Tools ...

Sharon's crazies took over this week so I am here instead ... actually, that doesn't sound so good - she's just busy!

Like so many other hobbies, scrapbooking, photography and memory keeping have a huge range of tools to enable us to create the style of pages we love in our albums.
Even though I predominantly scrap in a digital format, I still have some essential paper supplies that are used for hybrid pages and projects.

A steel ruler, craft knife, double sided tape and a large self healing mat sit out ready for me to use when the opportunity presents. Funnily enough, tools to help me make pages have never really been on my radar, but, photography equipment is never far from my thoughts!

With that in mind, I have three questions for you today.

1. What tool do you always reach for when making a scrap page?
2. Which tool is sitting at the bottom of your tote or on the top shelf barely used?
3. If you could have any tool or piece of equipment, what would it be?

Now, you know my answer to number one, number two is a paper trimmer which I bought about a month after I started scrapping and I thought it never cut straight .... number three, well, that would be a super duper large screened laptop - not being portable puts a severe dent in my scrapping routine!

So, what what do you use most, what's hidden away ... and what would you really like?

Amy

what is perfction?

One of my favourite bloggers is Karen Russell. For a long time now I have been regularly popping in to see what she is up to. Now don't get me wrong, I am not some strange lurker of others lives but there has always been something about her photos that has completely drawn me in. To the point where I almost feel like I 'know' her and her lovely family.  I just couldn't put my finger on what it was I loved so much about her photos. Yes, they are what I would consider technically brilliant, the focus and lighting was always spot on but it was more than that.

This week I started her class...'Snapshots of a good life'. And within 5 minutes of downloading my first lesson the answer was right there in front of me, the reason I love Karens photos so much, they are "emotionally perfect". I love the notion of an emotionally perfect photo for so many reasons.

Our first assignment was to find a photo we had already taken that we considered to be emotionally perfect. Well, seems I was going to fail my first assignment, choose JUST 1!!! ONLY 1!!! Oh man, easier said than done, here are a few I considered...

As scrappers we know our most powerful pages are the ones with those photos that speak to us and the words that record treasured memories kept for generations to come.
Here are 2 of the simplest pages I have ever done yet I consider them emotionally perfect pages!

Todays post was supposed to be a question and answer post (and yes again I am late)...so here is my question to you...

Do you scrap for
1. just the fun of it?
2. to record the memories?
3. both of the above!

And if you answered 3 (which I suspect you may) then can I add a challenge to this post...

Go now and find a few 'technically perfect' photos, choose the simplest template/layout/sketch you can, set your timer for 5 minutes and journal as much as you can about your photo. DO NOT stop to fix grammar, spelling etc (worry about that later) ... just type/write ... and don't get hung up on sentence structure (remember I am a school teacher and so I can give you permission to forget all you know about grammar)...put it all together and please share with us!

I'm not supposed to put the link here today (if you don't tell the others I will so we can all see your pages...shh).


Diane
xx

How do you organise your layouts?

Well its my turn to start a bit of a discussion here on the blog. The SAG team love discussions and we love hearing from all of you, so make sure you join in!

So what I want to chat about is "How do you organise your layouts?". By this I mean chronologically, what sort of albums you have, layout sizes etc. Now before I fill you in on what I do, let me say there is absolutely no right or wrong way. It is whatever works for you.

So now for a bit about what I do. Firstly, I use American Crafts D Ring albums. I love these albums and I love that it is easy to take layouts in and out and rearrange them if needed. All my layouts go in the albums, I don't have albums for each child or anything like that. It all just goes in these albums and I figure the kids can fight over them when I'm gone! I did consider having an album for each child, but for me that would have been way too daunting and off putting to scrap one event 3 times to cover each child. So I went for this option and I'm happy with it. Sure I want the stories to be there for my kids, but its also for me and I have to do what works for me at the moment. The one thing I do have is a seperate album for more personal layouts. This album is not in the bookcase, its in my office. Its not really one that I show people. Generally its the layouts about myself or my husband and I.

