Are there “onesies” (or twosies or threesies)--photos that don’t merit their own page but that you could group together? Again, consolidate those events and discard extra cards—or make a new card for each “collection” page that occurs to you.


4. MAKE AN INDEX CARD FOR EACH LAYOUT YOU'LL MAKE


Grab another stack of index cards (if they’re a different color from those you just used-great!). Label one card “Opener” and put it at the top of a new column. Label one “Closer” and put it at the bottom of that column.


Work your way through the “stop” cards you’ve already made, and label a new card for each scrapbook page you plan to make. If it’s going to be a two-page layout, use two cards. Label each card with a “holding-place” page-title--something that identifies the page but that may change. Place these cards in their own column (between the “opener” and “closer” cards) in the approximate order they’ll appear in the album.


Be sure to plan for layouts that tell specific stories from the trip – anecdotes, funny or telling incidents, stories you just want to remember. Keep an eye out for photos that would work well on your album opener and closer pages.


Note: this is a “plan.” It’s a guide to get you started and to keep you creating. It’s all subject to change, though, and you’ll probably made adjustments to the plan as you proceed. That’s why we’re using these cards—they’re easy to re-order, toss, or create new.


As you work through your photos and get ready to make pages, make notes about memories, memorabilia, weather, colors – anything that occurs to you.


5. MAKE SCRAPBOOK PAGES AND USE THE CARDS TO MANAGE HOW THEY'LL COME TOGETHER IN THE ALBUM


As you make pages, keep a card to represent each page and shuffle them around to get an order that works for your combo of one- and two-page layouts.


TELL IT BY CATEGORY (& INCIDENT)


This approach is great for the kind of travel that takes you primarily to one locale. There’s limited sightseeing on this type of vacation, and it’s more about enjoying place, people, and activities. Maybe you’re visiting family or going camping, skiing or staying at a lakehouse.


With this kind of trip, it can be more efficient and present a better view of the whole event when the pages are structured around categories or logical groupings and have stories interspersed rather than sticking to a chronology of the visit.


1. REVIEW YOUR PHOTOS AND IDENTIFY YOUR CATEGORIES

Pull out your stack of photos or open up the folder with them in your photo browser on the computer. Identify the categories or logical groupings that immediately occur to you and label an index card for each one. You may toss some of these as your album develops, but, for now, just make those notes.


To come up with categories, ask yourself:
* who were the people?
* what was the locale like in general?
* was there a particular spot to which we frequently returned?
* what were the constants (i.e., repeated activities that might group together well)?
* what where the outings or activities that should be spotlighted?
* what were the stories?



2. ORGANIZE YOUR PHOTOS AROUND CATEGORIES


Group the photos for each category you’ve identified.


If you’re working with prints, you can move the physical photos around on the table with the index cards. If you’re working with photos on your computer in a photo organizer like Picassa or iPhoto or acdSee, move your photos around using tags or folders.



3. IDENTIFY LAYOUTS TO MAKE


Work your way through each category and its photos to identify the layouts you’d like to make—some categories may yield multiple scrapbook pages. Make an index card for each layout and label it with a “holding” title that may change. If you’re making a two-page layout, use two index cards so that you’ve got a mock-up of your album that makes it easy to visualize the order of pages. Label one card for your album opener layout and one for your album closer layout. As you work with your photos, keep an eye out for those that would work on the opener and closer pages of your album.



4. COME UP WITH A ROUGH ORDER FOR YOUR LAYOUTS IN THE ALBUM 


Move the index cards representing your layouts around on the table to come up with an order that flows and tells the story of your vacation well. This is a “plan” but it’s not law. Let it evolve as you work, but also use it to keep yourself focused and creating. This way you’ll have that album completed well before the next vacation rolls around.


A PLAN HELPS YOU GET THE ALBUM FINISHED


Making a plan—even if you don’t totally stick to it in its original form—gives you the structure to get an album completed. Days when you’ve got just a bit of time to scrapbook, pull an index card, and make the layout it describes. You’ll be on your way to telling your vacation story.


Dottedline


ABOUT DEBBIE : Debbie Hodge shares scrapbook pages ideas, resources, and tutorials almost daily at her website Get It Scrapped! Her passion is showing you how to organize your memories and photos to make great-looking scrapbook pages that tell awesome (and hopefully meaningful) stories.

