I think it is all personal preference.

At least with 11″ you only have to downsize a little bit. And you layout will easily fit into the plastic pockets for Albums that never seem to be quite big enough for your cardstock (if you’re a paper scrapper).

So I expect I’ll continue to scrap at 12×12, because I prefer a square shape, and resize for printing.

N E Hoo! I was having that very thought for the last several weeks. I never thought i’d need to print my pages, but some of the pages i’ve scrapped, people want to hold. I have access to a standardly wideformat printer, but it only prints as large as 11″ wide. I have spent a lot of time in the local craft stores lately trying to figure this out.

So, as you say, i can find 8×8 stuff and i can find brag book size. I’d love to do 10×10–keeps the detail a bit better than 8×8, but the bragbook size is a way that i’m thinking. Just not big enough.

And i think that may be the problem, again, just as you stated. When you think scrapbook, you’re not just thinking about a photo and how it will be presented, but an event or special memory, which may have so much more to put on the page: flowers, a scrap of cloth, the baby’s first cut curl, a newspaper clipping, and let’s not forget the journaling, your own impression of the moment. Somehow it fits better (you can see everything or most things) on a 12×12 square (can i tell you that sometimes i’ve been known to start with a 13×13 or 14×14 square? I haven’t DARED to go higher than that, LOL).

I always start with 12×12 (or other, LOL) and shrink. I have used some of Andrea Gold’s 81/2×11 (offered free through http://digifree.blogspot.com/ sometimes, but you got to catch it as soon as it comes out–she takes her free stuff down fast and i don’t blame her!), and i like them, but i have to confess, i like the squares better, even if smaller. I think having smaller pages makes me think “less is better” and think of ways to make a page less crowded.

Ok, this is officially a ramble. Sorry. Did i even speak to the issue. Oh, i bought an 11×14 pad of art paper with a microfine perforation. Let’s see if i can break a printer. Shhhhh…..

denise

Now I do so much of my scrapping in digital I’mprinting out 8×8 and I find that looks pretty good. I probably won’t get another 12×12 album, Although my main family albums are 12 x 12 so I will probably still keep doing a few in that size.

Thanks a lot for finding a way to leave your comment. I didn’t realise the comment link at the ent of the post wasn’t working.

I couldn’t find a way to send you a comment, but I found this email address. I enjoy your blog and it is in my favorite blog folder, but I don’t come back every day. You’ve got links to some very unusual freebies, and I thank you for that too.

12 x 12 was not the original standard scrapbook size. When I made my first paper scrapbook the standard was 8.5 x 11 in the US. You could find a 12 x 12 album, but they weren’t all that easy to locate. Letter sized paper for backgrounds and cardstock were more likely to be available in the letter size than in the 12 x 12.

Because I don’t scrap in date order (just finished two pages for July 1982 and printed out two copies of each) I’m still scrapping in letter sized.

Oh, and my 3 ring albums fit on my shelves.