The Great Conversion Project

I started scrapbooking in 1998. Since that time I had accumulated 58 12X12 scrapbooks. These things are beasts. They're heavy and I started thinking about downsizing, but I didn't know how. 

Then in July of 2018 I attended a ScrapGals Retreat in Washington. I sat in a class at the retreat and was blow away with this new scrapbook format called "Traveler's Notebooks". They are small 8X4 books that were taking the scrapbook world by storm. The simplicity of them had me hooked. 

The instructor had us do a few things in class but left us to our own devices to finish up the project she started for us. It was in that moment I realized, that I could convert all my 12X12 albums to these smaller albums and they'd be easier to show people and to store. The Great Scrapbook Conversion Project was born. 

I needed a plan though. I wanted to just jump in, but the project manager in me had to have some type of plan. I bought some small Traveler's Notebooks (TNs) and started playing around with creating some pages. The early TNs I had were bound books with staples holding it together. Not too surprising my pages started getting bulky and I knew it wasn't going to work well. On top of that, there aren't any page protectors and I felt I needed page protectors. 

So while I figured out which TN to use, I started formulating a plan. I knew I wanted to convert all my annual albums. I do a single album each year that covers what I did that year. Those annual albums is what made my collection so massive. I had all years from 1992 to current (which was 2017 at this point. 2018 I hadn't started yet). I started with the most recent year (2017) and used that as a guinea pig for my process. 

Tear the books apart

This is the step most scrapbookers cringe at. So many cannot imagine tearing their pages apart. I mean, why would you. Why would any sane person do that? But I had a mission and I knew I needed to do this. I should mention I photographed each 12X12 before I tore it apart so I could keep that version as well.

In tearing the books apart, I tried to keep as much from the original page as I could. I didn't know how these were going to be laid out or what story I was going to tell yet, so I saved as much as I thought necessary. 

A couple of things I learned during this part of the project. First, some adhesive sucked. Photos and items fell off the photos. The second is other adhesive was too sticky and caused me to tear a few things accidentally. 

I would take the photos and embellishments off each page, and put them in a pile. Once I had that pile I moved on to the next step. Digital copies. 

Digital Copies

I bought myself a scanner that was suggested from someone in the ScrapGals community. I knew I had digital from around 2005 forward, but the 1990's I had no digitals and no negatives. On a side note, I love that scanner. I've not only scanned all my photos, but I scanned all our heritage photos on both sides of the family and I've scanned friends photos that they don't have digital copies of. 

Bag It

I had to find a way to keep topics together without much effort. I was picking up a cookie at a local deli when I realized as I put it in a small paper bag that I could probably find some 9X6 versions of paper bags on Amazon. I figured almost everything would fit nicely in a 9X6 bag. I found these merchandise bags on Amazon and ordered a ton of them. My plan was to stage a few albums at a time and then I'd have something ready should I go to a retreat or a friends house to scrap. 

Each bag contained the original photos, any paper I was going to try to reuse and any embellishments I was going to try to incorporate into a page. 

I had to write on the outside of each bag what the topic was and the year so I could keep them all organized. It was then I realized I needed something bigger to put all those paper bags in. God I love Amazon, cuz I found these plastic ziploc type bags that fit the bill perfectly. The paper bags fit perfectly and each year got one plastic bag. 

Format

Citrus Twist came out with their Life Crafted albums that are a 3 ring bunder with 8X4 page protectors. THIS is what I was looking for. This was the answer. I ordered 10 black albums and enough page protectors to float a small battleship (side note - I don't even want to think about how much money this little project cost me.)

I decided each decade would have a color. 1990's are Cranberry. 2000's are Black. 20-teens are Navy blue. 2020's are Mustard yellow. The only reason I did this was because the 10 books of the same color look soo cool together. Sleek. 

Ignore the black and white beast who was "helping" me.

Sketches

Once I had an album or two tore apart, I started considering layouts for each page. I have a bunch of sketches I've saved and images of pages I wanted to scrap lift. This helps tremendously with the creative process for me. It gives me the inspiration and then I take it from there. It's RARE that my pages turn out exactly like the sketch or layout I'm scrap lifting. 

