MEMORY KEEPING 101 – LET JANE DO IT!
Save Money & Time with Custom Scrapbooking
If you love scrapbooking yourself, then the cost and the time are nothing, but most people have no idea what it takes to produce a photo-safe album with attractive themed pages, so their jaw drops when I tell them the price and then they tell me they have to think about it. The people who do have a clue of what is involved can’t hand their projects over to me fast enough.
I’ve spent several weeks of posts introducing you to scrapbooking, because until you understand what it takes to create a scrapbook, you can’t appreciate what I do. If I just tell you, “Custom scrapbooks start at $500,” and you have no idea of the time, money and effort involved in creating that scrapbook, then you’re going to think I am out of my mind.
The Bare Bones Album
Last week I told you newly minted scrapbookers will spend about $450 dollars and 72 hour on their first album. My most basic album will cost $500, if the photos and memorabilia have already been curated. That’s because I already have all my tools, I have decades of experience, I get a discount on what I do have to buy and most of all, because I have been doing it for so long, I’m going to do it a lot faster than you!
The Bare Bones album will not include embellishments, but your photos and memorabilia will be attractively displayed on wallpapered pages with mats behind selected photos. You can be very proud of theses albums and your investment includes all materials and labor.
The Basic Album
While the Bare Bones Album is good for someone on a budget or anyone who would prefer a minimalistic look, most people really enjoy embellished pages. They want festive borders, fun stickers and other elegant embellishments to create themed pages and a rich look.
As I’ve said before, the more embellishments there are, the more it will cost to in time and money to complete the album. My primary style is simple and quick, but with a lot more decoration than what I put in a Bare Bones album. The emphasis is still on the photos and memorabilia, not the decoration, so there are more of your memory items on each page, than you would find on a more elaborate album. This is the album most of my clients prefer. My Basic Album, is $750 and like all my albums includes materials and labor.
The Fancy Album
While my personal style is to create simple pages so I can have completed albums, some people want more. They may just like the look of highly decorated pages with only a few memory items or perhaps it is a really special album, like a wedding or a new baby and so they want something that is obviously out of the ordinary. I have all the tools and experience required to create these heirlooms and I would love to do it for you. Fancy albums start at $1000, but according to the level of decoration desired, the sky can be the limit.
I use the same techniques and tools I would use for any album, but instead of various decorative elements being spread throughout the albums, I pour everything I’ve got into every page and the results are breathtaking. One popular look is to have heavily-decorated matching pages throughout the book, while another is to create a heavily embellished theme for each page. Bring your desires and I will pour on my creativity. Together we’ll create a masterpiece.
Curating Your Photos & Memorabilia
Some people are naturally organized and while they haven’t gotten as far as creating an album, their memories are sorted and just waiting for memory keeping. I’m happy to take over at that point and put together a wonderful album for you.
The truth is, most people just have a mess. There are photos under the bed, their shelves are full of movies, videos and slides they don’t even have the equipment to show and their phones are overloaded with images. They have tickets and programs from their kids performances, items left over from a vacation and all manner of other items of memorabilia.
Don’t fret! I can help. Even if I know nothing about you, your family and/or your friends, one of my greatest gifts is the ability to find order out of chaos. I will need to know a few things about the photos and memorabilia before I start and during the process I may shoot you a text and ask what something is, but I can sort your stuff. I also know how to tell the story without using every single item. I’ll return what’s leftover to you, but most people look at the album and throw away the excess.
It’s great if you can provide enough information to create a detailed timeline, but many times people have inherited a pile of family photos and they haven’t got a clue of the time frame and locations. They may not even know everyone in the photos. Albums do not have to be chronological. So don’t worry! I can turn your mess into something beautiful, even if you’re at a loss about what you actually have.
I will sort and curate your photos and memorabilia for $20 an hour. That scares some people, because they’ve been trying to sort it all out for years. My sorting and curating is completely different than yours. For one thing I don’t know your tribe, so I’m not going to get caught up in reminiscing. I won’t stop every 15 minutes to show something to my husband, to text someone I saw in the photos or to cry. Oh, I do cry every once and awhile, but I’ll be crying a lot less than you. It’s also my job. I don’t have to squeeze it in between all the other things in my day. I sit down in my scrapbooking studio and work, un-interrupted for hours on end.
Only it’s going to take me a lot less hours than you might think. My favorite story is the attorney who had photos spread out on her dining room table for two years. I took them to my studio and had them sorted in six hours. She was flabbergasted, but that’s what I do. I turn messes into memories.
So, while I would love for you to become a fellow scrapbooker, if that’s not going to work for you, I still want your mess to be memories, so let me be your memory keeper!
If digital is more your thing. I will be talking about that over the next few weeks. Keep coming back!!
jane sadek 