How Many Is Too Many Albums?

I've come across this question a bit lately. I've asked it myself a dozen times. You each have to find your own answer because there are so many variables when it comes down to it.

I've currently filled 3 albums per child (= 9) and also have 3 Family albums, and each child has a separate School album (made with paper supplies and which house all their school books and certificates and formal school photos).

So that's a grand total of 14. So far. And they are aged 2 (no school album started yet, but the supplies are ready and waiting - they match the other two siblings' school albums), 5 and 7.

Whoa.

That's a lot. I mean, it's a lot just to house here on the bookshelf, let alone for them to take with them when they move outta home. By then, keeping the current average, they'd have, oh, say 12 volumes each. Average. That's a whole lotta real estate space they are consuming.

But there comes into play a few variables when working out these figures:

More baby photos = more layouts scrapped. As they get older, there are fewer "milestones" or "cute" moments to scrap about. Sorry, no offence, but it's just a reality. There's less to scrap about as the growth rate slows. In my experience, anyway :)

First child v's Third child: I try to keep the number of layouts per child at roughly the same number, but, well, my third child happened to be my first little girl. So, well, I had a whole lot of new experiences  as a mother to scrap about. So she probably has even more pages than my first.

Age of the children: My first and second children were born pre-digital camera days (doesn't that sound OLD??) So I obviously took a lot less photos back then, because it was an expensive business to snap away "blind" (that is, for you post-digital generational folk out there reading this, on film cameras you didn't know how well your photos came out until you got it back from the processor months later.)

When you discovered scrapping: I did a bit of sticking photos on fancy coloured paper when my first was born. I even used to try using the same bit of paper twice over by sticking more photos on the back of it (!!) Most of it was simply writing down everything I thought I'd like to remember. I didn't really realise there was a world of inspiration out there about how to make it more creative.

Traditional Paper v's Digital: Paper scrapping is one. hell. of. a. lot. slower.

How organised you are at cataloguing / printing out photos: Specifically for you paper scrappers out there - a lot of it depends on what photos you have on hand when the creative urge hits. And for digi scrappers, if you can't bloody-well find the darn photos on your computer, then it's hardly going to entice you to scrap much.

The Size you Scrap At: I've got a lot of mini-albums that only take one sitting to finish. Do these count? Well, they each record a bit about us as a family. So yeah, I guess they do count.

Your Own Scrapping Style: Are you a multi-photo scrapper, or a portrait one?

So my grand total is far too many to count. Is that excessive?

It's really up to you to decide how many albums you want to make. I don't think it would make me happy to limit myself creatively. Yes, I do scrap and print them out and album them all up, with the end goal to be to present them to my children, or their wives, so that their childhood can be understood and reminisced about. And it may be a bit cumbersome to walk out the door with 50 albums.

But I also do it for me. I like scrapping. I like reading back over them a year or two later. I love, love, love it when the kids get them out and look at the pictures. My eldest is now reading, so it's even more of a pleasure for me to hear him quoting my journalling back at me.

I guess I probably should try to slow down. For neatness' sake. But to hell with that. I've got lots to tell about my family. About my thoughts. About our experiences together. And I like recording them.