The last week of June in 2017 I bought a Happy Planner with the intention of memory planning in it every week. That lasted about a month (which is actually pretty good, haha), but then life got in the way and I quit doing it. I quickly realized though that this was the perfect place for me to document the “story” of Trevor and I, and it became a place for me to scrapbook the weeks that were important to our relationship. This is the scrapbook of Our Story, the first year together before being married.
This might not look like a Happy Planner, but that’s mostly because I changed out the cover. I made this cover myself by laminating an image that I printed at home on some glossy image paper and then hole punched with my Happy Planner punch. It makes the entire thing look a lot more personal and really allows you to see exactly what each scrapbook is all about.
Speaking of “each scrapbook,” this flip through is only the beginning of many more to come. The intention is to continue to create Happy Planner style scrapbooks of our life. We’ve got Our Story, and eventually we’ll have a One Year, Two Year, etc. I’m currently working on our Wedding/Honeymoon scrapbook which will be dedicated entirely to those events (since I took about a bajillion pictures).
I am definitely a sharer, a story teller, and a memory person. I LOVE documenting things and sharing them with others (if you can’t already tell from this blog and my vlog channel). So finding a scrapbooking method that works with me and allows me to feel creative really makes me so happy. And then sharing these things with family, friends, and anyone else is what I love even more.
You might actually recognize some of these spreads. I posted them on my planner Instagram a LONG time ago when I was just getting started. Since then, the way that I was memory keeping has evolved. It started off as a day by day thing. Like in the picture above, I documented out each day (top to bottom) and then moved on to the next day. It allowed me to highlight an important thing that I did on every single day; however, it didn’t really give me a lot of freedom to document special events that happened that maybe deserved more than a single daily column.
My scrapbooking style slowly changed as I figured out what worked for me and what didn’t. One thing that I loved doing that stuck throughout the entire scrapbooking process was tipping in important bits and bobs. For example, when my BFF from college asked me to be a Bridesmaid in her wedding, I was able to tip in the card that she sent me so that I could keep it and have it forever. This was a fun way for me to create a smash book style scrapbook (a little neat, yet a little messy). I wound up keeping all kinds of cards, tickets, receipts, etc. all in the hopes of adding them to my scrapbook one day.
As I continued to scrapbook, the dates on the pages mattered less and less. When we bought a house for example, there was TONS of things that I could have said on all sorts of different days of the month of August and September, but instead I chose to just do one weekly spread that outlined the whole experience and what I felt was important. I added some pictures, popped down some words, and decorated with a printable kit that I bought off of Etsy. Finally, I tipped in a card that a family friend had sent us. This became my scrapbooking style from here on out essentially.
Documenting in my scrapbook the weekend that Trevor proposed was sooo fun! I created a tip in that held the notes that Trevor wrote when he was trying to figure out what he wanted to say when he asked the big question. I love that I can keep these notes in my scrapbook forever and always look back on what he told me that day.
Most of the items found in this scrapbook are from Michael’s or Hobby Lobby. I scoured the paper isles and bought so many of their sticker sets. My paper collection is overflowing (as well as my scrap pile because I am not throwing anything away, haha. Sorry Trevor.) And if you’re wondering how I print all my pictures—well, most of them are printed on the Polaroid Zip. This little device is amazing. It’s a portable printer that I can use to quickly zip off pictures that I’ve taken on my phone. It connects via Bluetooth and prints an image in less than a minute. It makes the entire scrapbooking process very easy because I can print out pictures as I go. AND, the back of the pictures print on sticker paper, so no glue needed!
This scrapbook was also a cool place to keep cards. I have birthday cards, just because cards, and all of our Christmas cards in here. The Happy Planner is literally perfect for people who want to scrapbook but don’t want it to be too neat. I like that I can just whole punch and jam in here whatever I want. And if things were to get too bulky, I could always buy the bigger diameter rings to replace these ones. However, I kind of like things to be overly stuffed—it creates a cool feel to the scrapbook.
Some spreads in my scrapbook are less words and more pictures. For example, when we got our engagement pictures I didn’t really need to say much. I just wanted a place to put them all and showcase my favorites.
Another thing that I really like about the Happy Planner is that you can purchase these image sleeves. They come in different configurations so you can add different sized pictures or pictures with different orientations to really show off whatever images you need. For my engagement pictures spread I added one of these image sleeves so that I could just fill up the entire thing with pictures and not worry about having to really stick them down on paper.
These pictures obviously aren’t showing all of my pages in my scrapbook (that would make too long of a blog post, haha). But if you’d like to see an entire and complete flip through then click the video below!
I plan on doing “scrapbook with me” type videos on our vlog channel as I document our wedding & honeymoon and our first year as a married couple, so if you’d like to be first to see those videos please consider subscribing to our channel.
My scrapbook currently has a home on our coffee table in the living room, then as I continue to make more I hope to update the coffee table scrapbook to which ever one is most up to date. I’ll have to make room on my bookshelf for all of the others. I really look forward to having a whole collection of them one day—I want to be able to flip through these scrapbooks with my kids, my family, my grandkids, and anyone who comes to visit us for many many years to come.
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