I do not scrap chronologically. I started scrapping about 6 years ago when my youngest child was 1 and my eldest two were 3. There was so much of their lives that I hadn't scrapped and I wanted to start from the beginning so they would have everything in albums. But there was so much and I knew I would never be caught up so to speak. So I decided that scrapping for me is about recording the story. So I got over my fear of not being caught up and focused on telling the stories or using photos that inspired me at the time. So when I sit down to do a layout I might use a photo from yesterday or a photo from two years ago or a photo from 8 years ago. It doesn't matter to me, as long as there is a story. I will never get everything done and I am ok with that.

So I know many of you will be horrified, but I also do not store the layouts in my albums chronologically. They just go in the order that I do them. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, because I don't scrap in order, it would be too hard to keep them in order in the albums because I'd be forever moving the layouts around to make them stay in order. The other reason is that my family (inc. extended family) really like looking at the layouts I do. So it makes it easier for me to just pull out the most recent album. This way they always see the new layouts I have done and they don't have to flick through lots of layouts to find the new ones.

Lastly, layout size. I know we have touched on this on the blog before, but I thought I'd cover it again as its relevant to this topic. I use 12x12 inch albums, but I scrap in both 12x12 and 8.5x11 sizes. I love the versatility of this. I did start off as only doing 12x12, but after awhile I realised that I like both sizes. So when I saw that Ali Edwards (and Nicole!) put all different sizes in her albums, thats what I did and I love it. It really doesn't worry me that its a bit all over the place, I like it like that, it has more of a hand made feel about it!

Well that covers what I do, now I really want to hear about what all of you do. This subject really interests me. I'm always open to new ideas, so let me know what you do.

Thanks for stopping by our blog and have a good weekend.
Emma

Lets talk about...

Photobooks. Blogging. Using these tools to keep the process of memory keeping quick and simple.

 

This is a topic that we have been talking amongst ourselves about for a little while. A couple of us have even made a photo book or two. Some of us are confused, have had trouble finding a place that makes the process easy.

 

Amy had this question: What is a quick and easy, but looks good, platform for photo books? I feel I need a simple no fuss arrangement. How to resize your own template for the books? Why are they so slow to use?

 Emma made a photo book about a holiday her family went on - instead of scrapping the photos, she dropped them into a book. Done.

 

I'll share a little about the one photo book I've made, via Snapfish,   I used CZ templates which I filled in PSE, resized to 8x10, and then uploaded. One thing I did learn: this gave me a far better result than trying to upload and manipulate my photos using the template Snapfish provided. It turned out perfectly.

 

I love it, but then, as much as I love its simplicity, its missing the "meat"  - the little stories that made up our year - ones I won't ever get to scrap.  I've come to realise that my blog itself is a place I've been recording memories. Sharing a photo and a little story - its recorded. Sure, I've scrapped a few of them, and taken my journaling straight from the blog. But as a whole, its out there on the www - and who knows where my blog will be in a few years? Will it still be around?

 

How to get those stories and photos, in a quick and easy way, and in a manner pleasing to my eye ;-) into a book of some sort? I thought I would like to take my blog content (the stories about life/kids/family and leave out the fluffy bits about things I've found on the internet of course) for 2010 (and years thereafter) and make each year into a book. BUT! I don't want to have to spend hours and hours cutting and pasting!  So far though, it seems my options are limited - given I want QUICK, EASY and PRETTY.

 

What are your experiences with photo books and blog books?

 

Do you make photo books of holidays? Special occasions? Or a photo book summary of the year?

 

Have you made a blog book?

 

Please post your experiences, thoughts, and questions of your own, in the comments. Leave a link to your own photo book/blog if you have one! This topic is open for discussion and dissection! (I've just had a thought: afterwards I'll drop all of the comments into the body of this post, to make it easier re-read and take notes!)

 

I look forward to seeing everyone's thoughts.

 

Sharon

 

OH! Just one more thing......DRUMROLL PLEASE! The winner of the Stampin' Up package of goodies (oh how I wish I was eligible!) is:

 

"I love the simple pages that I can lift, so the photos and stories are the focus. Love sketches and moving the challenge towards the weekend is a smashing idea. Must give one a go. Keep up the good work. Simple is great. I'm definitely not a tizzy girl"
Annette !!!

Annette, can you leave a comment or email us on sag (at) hotmail dot com and we will get your STAMPIN UP goodies out to you!