ACTION PLAN:

• Select a place to keep all your supplies & materials: this can be a drawer, a box of some kind or a plastic container. Be sure it's a safe place where they won't get destroyed.

  TIP: I used to keep all of my supplies in a desk drawer, but then I started going to cropping workshops and needed a way to transport my things. I found having a carrying case worked VERY well. Plus, having children and limited space to do my projects, working out of the case made keeping little fingers off and cleaning up easy.

• Collect your materials: round up all your pictures and various scraps you might want to include (i.e. ticket stubs, programs, newspaper clippings, etc.).
• Sort your pictures: group your pictures into categories. Put all like pictures together.
• Determine a theme: decide what your album will be about. It could be a specialty book (about a particular event or period of time or a certain family member). Or it could be a hodge podge of things/times in your life.
• Create an outline: using the pictures and scraps you have, layout the sequence to your book. Treat it like a story with a beginning, middle & end. Each page or layout spread (two pages) is a chapter. Write these down on a peice of paper. This is your outline.
• Choose a style: keeping in line with your theme and the pictures/items you will be featuring, decide on a suitable style to pull all your pages together (i.e. a baby book might be all pastel colors). This is to bring unity to your book...something to tie all your differing pages together.

  TIP: When I chose to do my wedding album, I chose to carry out a theme I created with my wedding program. I've done quite a bit of acting and I thoroughly enjoy the theater, so I had created a "playbill" type wedding program. I included this program in my scrapbook and carried the theatrical theme throughout.

• Gather supplies: you will need a pair of scissors, photo-safe glue and/or double sided tape, acid-free paper, an album to hold your pages and any other embellishments you'd like to add (i.e. stickers, vellum, die cut-outs, etc.). Depending on your budget there are a wide variety of supplies to choose from to add creativity and make cropping easier.
• Design a page: from your outline pick a chapter to design...it doesn't have to be your first one. Tell a story with your pictures...be sure to identify everyone in each picture...answer who, what, where & when on your page. Continue designing a page (or layout of two pages) for each chapter until your album is complete.