Related Posts

Sign in or sign up to comment.

12 thoughts

  1. Terri says…
    07/02/2010

    As someone who is fairly disorganized, these ideas really helped me to see how to lay out my numerous travel albums. I have several trips' worth of photos and memorabilia/stuff in boxes just waiting to be scrapped. Now I know how to scrap the visits to our cabin (your second type) and the "road" trips we have taken all over the country.
    Thanks!

    Reply 0 Replies
  2. Dawn says…
    07/02/2010

    I am really liking this approach! Going to try this with my almost cross country road trip from about 6 years ago now and maybe I will finally get it all scrapped and into an album! Thanks so much for this!

    Reply 0 Replies
  3. Sharon says…
    07/02/2010

    Debbie, many many good points brought out on this. I just printed it, and put it - yes - with my travel papers and embellishments

    Reply 0 Replies
  4. dawn says…
    07/02/2010

    These are great ideas. My family will be traveling to Miami, Florida this month and it will be a long trip so I will have a lot to document. This will keep all my ideas fresh and organized. Thanks for sharing.

    Reply 0 Replies
  5. Susan Bowers says…
    07/02/2010

    So far I've been able to move 'chronologically' through my album with a simple plan of stories + photos, primarily digital with stashes of traditional. This has been the best time - this summer album. Debbie, I visit your sight often. You have great ideas and approachs. Thanks.

    Reply 0 Replies
  6. Carrie Woosley says…
    07/02/2010

    Thanks Debbie, I needed these steps! I am behind 3 major vacations because I get stuck with wanting to scrap everything and do in chronologically! I think I'm a little OCD that way! I believe that this will help me!
    http://www.ucutathome.com/index.php

    Reply 0 Replies
  7. glee says…
    07/03/2010

    these summer stories pages are so helpful. even though we're staying at home this summer due to money; summer lives at a different pace than the rest of the year and has so many delights to be recorded and savored. thanks as always!

    Reply 0 Replies
  8. Pat Klassen says…
    07/03/2010

    Hi Terri, have your ever thought about publishing a storybook for your vacations. I absolutely love storybooking and decided to create a website at http://www.scrapbooking-plus-stories.com
    I just recently lost my mom and made this memorial book for her. She was an amazing women and I miss her so much!
    http://www.heritagemakers.com/projectBrowserStandAlone.cfm?projectId=1098981&productId=5&projectSponsor=335725
    Drop by for a visit and check out just how easy it is to publish your own storybook.
    take care, Pat

    Reply 0 Replies
  9. northcarmen says…
    07/03/2010

    Great breakdown, Debbie -- thank you!! I too have a lot of trips that have gone undocumented in my albums because I felt overwhelmed by all the stuff....
    Carmen.

    Reply 0 Replies
  10. Jennifer says…
    07/03/2010

    Thank you for this post, it sort of confirms the approach I've been taking to travel scrapbooking. Another organisational approach that will work for some larger projects is alphabetical: I know it sounds weird, but I got the idea from Cathy Z's "Me the Abridged Version" BPS class. We went on a safari to South Africa last August, and I look SO MANY pictures I just didn't know how to approach the album I wanted to make, so I decided to do it alphhbetically, using a limited range of supplies and a common "look" for each layout. Some are single pages, others are double where there is a lot to talk about eg "R" is for Rhinoceros and Rorke's Drift, "W" is for Waterhole, Wildebeest and Warthog, "Z" is for Zulu and Zebra. My journalling is a paragraph under each word.

    Reply 0 Replies
  11. Jenna says…
    07/05/2010

    Ali - I'm trying to source the 7 gypsies life rubbings that you've referenced before...and that I've gotten addicted to. My previous source was scrapbookingexpress.com - and it seems that they don't have them anymore. Any online hints would be great. Thanks. Hope that the tri training is going well...we're at about A-6 weeks to the Danskin! Yikes!

    Reply 0 Replies
  12. chinchalapubharathi says…
    10/24/2016

    Mobile Number Tracker India
    Mobile Number Tracker India With Name And Address Online
    Mobile Number Tracker India Online
    Mobile Number Tracker India Truecaller

    Reply 0 Replies

Sign in or sign up to comment.