First of all don't obsess about using "all" of your photos if you are behind or it will just blow your mind. Plan on keeping the leftover ones in your 4 x 6 albums. What I like to do now that I have my computer is: Put them in groups that I want to make into pages...a birthday or just a shopping trip. I lay them by my computer and write (I don't print well) stories and headings using different fonts. I have found that I can find a clipart picture for about any occasion. So...I make my own stickers for each page or picture. For instance: my husband and I went to the State Fair...made fair related stickers. We had our pictures taken by our neighbors team of work horses when he was in competition at the fair...found clipart of workhorses and used those on that page. I have them all in here by my computer at first so that I can look at the pictures and find clipart to go along...my albums have changed so much for the better since I got my computer. You can buy full-page clear sticker paper or white full-page sticker paper (I use the clear ones the most..they almost look like they are part of white paper...don't work well on colored paper). I print a whole sheet of stickers at a time, so that I don't waste any of my paper. This is so much fun...you can really customize your pages and don't have to go in search of specific stickers and then end up with pages of them that are left over and you will never use. I love to just set and look at my albums now and so does the rest of the family...great fun..try it...

You could just use "Key" pictures in your scrapbook and put the other pictures in a photo album, if you like.

I am doing a scrapbook on my Husband and my trip to Ireland. I have many pictures and it is hard to organize them. I also stress out about it. I am doing just a litle bit at a time. I have everything in a box. I am trying to organize the pictures such as all the castle pictures, all the cathedral pictures and churches and so on. There are many ways I could have orgainized them. Such as putting the castle pictures with the county or town they came from. But I chose to do it the way I wanted. That's what's fun about scrapbooking, you can do it anyway you want.

I am trying to pace myself. I feel I need some more decorative paper to trim, or outline some pictures that I have already inserted in my book. I will wait until I can go to the store I want to, that is a ways off before I do any additional work on the book. But I might just sit down sometime and organize. I still don't know for sure what I am going to put on the cover??

I told about each picture and in my book, also I have so far inserted 2 tickets to Blarney Castle and a brochure of St. Patrick Cathedral in Dublin, Ireland along with a small paper back book, about St. Patrick's cathedral that will fit nicely in the scrapbook too.

So try not to fret so much about your book. It may takes you months to finish it. But there should be no deadline. Just work at it when you can.

Like I said earlier there is no set way that you have to do things. You could put just one picture on a page and tell about that picture or 2 or 3 pictures on a page. The amount of pictures on a page could be also according to how many pictures you actually want in the book.

Try HGtv.com on the net. (Home and Garden Televison) They have a scrapbooking show that I have watched a few times. You possibly could get some ideas from this website.

Good luck on your scrapbook. This is my first scrapbook also!
~Lynn~

Sorry, I can't keep straight the HGtv.COM (Home and Garden television) from the DIY.net (Do It Yourself Television.) The program that is about scrapbooking is on the Do It Yourself Program so the address that you would search for Scrapbook or scrapbooking would be Diy.net.
~Lynn~

Hey have you seen the new Creating Keepsakes Magazine"simple Scrapbooks" might be a good place to start

No Vicki I haven't seen this where might it be purchased?
~Lynn~

I take some time and lay everything out on a big table of two in categories - then condense what pictures you want and don't want. then to scrap book easy do to a store and buy a pack of precut paper in triangles of different colors and sizes, and strips with straight or finished edges. then just lay them in different places. you can outline pictures or pages in triangles on the corners or use strips as borders. Layer colors, and add a few stickers or die cuts and everyone thinks you spend hours.