Non-Chronological Organizing & Printing

I used to do pages out of order when I would put them in page protectors in binders in chronological order. I’d never print all my books out of order where I couldn’t rearrange by date. I guess I have done a couple that way when I’ve printed moc layouts in free 8x8 Shutterfly books. But again I’d never do it that way for all my books.

 

My first printing was 12x12 pages! I won 20 pages. I picked 20 of my favorite pages from that year. Not chronological. I have that scrapbook(the metal part broke). I never look at it, the 12x12 was bulky and hard to go thru.
I reprinted in 10x10 format books in chronological order
Lol
My books are go tos when we are arguing about when something happened it what outfit someone had on. So gotta go in order.

Lol

 

I may scrapbook out of date order, but the pages will go into the album chronologically.

 

Putting pages in an album all willy nilly like that makes me twitchy. I couldn't do it. I definitely scrap out of order, but they go in the book in the "right" order.

Lol @AnneofAlamo ! I've lost track of how many times my scrapbooks have solved lapses in memory.

 

When i print single pages, i have to have them sorted by year or event, but for books that i print that have a single theme (like the last book i printed (and got in the mail yesterday) were all layouts of just my daughter - family pages i save and print 'family' albums) I've gotten a lot less obsessive about date.
The 1st page of her album, for example, has one of the pages that she looks young in, and the last page i make sure is one where the photo is pretty current. I label the book spine with her name and photos from whenever up to the current year. But inside, I pair pages more on what she's doing. I had these two as a spread for example, her as a princess then... and now.

And these two show (to me) her going from 'look at me' to teenage mode

So i guess what I'm saying is maybe the link she has in her non-chronological album, it's just not obvious to anyone but herself - or she really is unconcerned by, like, anything (i would love to achieve that level of carefree-ness someday!)

 

During one of SF's big sales I ordered a "Siblings" book. It was a bunch LOs, most if not all were not yet printed, of my two kids together. There is no real order to the album. Same with a "life" album that covers 2003 - 2018. These albums were for the kids more than for me. I wanted the kids to have printed memories and they LOVE seeing their parents' wedding opposite a page about playing in the rain.

I think sometimes we think of our printed albums as journals or as planners, so they need to be printed in chrono order because that's how diaries/planners/journals are arranged. But does your brain work that way? (Do you need to think of events in exact order every time you have to recall info?) Does a conversation with a friend work that way? It doesn't for me, that's for sure lol. We get off topic or we get sidetracked. And sometimes a spontaneous derailment can be fun. I view the non-chrono albums as fun vs a PL or "calendar" type of album. You flip the page and there's our DS's first Christmas. Opposite that page is a page about a Michigan trip. The kids have fun talking about each page like it's rediscovering those events.

ETA: not all my albums are like those, which I guess are like conversation starters. The kids see a page they like and want to talk/laugh about it. Anyway, my yearly albums are in chrono order because the focus is on that year. And like others have said, it helps when you can easily look up something you've forgotten lol.

 

I don't do yearly books. The closest I ever came to that was my "Week in My Life" layouts that I did from 2008-2010. 7 snapshots, 1 for each day of the week on one page.

For my regular scrapping that is not done chronologically, I do themed albums. I still do 12x12 prints so that I can move them around if needed. I had a "family" book that I realized had so many layouts about 2 specific families that I decided they each needed their own albums. After scanning old negatives this winter, I realized I could do more layouts from the old days. I had finished up the layouts for one family and did a Shutterfly book during the sale. Had to leave out some layouts because I had too many pages... then I realized I had missed some things! So I did more layouts that will be printed in the 12x12 and I will end up with 2 albums of family things for them and another album for the one theme thing I had to leave out of the shutterfly book. These albums will go to the family when I'm gone which is why they have their own. I did try to put layouts chronologically in the album but I also wanted 2 page layouts together so one layout from Nov of that year was placed before the May layouts since it was a single and that got things on track. However, the year is all together.

