I think

it's brilliant.....

Please forgive me if this is already out in the world as someones brain child but it just occured to me so I'm extremely excited.

I spent this weekend reorganizing my craft room and am very pleased with my new set up. I promise pictures are coming soon. However, something that still plagued me were my scraps, both cardstock & patterned paper. I had already purged them but the patterned paper was just in a stack and the cardstock in a bill organizer busting at the seams.

Here is my solution......


I'm using an extra Modern American Crafts 12x12 Album (uncovered) and all sizes of page protectors 12x12, 6x12, 8.5x11, 8x8 and 6x6 depending on the size of scraps. What I love about this is that all my scraps are in one place, I can flip through it and both big & little scraps are together. Also, if I have a group of patterned papers that coordinate I've put them together to help me use them on a page. Cannot tell you how excited I am about this.

The reason I had an extra Modern American Crafts Album lying around was that I've recently switched the albums I used for my Library of Memories system. If you've read Photo Freedom or signed up for the Library of Memories class at Big Picture Scrapbooking you will see that Stacy uses the Modern American Crafts albums in her system. As a student following her faithfully I bought the same albums at Hobby Lobby.

As Laura shared in a comment and you can see in the above pictures the albums are a bit naked. The spines are colored but the main album is chipboard. Stacy actually leaves her albums bare but I had intended to cover them. But after they sat in my craft room for a year uncovered I realized it wasn't going to happen. Also, two of my four binders were very bright colors which I learned really don't fit in with the rest of my home.

I do love the American Crafts D Ring binders so I switched over to the American Crafts Cloth Albums and adore them!! There is this great little window in the front that you can title your album.

Here is my word of advice regarding albums: Find something that fits your personality, your home and your life. What will make your library albums successful is not that you have the colors or style that Stacy has but that they are incorporated into your living space where your family can enjoy them.

Trust me; you will want your family to be going through these layouts. Because I didn't love the albums I had bought a year ago they were in a shelf in my craft room and no one really looked through them. Now, they fit our living room and are easily enjoyed.

Another thing I learned after I spent the money was that I don't need to have my 8.5x11 layouts in 8.5x11 albums. I actually enjoy having them live with my 12x12 layouts. Before I took Library of Memories I had never scrapped 8.5x11 and thought they need their own binders. But I found that just made it cumbersome for my family to look through my albums.

To look at my layouts someone would have to flip through 8 binders. I love my layouts but that is just torture for non scrappers. Even cutting out the 8.5x11 albums that is still 4 albums to go through. So, I have an album that holds all my current layouts. After it fills up, I move them to their respective homes and start filling up the binder again.

For this I use one of my extra Modern Albums. If covering them sounds like fun, here is what I do. On the 8.5x11 albums I use 12x12 cardstock or patterned paper. However, for the 12x12 album you'll need to be OK with it not fully covering the binder or use something a bit bigger. I really like the decorative paper at Paper Source.

One sheet will cover an inside and outside. So, you will need two sheets of decorative paper or 4 sheets of 12x12.

Here are some naked album shots.

I use my much loved ModPodge and brayer to adhesive the paper to the albums.

I went ahead and finished off with some ribbon since my ModPodge got a little messy on the cloth edges.

Hope that helped show the Modern American Crafts Albums a bit better!

lovemon