...a walk through charlie's albums

...warning, this is seriously a photo-scrapbooking-heavy post. And if you are not interested in scrapbooking, but came here because you googled, "He still wears a diaper," (yes, that was a real thing someone searched for and somehow landed here)...well, you can just skip this post.

I include a lot in charlie and clara's scrapbooks. Anything that can get laminated and have a hole punched in it goes in there. Anything that doesn't fit that criteria goes into storage bins I got from Container Store.

Charlie's albums start like this. He was five weeks old, gestational-age:

This is his birth story, and includes the little card that was tucked in his bassinet at the hospital:

This is a page of photos from the hospital and the piece of paper was torn from one of our baby-name books with the information about the name, "Charlie." (And yes, I ripped apart my baby name books, assuring that there will be no baby number three. Or at least a baby boy whose name starts with, "C"):

These are his footprints from the hospital, with a page from another baby name book (the page it's covering is Charlie's hospital bracelet page):

More baby pages with a sheet from a doctor's visit, Charlie's first piece of mail, and a note from a friend tucked in between:

This was how I did Charlie's every day pages his first year (with another doctor's visit note slipped in there):

Another every day page, with a little love note from Charlie's girlfriend, Madeline:

Sometimes the pieces slipped in are just smaller-sized photos:

This is how I started doing Charlie's every day pages in his second year (with the tags, like I posted about a few weeks ago). This is the start of one month (with a regular scrapbook page to the left):

And including this because it's a page I still just love:

Still reading? Congrats!

My monthly pictures don't always fill up an entire baseball card sleeve, sometimes just the front, so I slip white pieces of paper (cut the same size as wallet photos) to cover up the photo information printed on the back:

Just a little scribble, here and there. You might recognize the basketball photo from this layout. Turns out I didn't like that layout at all (not sure what I was on when I wrote that description), but I still loved the picture. So I scrapped the left part and put the photo in. I'm all about getting it done, and liking it.

Another image of how scrapbook pages and everyday pictures work together:

Again, it's not always perfect, or pretty, but it's done:

And if you made it this far, I should probably include a picture of YOU in Charlie's album.

Comments

[Kimberly L.C.]

This is awesome. I hope if I can ever have a baby, my child's album will be similar... pieces and photos from a beautiful life. Thank you for sharing.

[kelly purkey]

This brought me to tears. You are so talented and these pages are so fabulous. I love all you have here, friend.

[dogfreckles]

Really amazing. I'm always inspired by your wonderful pages.

[Barb]

This is beautiful, Laura.
So very cool!

[Brooke]

Thank you for sharing. Charlie is a lucky boy to have all his memories recorded like this!!

[katharina]

OH, I JUST LOVE YOUR STYLE!!! (; So graphic & simple (says a graphic Designer!) (((;

[Magdalena/Rockermorsan]

Thank you for sharing! When I saw your post on Instagram I so wanted to flip through those albums.

[mom]

wonderful!

Love, MOM

[jamaica]

Love seeing it from the very beginning. The mix of everything is perfect; not too fussy with just the right amount of tidy. It's fantastic!

[Jaimie]

I really enjoy how you so simply yet beautifully you pull scrapbooks together. You are inspiring me to do the same. Thank you for sharing.

[christi in ma]

Yay! Love this peek through Charlie's albums.

[Michelle L]

You can post your scrapbook albums on here all day long! I miss seeing your stuff at SC every month so this was a nice treat! =)

[Kim]

I love that you tackled the 'perfectly imperfectly complete'!!!!!! way to go!!!

[Michele H.]

this is simply fantastic laura! this is not just a scrapbook...but a wonderful life book. serious inspiration:)

[Melinda T]

Love it! Thanks for sharing! I have two kids, (6 and 2) and their baby albums are no where near done!

[Valerie Rodriguez]

SOOooo precious!!!

[Annie]

Laura, I just LOVE your scrapbooks! Can you post the whole thing? LOL just kidding (not really...) :) Serious inspiration for my baby books!!

[Donna M]

Love Charlie's albums:) Thanks for sharing.

[reyanna]

LOVE this!!! I'm so super jealous too. *sigh* I have barely printed any photos of Hattie. I did buy an album for her though... and paper! ;-) BUT.... I can't really be labeled as "bad scrapbooking mom" because I *have* journaled every day since she was born. ;-) (Okay, i missed a few days last month when first-trimester-nausea was kicking my butt. LOL. :-p )

Also, where do you print the photos and what program do you use? I know that's my hold-up. I really just need to print at home again, I think. Or just spend a day putting them in PhotoShop and send them to Shutterfly. *sigh* See, this certainly is my hold-up. I need a system. And I want something that will work well for me. *sigh*

[judy]

Wonderful Job,I would love to sit and look thru their books,wonderful keepsake..do they enjoy their little books? :)

[laurakurz]

Wait…youre pregnant?!? This is why you need to blog, woman! Ha! Tell me more!

I dont print anything at home - I never have - I just like the quality of having things printed at a lab. Every 2-3 months I make a develop folder on my desktop and I drag photos from iPhoto into that folder, then I process them in Photoshop (this can take me a few days depending on how photo-heavy a month was!) Then I send them to Persnickety Prints to be printed…

And dont be too hard on yourself about not scrapbooking. I think its great that you journal every day - you are doing something to remember these days, and thats what matters. Really. Just that your doing SOMETHING. :)

xoxo
L

[alexandra sirugue-macleod]

What a beautiful gift for your children indeed!
Thank You for sharing!!

[gabby]

you are INCREDIBLE.
for seriously.
so inspiring.
xoxo.

[josie]

love this
i want to see Clara's
my little one is turning 1 this week
and i haven't started yet

[Becky Trump]

This is fantastic and SSOOOO GORGEOUS! I love all the memorabilia :)
Thanks for sharing!!!