grass stains: The weekend crop. It was awesome.

I know that traditional scrapbooking is falling by the wayside.

I know this because traditional materials are getting harder to find. Creative Memories, the company from which I've been buying materials for more than 15 years, has undergone a complete restructuring and is no longer developing products I want to purchase. And the companies that ARE still making them don't guarantee their safety the way Creative Memories always has.

So I'm really savoring my twice-yearly weekend scrapbooking crops while they last. They are my two favorite weekends of the year!

Many of you have asked about the way I organize my photos once they're printed. I separate them into events, then into the albums they'll go into. Those four stacks of family photos you see below? Those are four of the five stacks ... those pictures went into each of the kids' books and in our family book. But the single stack at the center bottom with the picture of Nathaniel on top? That was the day he got his braces put on, and those pictures only go in his book -- so there's only one set of those.

Once they're sorted, I put them into this photo sorting box behind each person's initials. Then, as I work through each person's book, I just pull out the next set of pictures to work on. Being organized makes ALL the difference in how much you get done.

When I start thinking about a page, I decide which papers I'm going to use -- either as "wallpaper" behind all of the pictures or as accent paper at different intervals. For the fall family pictures, I pulled several options that incorporated the colors we were wearing.

I laid out a few of the pictures across the papers and decided I kind of liked them all, so even though I was working on Amelia's book at the time, I kept all of the papers pulled out, and I made a note that I wanted to use these specific papers with these pictures when I got to them in the boys' books. That way I'll be sure not to use them for anything else, since they're CM papers and I won't be able to replace them.

Here are the finished two-page spreads in Amelia's book:

The next pictures I worked on in her book were from Breast Cancer Awareness Week at our elementary school, and the boys had worn pink. I left the black background of her pages largely exposed, but I hand-cut some green flowers and pink dots to mimic the large flowers on her outfit. I don't routinely spend that kind of time on details like that, but I was feeling ambitious.

Next up, I tackled Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas ... some of the biggies.

I take so many pictures that I try to get as many of them on a page as possible when I scrapbook. I know my pages may look crowded to some people, but to me they're just ... efficient.

And lest I forget the biggest perk of the weekend at this particular B&B -- aside from the scrapbooking and fellowship with my friends -- THE SUNSETS. Night #1 was cloudless and clear, and the lake was as smooth as glass.