I’m back again with another installment of my Preparing to Capture Your Disney Vacation series. Last time, we talked about choosing the tools you could use to capture your Disney vacation. I also shared with you what tools I’ve used in the past, and what tools I am planning on using on my upcoming August trip. Today, I want to talk about planning your approach before you even leave for your trip.
Plan Your Approach
When I am capturing memories, I always find it easier to do if I know what the end result will look like. I think that’s one of the things that draws me to Project Life, I always know what type of layout my photos will end up in, and I can take them accordingly. I’ve found the same goes for when I am capturing memories to document our Disney vacations. There’s a lot to consider when you are planning your approach for capturing your Disney vacation. Let’s take it step by step.
First: What style are you going to use to capture your memories?
Knowing what you want your end result to look like can help you make other choices. There’s tons of ways to capture your memories, but these are the most commonly used.
Traditional 12×12 pages – Many of my earlier trips to Disney World are scrapped in traditional 12×12 pages. It often took many pages to complete the album, a challenge I really never met.
Pocket Style Scrapping – My most recent trips have been scrapped in the pocket style, or Project Life style. Using this approach, I have been able to complete albums for two of my previous trips.
Second: How are you going to organize your memories?
This will depend greatly on the style you choose, and your photo taking habits. The three ways that I’ve gone about organizing my Disney memories are:
By theme and/or park: One method for organizing your memories from you Disney vacation is to group them by theme or by park. Maybe you have a layout for your hotel, one for pictures from your day in Animal Kingdom, etc. This is a nice way to organize your photos and such, however it can get overwhelming if you have a significant amount of photos.
By individual moments: With this method, you would go through and pick the memories that most speak to you. Maybe it’s meeting a certain character, or entering the park for the first time. These layouts are often driven by journaling and capture sweet, special moments. This method, however, often does not include the day to day activities of your vacation.
By day: Organizing your memories by day is an easy way to incorporate both special moments and day to day activities of your vacation. This method does require you to keep track of when photos were taken, and what activities occurred on what days.
Third: What medium are you going to choose?
The age old question – how are you going to get those memories scrapped. Sometimes I pick a medium that is different than what I am currently using, and that helps define the project. The three choices are:
Traditional Paper: using all paper supplies to complete your layouts.
Digital: using a program such as Photoshop and digital supplies to create your layouts.
Hybrid: using both a program like Photoshop and additional paper supplies to complete your layout.
I could go on about the advantages and disadvantages of each of these, but it really depends on personal preference and what you are comfortable with.
To help give you some ideas, here is some great inspiration from some Pollys and Designers:
Once you’ve decided on these three things, you will have a pretty good plan of how you are going to capture your Disney vacation. This time around, I am going to use the same approach I used last year – Pocket Style, organized by day, and I am going to do it hybrid. By using this approach, I will be able to easily add these pages to the album I started last year, and work on creating an album of all of our Disney vacations.
How are you going to plan your approach?
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