I HAVE TOO MANY PHOTOS! Now what?!

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Someone asked how I address the issue of having too many photos for a single week's layout, so this post is a little bit about that. This is, I think, becoming a particular problem as people move to 9x12 or *gasp* 6x8 handbooks to document their lives instead of the previously standard 12x12 format.

Have a flexible system

One of the best ways I've found to deal with having too few photos (or too many, as it may be) is having a system for your album that can be flexible and that works for *you.*

Some people document by event, not assigning certain layouts to any certain period of time. These people have no problem if they go a month or a week with no photos- there is a beauty and simplicity to this freedom! This is what I did for my first album in 2015 and am working this way as I go back to put my 2014 instagrams into an album. On the other hand, some people like more consistency in their albums and prefer a more structured approach.

This one layout covers 3 separate events over 2 months!

Another approach is to document monthly. Since the time period is spread out over a longer time, you can add more layouts per month if you have a lot of photos. (I think it would be a very rare case that you don't have enough photos in a month to make even a single-sided spread!) If you have too many, just give yourself permission to spread them out!

Yet another approach, and the one I'm using for my 2016 album, is to document weekly. This is, I think, the riskiest approach when it comes to having too many photos because the timeframe is so condensed and the approach is so structured. The benefit to this system, for me, is that I can have a one-page spread or a two-page spread depending on what I have that week.

A double-page spread for a busy week

A single-page spread for a slim  week

Even then, some weeks there's a birthday party at work plus a date night with your spouse plus your kid or pet did something super duper cute. It's just how life is! So what do you do when even your best system isn't working for the story you want to tell? Smashing a whole bunch of photos next to each other on one page is an option, we don't do this just to stick photos in pockets, right? We want to make it pretty and add room for embellishing and journaling and all of those pretty papers and cards we collect! There are a couple of ways to approach this problem.

Inserts

Inserts are incredible! It's like adding a whole page to your spread! I have done inserts especially for special events that happen in the week. This spread covers a week with my boo's birthday, so I made a little insert with the details. This is an insert I made for Valentine's Day. Inserts are an awesome way to spread out and highlight an important event. I use 6x6 inserts like these from WRMK. Because the 6x12 can blend in with the pocket page behind it, you can always add a little tab to indicate it's a separate page. Ali Edwards uses these (and so do I!). You can add in a stamped sentiment or a bit of patterned paper into the slot instead of the plain white paper that comes with them to give it a little bit of design and interest,

A double page spread with an insert for a photo- and activity-filled week

Flip pockets

Making flip pockets with your Fuse Tool is an awesome way to add a second (or third!) photo, add some memorabilia that maybe doesn't fit your color scheme, or hide journaling you don't necessarily want a casual viewer of your album to read. In the layout below, I added a Fuse photo sleeve to cover up a photo that didn't go with my spread but definitely needed to be included. I also hid a text message screenshot and ephemera. Remember, a Fuse sleeve doesn't just add one 4x6 slot, it adds two! Don't forget the back!

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Manipulate your photos to fit

Another option is to manipulate your photos to fit into the pockets. For my 2016 album, I use only Design A page protectors so I always know that my horizontal photos will take up one 4x6 slot and my vertical photos will take up a 3x4 slot. That means, if I can crop my 4x6 into a vertical format, it will fit into a 3x4 slot, which is half the size! I keep this in mind even when I'm taking my photos. Unless the photo is very pretty or very important, it usually only gets a 3x4 vertical orientation.

3x4 and 4x6 photos

Another option is to crop photos down to a 2.5 x 2.5 square. This fits comfortably into a 3x4 pocket and gives the eye a bit of breathing room or space for journaling. I would also add two of these smaller photos right next to each other, whereas I would probably not do that with two unrelated 3x4 photos, preferring to add a journal or filler card in between so it doesn't feel "smushed."

A photo cut down to a 2.5 x 2.5 square with embellishing added

Another way to manipulate your photos is to make a photo collage with PicMonkey (on the computer) or PicFrame (on my iPhone). You can add any amount of photos to a collage and print it as a 4x6 (or a lot of different sizes). Then you get lots of photos for one pocket!

Spill over into a mini-album

People take pictures of different things for different reasons. I heard someone mention that she takes hundreds of photos of her grandchildren in a weekend when she goes to visit them! (This is admirable and I fully support a "photograph literally everything" mentality). But there is no way you can fit that many photos into one spread, even by using the techniques above. In this case, you can always spill over into a mini album. Mini albums are really taking off right now! Stephanie Bryan did a mini album for every month of 2015 and gave us a wealth of inspiration for tons of different formats. You can make your own using binder rings or you can downsize to a 4x4 or 6x8, as I'm working on now with a vacation album from 2014. Mini albums come in all shapes and sizes and I think the smaller size, especially the handmade ones, are super inspiring and allow you to really stretch creatively and use up some supplies you've been meaning to get to. If you just like to play with paper and are interested in the "art" part of scrapbooking, mini albums would be a great fit for you and, as a bonus, give you a place to put special photos that just don't fit into your regular documenting scheme. This will also keep your monthly or weekly album from becoming too full!

Last resort: Pare it down!

If all else fails, you might just have to bite the bullet and pare down your photos for the week or the month. I've done it and I know it's painful! But my view on my album is not only that I want it to document my life, but I also want it to be pretty! Get rid of photos that aren't your best work (blurry, someone was blinking, underexposed, etc) and your album will be more aesthetically pleasing for it. I find that I have to pare down my photos a lot less when I confront this reality as 'm planning my page, rather than printing indiscriminately then having to throw away photos and basically throw money down the drain!

A way to approach this is to take a step back and ask yourself, between your photos and journaling, how many photos do you need to remember this event? If you have a set of posed family photos and in one, everyone looks nice and is smiling and looking at the camera, that's great! You're lucky and you should use that! If there's also one where Uncle Jimmy is so drunk he's falling down and cousin Berta is laughing her a$$ off at him, maybe that's a funny story and include that one, too. (Maybe in a Fuse pocket with some hidden journaling? Uncle Jimmy can be a bit of an embrassment...) But you don't need all of the in-betweens of people blinking or looking away or out of focus. That perfect photo is all you need to remember the get-together, right?

So those are some ways to approach these problems. In the end, there are no scrapbooking police (that I know of!) so approach it however you want. Whatever rules you are following, you are imposing on yourself. And maybe you like that. Or maybe it's stressing you out. Whatever you do, be creative and give yourself a break sometimes!

Thanks for reading, I hope you found this helpful!