I have a template I use to put a copy of the layout and any notes on embellishments I might have to use, or ideas on the layout overall. 

Blank Template in Word

What it might look like filled out.

I have a layout idea or sketch I'd print that page (several on a single page really). I'd crop it and fold it and put it in the bag with the photos. 

Once I had a layout idea I could reprint the photos. This was necessary because I was going to have to use smaller photos. I have an Epson PictureMate that I love. I've actually owned two of them during this process. Killed one and had to find another. It's an older model and I finally found one on eBay.

The Scrapping

Now that I have the layout idea and the photos, the fun part begins. Building a page! I found that I really didn't use much of the old embellishments and paper. Scrapbook supplies have come so far since 1998 that I really wanted to dig into my stash and use up with I had. I mean, I had to also buy more stash because of certain topics like Halloween and Christmas. 

My goal with this conversion was to really focus on the story I was trying to tell. When I was scrapping 12X12 so many times I scrapped all the pictures for that topic. Many didn't have much to do with the story. So this time, I wanted to really just use the photos that told the story. This was harder than you'd think. A TN double layout (basically 8X8 in size) doesn't have much room for a ton of photos. I had to get brutal and just print a few photos. It got easier over time, but the first couple of TNs were a struggle. I also didn't journal much in my early SB life so I had to try to remember the story.

Digital Copies V2

Once I finished a page I made sure I photographed it as well. I like having digital copies just in case anything should happen in my home that might destroy my albums (God forbid). In my photo organization (which could be a blog all by itself) I have a folder for each year. Inside that year are a folder for each "topic" or event. I have a unique folder for Scrapbooks. That folder has any/all digital copies of albums for that year. It has the original 12X12 photos, any vacation scrapbooks I've done for that year, and the new TNs. Oh because I'm a freak, I also put all those pages on Google photos for safe keeping - just in case.

Challenges with this Process

The biggest challenge was when I got to my very first scrapbooks I did in the 1990's. Not only did I not have digital copies of those photos, but the VAST majority of them I had cut with those fancy scissors with designs. Ugh. So scanning those and trying to crop them in any way became a huge challenge. In some cases I had to use the photos as is because there was no way to crop them. 

Those hexagons just couldn't be cropped.

Circles? Seriously! No cropping circles

The next challenge I came across is scrapping people who are no longer in your life. We all have them, right? Ex boyfriends. Friends who were once your BFF who got married and you haven't heard from forever. Or friends that just fell off the face of the early. I have several friends from the late 1990s to early 2000's who I no longer speak with. I struggled with including them in the album. My heart wanted to just crop them out of my life as if they never existed. To be fair, the ex boyfriends don't have but a couple of pages they survived on. The truth was, they needed to be included because they were part of my life then and so part of the story.

The other problem were divorces. I was in so many weddings of friends. 8 total to be exact. Some of those beautiful wedding photos of a happy couple no longer have a happy couple. I scrapped them all the same. They WERE part of my life at that time and so they got a page. 

What I really found interesting was how much my scrapbooking skills had grown over the years. I mean - dah right?! 

These were the first pages I ever made in 1998.

Many of the people in these pages I no longer speak to (most got married and moved on - others I barely knew then as they were friends of friends. 

The new page I significantly reduced the photos. I didn't have the journaling to know why some photos were taken, so I just focused on the photos that best represented my memory of that weekend. 

The 5 pages above, shrunk to 1 2 - pg layout for TNs

In some cases of 12X12 pages, I was able to cut the page down to 8X8 and so didn't have to actually "rescrap" it. 

The 12X12 page of my mom and I.
Sadly, this was the last photo I took of my mom and I. 

The new TN layout

The original 12X12

The cut down version

I didn't have too many opportunities to cut a page down, but when I did I absolutely did. 

Stats: 

I love stats. And I knew there'd be some "stats" from this adventure. 

