My Favorite Theme Scrapbook

By:Tracy Beard

I have always been a stickler for chronological order in my scrapbooks. Afterall, that is how life works! But after about a year or so of being a faithful on the dMarie Picture Talk Board, I finally convinced myself to do something different: a Theme Album.

For my birthday last March, we took a short trip to Mobile, Alabama. Both my husband, Doug and I, had been working a lot of overtime, and wanted to just get away from it all.

So, I researched the internet for something different. Something Doug would enjoy, something my daughters would enjoy. I came up with the USS Alabama in Mobile. I told Doug about it, and he said that sounded wonderful. We decided to tell the kids nothing, only to pack up for the weekend, and give them clues, but nothing more. Baffling them was just as fun as the trip was.

Needless to say, the trip was a huge success. But the theme album gave me something that I haden't counted on: an "extention" of that vacation. Planning the pages out, and working on them, I journaled extensively. I didn't want to forget about the clues we gave the kids to where we went. I didn't want to forget about the $2.00 bill Ashley got from a gumball machine on her first try. I didn't want to forget about going to Pensacola afterwards to the beach, only we couldn't figure out HOW to get to the beach, so we backtracked to the beach in Biloxi instead. I didn't want to forget about the fun at the Rest Stop where Sherri and I "almost" got left behind. And at the end, I had each family member journal a personal note about what they enjoyed best about the trip.

Yes, that Theme Album, "Our Trip to Mobile Alabama", has become my favorite scrapbook album. Everytime I look at it, I am there again. This makes me look forward to next weekend, when I will start this year's new Theme Album: "My Donny Osmond Weekend". I'm betting that it will become a favorite Theme Album as well. Anyone know where I can find a purple scrapbook???

Tomorrow at dMarie Daily: Untitled, by Becky S