Now on to family number 2!

I also had vacation and Disney layouts in the same book but realized I had so many Disney that they needed their same album. So now separate books and I have scrapped all my past vacations as well.

So to summarize. I do themed 12x12 albums but will sort them chronologically. By doing 12x12 prints if I get hold of older photos, I can scrap them and rearrange the albums to put them where they belong. In my mind, books work best for chronological scrappers that can't scrap out of order. I can't do that so I only use books for special projects.

 

I scrap out of order, but I don't currently print my pages. My husband prefers to keep everything digital.

 

I scrap willy nilly, but once printed the pages go into an album in (mostly) chronological order, although I've put all of my grandson's cub scout pages together even though they cover five years of scouting. I even have a LO of my older grandson's cub scout Raingutter Regatta with the younger's regatta.

 

When I was printing annually (I haven’t printed since 2018) my philosophy was that it’s better to have something printed than not. The most important thing to me was having the pages printed, not what order they were in. Why make extra work in my busy life worrying about the order of my pages. I might not have gotten around to printing.

Also I simply don’t believe chronology to be important.

My pages do tend to fall in somewhat chronological order accidentally. Because I tend to scrap recent photos. And the filenames I create start with the the two digit month in which I’m scrapping. I do that even if I’m scrapping old photos. So my resulting annual albums are actually kind of in the order in which I created the pages, with the pages of old photos scattered throughout.

What do you mean by how does it work? What work or function are our scrapbooks supposed to be doing? I consistently put dates and journaling on every page I make so that’s never a question.

I have been printing albums since 2007. I enjoy getting lost in nostalgia flipping through them and reading my journaling, jogging nearly forgotten memories. Never once have I had any kind of problem with my non-chronological albums. I wouldn’t have phrased my hobby this way, but to answer the question, it works for me because I enjoy it.

 

I usually wait until I have around 50 pages that I want to get printed. A large portion of mine are photoless, so it doesn't matter if they're chronological or not. I do try to make the two layouts (facing each other) kind of match - or at least compliment each other. I spend a lot of time re-arranging my pages after I get them ready to print.

When I scrapped PL, those were in order, but I have temporarily stopped doing that this year. I love to look at my layouts after they're printed. I scrap 12x12 but have them printed 8x8. Some of mine are individual sheets put in albums and some of them are photo books. It's a lot harder to get them in the order I'm happy with when I'm putting a book together. I can't change those in the sheet protectors.

I've started getting 6x6 books too and have 2 already. They're pretty darned cute.

 

I don't scrap in chronological order any more, but my albums always are organized by date. I just couldn't wrap my head around not knowing what was in any one album. The kids will ask me - when did we go to a specific place or what year did we celebrate Dad's birthday in ____? Its much easier to find those pages than to search through different albums. For me, its like a filing system - I wouldn't want to grab a file out of a drawer not having a clue what was in it. (Guess that's the right brain side getting in on the action.)

 

This THIS question is what swirls around in my brain a lot of the time when I think about printing. I scrap so out of order these days and I really, really want to get these pages printed and out there... but the NEED to have completed years in chronological order is always nagging me. I love having my chronologically organized albums to refer back to (like @AnneofAlamo and @Karen they solve lots of family disputes)... but is there merit to just printing the layouts I've completed so far, just so they're available to look at until I can complete an actual year? That said, I would still probably put those layouts in chronological order... lol! Even though there would be gaps.

 

Wow... That would really make my brain hurt. I do have a book like that, but it is my samples book for when I offer to Scrap For Hire. So, it is a whole book of all kinds of pages totally out of order. AND, ALL of the pictures have been replaced with the same black and white photo of my dog! So, you can really get a feel for my style and what I can do with your photos, but you don't see pics of previous clients or my family... That book makes me giggle whenever I look at it!

Huggles!!
~Sarah~