• Total # of new pages created: 465
• Total # of TN albums: 30

Here are some more before and after, just for fun. The 12X12 originals are on the left and the newer TN versions are on the right.

What's next?

Well, I'm not out of things to convert. I have some small vacations that I'm going to convert to 9X6 albums. I've done a couple already and I like that size. I doubt I will ever run out of things to scrapbook, and if I do, I'll just have to go make new memories. 

Reclining

Something weird happened about 4 years ago. Something I never would have imagined I would be a part of. Something I thought happened to old people. Something my family talks about all the time. 

I fell asleep in my new recliner and slept all night. 

You're probably thinking that happens to a lot of people because, come on, recliners are snoozers. 

The next night it was a very hot night and my room on the third floor was ridiculously hot. In order to sleep I decided to go downstairs and sleep in the recliner. 

The next night? The same. 

Then again. And again. And before I knew it I was sleeping in the recliner every singly night. I was getting the best sleep. I wasn't getting up multiple times to pee. It was amazing. 

I happened to mention it to my BFF and she, of course, thought it was weird. I mean, it is. 

Then eventually it got out to the immediate family and close friends. 

Something weird then happened. Every time I'd see these people they'd ask, "Are you still sleeping in the recliner?" And I'd say yes and they'd just shake their head, in, what I assumed was disapproval. It got to the point where I almost wouldn't want to answer honestly. I knew they wanted me to say, "Oh no! I moved back upstairs."

Then I got to wondering, why do they care? And more, why do I care why they care?  I didn't, and don't see anything wrong with it. I was sleeping better. My back didn't hurt as much. The demons slept through the night. It was a win win to me. 

In 2020 I moved. A part of that move was getting rid of the recliner. I'll admit I was a little worried how I was going to sleep in my bed again. It felt like I was a child being told your security blanket is being tossed. I still would have my couch and loveseat that reclined, but those would be different and maybe it was time I started sleeping in my big girl bed. 

I knew I needed a new mattress, and I suspect that was part of why sleeping in my own bed wasn't comfortable. So when I moved, I bought a mattress topper. And vowed to sleep in my bed. 

For the most part I was doing it. And I felt oddly proud. Then the heat dome happened. There was no way last June when temps were in the hundreds or higher during the day and the night the house not getting below 90 that I was going to sleep on the third floor. If the second floor was 90 the third floor would be 5 degrees hotter. So I started sleeping on the loveseat recliner. 

Since then it's been a little of both. I tend to come downstairs about 1 or 2 am and sleep the rest of the night downstairs. The heat dome was part of it, the other part is the demons are so damn rambunctious at night that I can't fall asleep. In order to get any sleep I have to come downstairs. Then both those jerks get on my lap and fall asleep. Yes, I'm very aware they have trained me. 

What amuses me is I almost celebrate and pat myself on the back when I sleep in the bed for the whole night for several nights in a row. As if somehow I've achieved a next level in a game. And when I slip and sleep downstairs again I reset and have to start all over. 

I've been ok with all of this, by the way. I feel like I get as good of sleep if I stay upstairs or come downstairs. Honestly, when I sleep downstairs I don't get up during the night. I sleep all the way through. And it doesn't hurt my back in any way. 

Anyhow, the point of this blog. The family has long since stopped asking me. I stopped bringing it up and just dropped it. Then Wednesday one of my family members said something that really bothered me. It was an overly "mothering" type of comment and I felt like a child who didn't know what was right or wrong. And somehow felt ashamed for sleeping downstairs. Which is ridiculous I know, but it hit me a little wrong. 

I doubt her comments are going to change anything I do, but I gotta say it crosses my mind when I'm trying to decide if I'm coming downstairs or not. Some nights I swear the reclining loveseat is calling to me. Some night I'm just too lazy, or sleepy to bother. The demons are all shades of confused and some nights they are better upstairs than others. 

At the end of the day, I will likely continue as I have been. Deciding each night where I'll sleep. I promise you as it gets hotter I'll be downstairs more. And I'll be fine with it. 

Morale of the story: Stay in your lane. And don't talk to your family about where you sleep.