I get the happiest feeling on earth …
… when I look back through my storage binders and find big "gaps." These empty spaces mean I've scrapbooked!

Case in point: Disney World, Summer 2003

I pulled pictures from these pages to complete a big 12x12 theme album of our trip (see the May/June 2003 issue of Simple Scrapbooks magazine) and a small 6x6 highlights album just for Taft (page 82 of The Big Picture, Scrapbook Your Life and a Whole Lot More.) I also pulled and filed several of these pictures in my category drawers. I used at least one other photo on a layout about brothers. My husband and I took our son Chase to Disneyland for his 13th birthday. When I slipped those "newer" Disney pictures into a storage binder, I thought of my older pictures and decided it was time to pull what was left and empty that binder entirely. I filed several additional snapshots in category drawers and put the rest in cold storage.

Note: Pictures will live in your storage binders for a long time. These binders safely store your pictures in a organized manner giving you time to live with and use them in a variety of ways. Eventually, you'll need to decide the ultimate fate of unused pictures, but don't worry too much about this now.

The Take Away: I have five years (or more) to scrapbook my pictures. Because I don't store my completed layouts in chronological albums, I don't have to create my layouts in chronological order. This is so totally liberating!