Laying out a Travel Album

 

First I jot down our itinerary



 

 

Next, get the Photos developed

 

 

 

Using plastic Page Guides, I stack photos/memorabilia by subject/date using the guides to keep each event/day separate. This is just a loose filing to start the process. (You can use anything to make your own 'guides' - pieces of cardboard, heavy colored cardstock, or even scrapbook pages that you will use later.)

 

 

 

 

Then I lay out empty Guides on my pool table (as many will fit). I transfer each day's "pile" onto these guides - just start tossing photos onto them, purging duplicate photos or photos that won't fit, using my itinerary as a reminder of chronology, and including Memorabilia where appropriate. This is also a great way to see if you can get your photos into some double-page spreads, or if just a single side is needed. You can shift Guides around as needed.

 

So this is what a Guide might look like during this process:

 

 

Kind of a 'rough draft' if you will.  But this is a brilliant way for you to get an overview of your entire album and it's especially important in my case where we took so many photos I'm not sure that we can get our trip into one album.

 

 

Soon you will have a series of these "laid out" Guides. After the first batch is done, I throw another layer of Guides on top of the first set and keep going.

 

And add another layer, and another....we took so many photos on our Washington D.C. and New York trip that I ended up with 5 layers of Guides!  Which ended up being exactly 97 sides (49 pages). 

 

Creative Memories recommends 40 pages max (80 sides)...I've seen 45 pages (90 sides) but that is really pushing it. So I either need to:

 

1. Purge some pages/photos/memorabilia

or

2. Split the Trip into 2 albums.

 

Oh, what to do? what to do?

 

For now, I stacked the Guides (starting with the last page which will end up on the bottom), then stacking each Guide on top until I end up with the first page on the very top. They are all neatly in a Power Sort Box (no longer available to purchase from Creative Memories I'm sorry to say but some Consultants still have them if you want me to search for you), waiting for me to decide if I'll do one album or two. 

 

Next step: transferring these 'layouts' onto actual real scrapbook pages with mounting tape and then adding photojournaling and embellishments.