Goodbye 2012

Happy New Year!  I hope you enjoyed holiday celebrations with your family.  I took time off in December and it felt wonderful!

It is hard to believe that 2012 has come to a close.  It was a wonderful year for our family and I'm sad to see it go but looking forward to seeing where 2013 takes us.

In 2012, I spent a great deal of time documenting the little details of our lives and I'm thrilled that I will soon have a record of that in my hands.  This is the third year that I have taken on a project similar to 365 or Project Life.  I absolutely love having a record of our lives so that I don't forget the little things, the conversations, the struggles, the celebrations, the interests....everything.

Here is my cover for 2012.  I kept it very simple and graphic just like the rest of my album.

Here is my title page.

In 2012, I used a series of 9 templates that I designed.  They are all very similar... they just change slightly based on the number of photos that I needed for each page.  This system has transformed how I scrapbook.  I can look back on 2012 and know that I have everything together in one album.  When I want to create a special page for one of my children's albums, I simply open up the page that I created for our Capture 2012 album.  I will find all of the photos there as well as the journaling.  It has become my reference album for scrapbooking and I love it!

I have been posting pages throughout 2012 but here are a few more just in case you are interested. 

You will notice that the pages are very simple.  I merely changed photos, journaling and basic color scheme on each page.  The focus of this album is memory keeping.  I didn't want embellishments or anything that took a great deal of time.  I just wanted to get the information in the album so that it was documented and one day, I can always go back and create other types of pages if I desire.  Each week I would create between 4-8 spreads to highlight the details of our week.  In addition to photos, I often included pictures of school projects, notes left to me on our whiteboard and everything inbetween.  This album truly captures our 2012.

I'm excited to embark on Capture 2013.  I'm still working out the details of the templates that I will be using.  It is going to be hard to leave this set because it worked so well for me.

I think people will often stay clear of a project like this because they are worried about the time involved.  After doing this project for three years, I think it is very "doable" as long as you set realistic goals and know what you want to accomplish each week.   I do not feel like this project is a burden because of my simple system.  I can create a spread such as this in about 10-15 minutes.  It works for me and I cannot wait to get our album back from the printer.

All products are Designer Digitals.

The start of a new year is always a great time to set goals for various aspects of your life.  What types of goals have you set for your memory keeping in 2013?  It is certainly something to think about.