How many find it's hard to complete an album?

I'm only working on one album currently and I am having a really hard time with focus overall right now. I'm really hoping that once I go back to work and things have some kind of routine, I'll be able to get my ducks in row.

 

I’m struggling to start an album for my daughter’s mission. I’m looking for the perfect templates and I think I’m putting to much pressure on myself to make it perfect.

 

My life's super boring so I don't go places or do things that require separate albums.

I guess I'm technically working on three albums as I have pages left to do for 2018, 2019, & 2020 but even though I print them chronologically by year, they feel more to me like one big album (my life) divided into more manageable chunks by year.

 

I am working on my monthly Project Life from 2019 and still need to get back to 2016 which I only every completed two months but then decided I did not like the style of pages I was creating so I need to start from scratch for that.
Also I am trying to create pages for an album about my childhood and still have lots of photos to create pages for.

 

@QuiltyMom
Yes the paring down on photos and feeling like I need to expertly embellish pages is where I’m stuck. My hubby says I should just put the photos on a white page and call it good because he wants pages done and printed so he can enjoy them. I’m thinking of doing a hybrid of decorated Section pages for each area and then filler pocket pages that are mostly just photos and text.

 

That's SO sweet, Kayla! My hubby loves looking at my books, too. The last book I got, he grabbed it out of the box first and took so long looking at it. I was trying not to be obvious. It's really sweet when they appreciate our work.

 

I don't seem to have any problem starting or finishing. I usually do 30 page books and try to put them in an order that they look good. A lot of my pages are AJ, so I don't have to worry about getting them in order. When I was doing so many PL pages, those had to be put in order and took me longer to put together.

When I finish a LO, I put them right in a "to be printed" file so they're all in one place when I get ready to put a book together. I get one automatic 6x6 album a month (from Instagram) and the rest of my books are 8x8.

 

I have a LOT of albums going at the moment and I'm okay with that. I have all of my pages to make organized and listed out by project, so I know I'm making progress. If I see I'm getting close to getting one done, I'll buckle down and plow through the last of it, even if it means making the simplest of pages (or even just adding the remaining photos as full page photos, no product). I think I like to bounce around a lot to keep things interesting. I feel more productive that way too... it's probably just me, but if I try to focus too hard on one single project, I get tired of working on it and kind of resent being confined to one subject. Right now I'm randomly motivated to work on my 2019 DYD album, I got all of my photos on templates for the remaining 11 pages of my book. Not necessarily motivated to add product to the pages yet, but it feels like a win because I made progress. I think if I tried to add product right now, I would probably just stare blankly at the pages in photoshop which isn't very productive.... lol!

 

Well.... yes. I used to scrap focusing on a certain year... but that isn't the case anymore... so I think the album I'm working on is mostly Life in General. Not sure how to print that!?

I'm at the point where I may just print some pages... just put them in random memories books.

I am currently working on a Round Top NY album from a trip in June. That is going fast, but I'm limiting my products and keeping it super simple. I uploaded 3 pages recently... and that was in one sitting. That's unheard of for me.

 

That's what I do. If there's a great sale and I've got a lot of unprinted pages, I plop them into a "Remember This" album. The first one I made has a WA by Just Jaimee that says "Remember This" and then I added the years. (If I think about it today--darn pandemic-induced allostatic load @cookingmylife amiright?--I'll upload it to show what I mean.) The kids LOVE these albums because they're just fun to look at; maybe one page is Halloween 2014 and the facing page is a vacation LO from 2016. The kids like seeing different pages/events, and for me hasn't taken away from the fun of a Yearly album, which I also print (and yearly albums MUST be in chrono. order). Remember This albums are great for CT pages that don't work for a specific album.

ETA: I should have said that I don't have trouble finishing albums, but I also don't mind taking time to finish them. Plus, I like waiting for sales, so I can take my time. But I don't have many going at once. Right now I have my 2020 album and I'd like to make a 2019 vacation album but first I want to see how many pages I can make for it to decide if it's worth having a separate album from the pages already in my 2019 printed album.

 

I struggle to complete albums. I kind of have everything on the go at once. I scrap all over the place.

 

@Tree City You are right about the Allostatic Overload so that even with the best intentions, things 'seem' harder these days. But on a happy note...Shutterfly has one of their FREE 8" books again. I'm going to get as many as I can of all my layouts from this year. By Sunday! Maybe I'll do the 10" so I can spend enough to get FREE shipping too?

 

how do you organize for your albums? That’s part of why I’m stuck on aspen’s mission album. I’m not sure where to start.

 

I have never scrapped chronologically and would scrap what I felt like scrapping. I print 12x12 prints so I could move them among albums if I found I had quite a few that fit a theme (Disney for one). So after scanning a lot of old negatives this past winter and getting them sorted I realized that I had a lot of photos for different family events over the years and from my school years. I have now set up a spreadsheet of albums to do and listed the pages already done as well as the events that I have photos for.

So in essence I have a list of albums to be done but I don't necessarily focus on just one album now. After the scanning I did make it a point to scrap all my previous vacation photos and Disney that had not been scrapped so until I travel again, those are caught up. I then focused on doing 2 albums for a cousin. I've printed 1 of them in a 10x10 for her and I have the 12x12 prints for me. The other one is done and uploaded to Shutterfly just waiting for a good sale. Prints are on PP for my next print order.

I've taken a break for about a month but when I get back into it, I will focus on scraping another cousin's family. I borrow photos from the daughter's FB page for more current events since they are in FL and I'm in OH. I will do a few COVID pages or pages for Peyton's book if I lose focus on the cousin's book.

I also don't do really fancy, artsy pages. I'm all about getting the photos on the page whether they are perfect or not, a few elements and telling the story. And, I am a kit scrapper so will use one kit for multiple pages if needed for an event. I like the continuity of looking at those pages.

 

Um... I'm thinking it's going to be more like getting your wine glasses in a row.

 

So true, so so true

 

Me! I’ve been working on my daughter’s San Francisco album since last June. As in 2019. I really need to finish quickly because I’ll be starting a SFH wedding album as soon as the photographer does her thing with the pictures.

 

Yes!! I really struggle to complete "special event" albums. This week I finally finished our eldest daughter's wedding album - her fourth anniversary is next month!!! I wanted it to be perfect so I obsessed way too much over each page!
I have several trip albums on the go and I've decided to redo the earliest one and use a couple of template albums and maybe two kits to just get it done!!