Maui Trip Album | The Beginnings

It has been quiet around here on the blog in May.  I've been busy with fun, creating, and a road trip.  And an evacuation from a fire.  Plus I've been struggling lately about how much of my life to share here on the blog in such a public space.  This blog has been a great memory-keeping tool for me for the last seven years.  I love going back to read some of my posts to remember the details of trips and daily life.  But those posts can be done on a more private blog as well.  Some things to ponder...  I do love to share on Instagram though, because it is SO easy and it's sort of like microblogging.  Plus I feel like the engagement factor on Instagram makes it much more fun to share.  You can see likes, and people tend to comment more on Instagram because it's so easy from their phone.  You can follow me on Instagram for more timely photos and projects that I share there.  :)

But this post is actually about scrapbooking!  I wanted to try and do something that I’ve never done before:  scrapbook an entire vacation in a short time, just doing it as fast as I can.  I decided to try this with my Maui trip from December.  The basic premise of my process was that I wanted to make the pages as easy as possible.  I am usually a slow scrapbooker and struggle with moving stuff around my page too much, and being indecisive with what to use and where things go.  I wanted to eliminate those decisions and just scrapbook and embrace imperfection.  Besides, with so many photos from the trip and so many pages to scrap, it would take years to complete it with my regular slow process!



Here is the process I came up with:

1. Create a new collection in Lightroom for the Maui trip and pick out photos.  Decide which photos will go on 12x12 layouts and which photos will be pocket pages.  Process and format them and get them printed at Costco.  (I normally print my photos at home, but this was over 100 photos.)
2. Pick a scrapbook collection to use and basically stick with that.  This eliminates too many product choices.  I chose the Amy Tangerine Plus One collection. 
3. Gather up tools and some supplemental supplies such as inks, stamps, and washi tape in the same color scheme and travel theme.
4. Pre-cut up all the papers in different sizes for use on pages. 
5. Plan the album by putting page protectors into the album and slipping photos for each 12x12 or pocket page into the protectors.  This puts the pages in order and gets me organized and ready to scrap!
6. Scrap the pages in an assembly-line style.  This involves lining up a series of background cardstock and taking the photos out of the page protectors and just placing papers and scrapping.  Without too much indecision and in a speedy fashion. 

I did get a couple of photos printed big 12x12 at Costco, using some digital brushes on it first.  They turned out amazing!  I’ll be putting 12x12 scrapbook pages next to them in my album.



The collection that I’ll be using for this project:  Amy Tangerine’s Plus One.


I recolored some labels in Photoshop to match the colors in the collection.  I love using labels to layer on 12x12 pages or in pocket pages.


I wanted to use up every bit of the papers, AND I wanted to eliminate the indecision and slowness from cutting a piece off of a 12x12 paper and putting it onto a page.  Then choosing another piece of paper and cutting a piece off and putting it onto the page.  I wanted to pre-cut them all and just stick the appropriate colors and pieces onto the page along with my photos.  So I came up with some 12x12 paper cutting guides in Excel (total NERD alert!).  I came up with MANY ways to cut a piece of 12x12 paper, these are just a few of them.


You can download a PDF of all the 12x12 paper cutting options I came up with here, if you would like to try and scrapbook a project this way.  I could have come up with more, but I had to stop somewhere and start scrapping, ha ha! 

One tip:  if you plan to use the same collection in the corresponding pocket pages, make sure you trim some papers to 4x6 and 3x4 sizes.

In the midst of the cutting process…

(BTW, I got a new Fiskars Procision paper trimmer and it is absolutely AMAAAZING!  Has totally changed how much I hate trimming papers.  Cuts like butter and super-straight!  And you never need to change the blade on it.)

All my papers cut up into different sizes.


Planning the album while watching TV.  I put the background cardstock into page protectors, then I put the photos I want for each page into the protectors.  This way they are already in order and ready to scrap.


Planned out inserts for pocket pages.


Then the FUN begins, the part where I actually scrapbook!  I got to start my pages on National Scrapbook Day on May 3rd.  I had some friends over to celebrate the day together! 

Kelly, me, Kristen, and Pearl.  Todd helped me set up two long tables together in the living room.


Kristen brought cookies from The Cravory.  Oh my!


I sat across from Pearl, who is expecting a baby girl.


Kristen & Kelly.  Kelly brought a HUGE bag of kettle corn!


And my favorite photo, taken by Todd from the stairs.


So how many pages did I get done?  Just six so far.  But this process has made it fairly fast for me to put my album together.  I am normally a slow scrapbooker, but I was able to scrap four of these pages in one afternoon (a record for me).

Two-pager about the Iao Valley.


Left page.


Right page.


A page about the resort we stayed at.


Two-pager about our snorkel trip to Lanai.


Left side.


Right side.


And of course a trip to Leonard’s for malasadas deserved its own page!


I’ll be making more pages for my album soon.  I’ve been working on my April Project Life this past long weekend.  I am enjoying this process of scrapbooking our Maui trip and I’ll call this experiment a success for now!  I also loved having my friends over to scrapbook together on NSD. 

Let me know in the comments about your thoughts on scrapbooking an album project such as a vacation or trip, or if you have any questions about the process.

Don’t forget, you can download the 12x12 paper cutting guide I made here!