Going Hybrid!!

As much as I would love to have that title relate to me getting a new sporty hybrid car (though maybe not the Prius, at the moment!!) unfortunately that is not the theme for this post. Instead, I am presenting my completed 2008 scrapbook!! YEE HAW!! In my Project 365 summary I mentioned the pros and cons of the finished product. Overall, I was happy but it didn't give me an amazing feeling when I opened it up to look at it. BUT it was leaps and bounds better than my previous "completed" albums that make me cringe a bit when I look at them. Lots of 75% complete pages, missing journaling, what was I thinking layouts and embellishments and not a feeling of really capturing our complete lives.....

I am happy to report that my 2008 album combines what I did like about my previous albums and the P365 and I LOVE LOVE LOVE it!! I get a warm and happy feeling when I open it up to look at it (which I do often:-). I feel like I captured the really big moments in our life well, along with getting alot of small moments that are important to remember. There is a much better cross-section of people represented in the album including Tom, myself, friends and relatives instead of just Madison and Nora and nothing else. And I did a much better job including journaling on the pages.

As much as I love this album I would love to share each and every page with you BUT the four inch thickness may indicate just a bit how many pages are in the album. So instead, I am going to highlight a bit of my new-found "hybrid scrapbooking style" that I love. A little bit of many techniques and strategies that I have discovered to help make the process interesting, unique and simplified.

1. I began to discover this solution 2 years ago and it is by far the BEST scrapping break through I have found. These are page protectors that are divided into different sections so you can just slide 4x6 photos right into the pockets. Instead of stressing over every 12x12 layout, I can focus on a few that are really important to me and then add these divided pages to speed up the process. I especially like the ones that give spots for both vertical and horizontal photos and even smaller slots for embellishing. I typically purchase the WeRMemories brand and have found even a bigger selection of styles and sizes for my 2010 album!! Here is the other side to this 2 page layout with a large photo highlighted (I did this alot more in this album, choosing a few photos to enlarge and really emphasize. LOVE IT!!)

2. I did a few pages attempting to go truely hybrid by doing part of the layout in photo-shop and then finishing it off with traditional scrapbooking. On this layout I did the photo collages of my daily thanks photos and had them printed 8x8 and then added a few embelishment on the paper. I really want to explore this style more this year and will use the always inspiring Ali Edward's Blog to help me out.
3. Fairly traditional scrapbooking still has its place in my albums and this is my collage title page.
4. For each month I did a summary page using random photos that capture our daily lives. This got a lot of those small moments that often got missed in prior albums where I did the big events but missed out on the small things.
5. Another non-traditional page protector. This one opens up to really highlight something special. Just right for the flower girl layout.

I am so excited to have this done. There are still photos/pages I could add but I think I really summed up our year and I am ready to move onto 2010. I am getting 10 hours of scrapbooking bliss with a friend on Saturday and am looking forward to coming up with my strategy for tackling the new year. I will take alot of what I did for 2008 and build on it for this year. I am hoping to share my plan next week so prepare yourself for another LONG and BORING post. Feel free to ignore:-)