Planning an Album

Happy weekend, scrapbooking friends! Here in the USA, it’s the start of a 3-day weekend and it’s one of my favorites because it’s starting to really get warm.

Earlier this month, I did a Pad Peeks post about the Project Life / 365 / 52 section of the Scrapbooking forum, featuring the process of several Pollys. Today, I want to show what I’ve finally selected for my 2026 monthly album, and several of the other products I thought were fabulous.

My First Layout for 2026:

Let’s start with my January, 2026 layout. Tah dah! My “2026 Collection” of products is listed below, with the reasons behind each choice.

My Design Plan

I’ve made annual albums that summarize our family’s year either by week or by month, back to 2016. Each year has its own consistent kits and elements. My first step is to make a design plan for the album, selecting the basic shape, the time period covered by each layout, and any elements that will be consistent from spread to spread that will make the album appear cohesive. Here are my design choices for my 2026 album.

Time period = Monthly

In the ten years of annual albums I’ve made, just over two thirds have been week by week. For 2026, I’ve decided to do one two-page spread for each month of the year. Each monthly spread will be first layout that appears for its month. Any subsequent pages I make for the month will follow behind this leader layout. This feels flexible to me, the consistency of a monthly header plus the freedom to do any other pages I want for the rest of the month.

Template = Everyday Captured Volume 3, by Ninigoesdigi

As you might notice from my layout above, I like photo-dense layouts for my weekly and monthly summaries. I love how versatile this template is for including a bunch of photos, including a variety of sized spaces for a big feature photo down to small supporting photos journaling space. The simple grid shape makes it easy if I need to re-size or move things around. By flipping and rotating the template, I can get multiple layouts out of this same template. My plan is to keep my title with the large photo shown on the template on the right, although I may rotate it. The good news is, if I run out of ideas, Nini had Volumes 2 and 1 of the template, which I could mix and match.

Alphabet = Frolicky Fun Alphas, by Kim Jensen

This alphabet set came in May’s BYOC, and I’ve had fun playing with three of the alphabets so far. For my annual book, I’m going to use the black alphabet since it will go with any photo I set beneath it.

Background Papers = Plot and Plan, by Creative Retreat

These papers released this weekend and are so amazing I bought them the moment I saw them pop up in the store. Yes, I haunt the internet on Thursday nights, waiting for the new stuff to release! Lightly patterned neutral backgrounds make me swoon a little, and these will be a nice backdrop for my photos – just enough interest to catch the eye without overshadowing the photos themselves. The lined paper is going to be extra-useful, as I’ll use it to make my journaling cards.

Pops of Color = Frolicky Fun Kit, by Kim Jensen

There were several kits I agonized over for this last decision. I like to have a few word strips, flowers, and strings or bows to lead the eye around my layouts. I ended up selecting the bundle that coordinates with the alphabet set I already chose, Frolicky Fun. In particular, I’ll be using the “happy” word strip, the floral wash tape, the stitched circular tag, and the flowers as repeated elements across layouts.

The beauty of The Lilypad’s monthly BYOC (Build Your Own Collection) is that any of the BYOC element sets would have coordinated with the Frolicky Fun alpha. We still have a very energetic teenager in our home, so Kim’s bright elements fit the bill for 2026. If I were doing something more neutral and elegant, I would have used the Bits and Bobs from Rachel Jefferies’ collection, Stories of Today.

If you’d like more inspiration for planning your albums, I encourage you to visit the sub-forum in the TLP Scrapbooking forum, “Project Life / 365 / 52.” As a purchaser and long-time user, I also recommend Lynn Grieveson Designs’ Travel Photobook Workshop, which comes with a kit, planning tools, and a subsection of the forum for discussion. The planning section is a gold mine!