Scrapropos

Jill Cleaves is an oxymoron. In a cluttered, jumbled, disorganized studio, she creates layouts that are clean, streamlined and balanced. “Messy desks are the vivid signatures of people with creative, limber minds,” writes Penelope Greene of the New York Times . If Jill’s confession about her desk and studio are true, she’s living proof that Ms. Greene’s assessment is dead on. A legal assistant for 25+ years, Jill enjoys her job but admits her recent discovery that “working part time is heavenly”. Between work, a busy family (sons Beau, 11, and Chase, 8, are involved in karate and music) and being a Creative Memories consultant, Jill finds time to read, enjoy the Florida sunshine, and hone her photography skills. She shoots with a Canon S2is, but the Canon Rebel xTi is her dream camera.

When you hit a creative wall, how do you work your way around it?
I’m not very good at that actually. For a long time I used to do Mystery Pages [step-by-step directions for creating page elements and layouts without the guide of a photo or sketch, hosted online at ScrapShare.com]. Now, basically I sit and stare. Or I get online and look at layouts, which gives me inspiration to get started. I started posting layouts online a couple of years ago, but before that I hadn’t scrapped for probably a year. I kept seeing all these layouts and I thought, “I have got to do this and make myself work.” It was everyone else’s work that was my inspiration.

What influences have made you the scrapper you are today?
ScrapShare. Becky Higgins sketches hugely right now, and the other sketch books too. I rely on those a lot these days.

How do you approach a layout once you’ve chosen the photos?
I stare at it for a really long time. I will stare at pictures forever sometimes and then I go to the sketch books and start pulling paper out of my stash. I have so much paper you wouldn’t even believe. I’ll put it with the pictures and look at it and say, “Is this it? Nope.” By the time I finish a layout, I have a whole stack of unused paper sitting beside me. I’m doing a Disney album at the
moment - but my layouts are not typcial Disney layouts. Not a Mickey Mouse to be found! I take my inspiration directly from the colors and feel of my photos!

How would you describe your scrapbooking style?
Clean straight lines with lots of color. Not too overly messy or froufrou-y. Sometimes I think that my layouts end up looking a lot alike.

What is your best organizing tip?
I have none. If you saw the state of my scrapbook room, you’d know. It’s a hurricane. I reorganize all the time, but I don’t have any one thing that works. My problem is I don’t put things away in between and so then I have this huge mess on my desk.

What’s your favorite thing about your scraproom?
All my pictures. Pictures of family and friends - but mostly family - are all over the wall and everywhere.

How do you find time to scrap?
I don’t watch TV at all so I scrap in the evenings. By 8:00, my boys are reading, so it’s quiet here and that’s my time. And I stay up late. And now that I work part time, I have my afternoons a little too - sometimes an hour or so if we’re not running around.

What’s the biggest obstacle you face when scrapping?
Inspiration, journaling. I’m horrible at journaling. I was doing albums for both boys, separate. Currently, I’m working on a vacation album, and I’ve decided I’m only doing one. Now I’m at a point that I don’t know what I’m gonna do next after this vacation album. I’m at a crossroads about whether or not I’ll continue doing individual albums for the boys, or family albums. I still have a lot of old photos to scrap, too.

I still haven’t gotten the hang of…
embellishments. I’m not very good at that. I can do the die cut stuff but I don’t like stickers any more at all. I wanna use all this stuff but I’m embellishment-impaired. I haven’t used eyelets and fibers, yet. I’ve used ribbon some. I’ve made tags, chalked ‘em up. I’ve just started using fluid chalks and I really like the depth they give.

Favorite page and why?
It’s a layout of my older son Beau that’s titled “Freckles”. And it has a quote, “A face without freckles is like a night without stars.” He loves it and that’s what makes me love it even more. He loves his freckles and thinks it’s cool that I did that page.

Do you have a favorite manuafacturer?
Basic Grey for paper right now. I just ordered the new stuff that came out at CHA [Craft & Hobby Association convention)!

I can’t get enough…
paper! I organize it several ways because I have so much of it. Printed stuff like Wild Asparagus, Basic Grey, Bohemia… collections I have a lot of… I separate by manufacturer. For solids, I have a hanging file cart. Then I have paper stacks from Joann that are in vertical storage. Scraps are in a big file box in ROYGBIV order under my desk. I make the boys sort my scraps!

Tell me about your first page.
In August 1996, I went to my first CM party. All my pictures from that first album are all cut up and corner-rounded and trimmed with trampy scissors. I look at it and cringe. Oh my God, the sticker sneeze! Lots of triangles all trimmed with nasty scissors, all different ones, no less. Not a square line in the bunch and now that’s all I do, square lines. I don’t have to show you THAT, do I? lol!

Besides the obvious gift that scrapping is for your family, why do you enjoy it?
It’s satisifes the frustrated artist in me. I took art all the way through High School. I loved it but was never very good. My two best friends were awesome and I wasn’t, and I wanted so badly to be as good as they were. So this satisfiues that desire for me. And it’s therapy. A couple of weeks ago, Chase asked me, ‘Mom, why do you scrapbook?’ I answered, ‘For the memories, of course, to remember you when you were just a little guy.’ Two or three days later he comes to me because he had to write an essay about testing for black belt. He needed to know dates and awards and such for the essay, and I said, ‘Just go get that scrapbook over there; it has all the info you’re looking for.’ He says ‘Mom, these books are wonderful!’ I replied, ‘AHHH! you found a purpose for them now!’ LOL!

Last week, I mentioned scraplifting (aka CASEing) as a way to pull yourself out of a creative slump. Well, I’m getting ready to CASE something myself! I’ve been inspired by these fun images on Donna Downey’s blog, and today, I’m gonna do one of my own!

And I’m issuing a challenge. I want YOU to find and CASE a layout. From the web or a magazine… choose someone else’s layout and scraplift it. Then link us to your work in the comment section of this post. Don’t forget to tell us (and show us, if possible) whose work you were inspired by. There’s a prize in it for ya!

I have been a very bad girl.

The past two weekends (a scrapbooking retreat and an anniversary getway with my sweetie) have wreaked havoc on my diet. I didn’t even step on the scale this morning for weekly weigh-in. There’s no point. I can tell the news is bad by the way my too-big jeans aren’t all that big this week. Hmpf.

I’ve dined on Everything Carb. Yesterday morning, I woke up and had a candy bar for breakfast on my way out the door. (Dani is selling those fund-raising candy bars for her choir trip). For dinner, I noshed on Chicken Pad Thai at Pei Wei, followed by a Cinnamon Latte and a Cappuccino Brownie at Starbucks. Earlier in the weekend, I ate a bag of Funyuns with Wasabi (OH YUM!!!) when I wasn’t even hungry. Bad, bad Stacy.

All weekend, we took pictures of our food. We always do that, even though the photos rarely make our scrapbooks. What is UP with that? Why do I always want pics of the food?

As my friend Cara said last night (she’s evidently been bad, too), we haven’t simply fallen off the wagon. We’ve rolled underneath it. Time to circle the wagons, hike my skirts, and climb back on! GIDDY UP!

In the meantime… layouts with food (click to enlarge):

I have a list of scrapbooking blogs in my Favorites that I try to check everyday. I go for inspiration and to just spend time with people who share my passion. Some of these women feel like real-life friends, even though they’ve never heard of little ol’ me! Through their blogs and their art, I’ve gotten to know them, in a sense. I want you to know them, too!
Enjoy!

Ali Edwards
Cathy Zielske
Donna Downey
Heidi Swapp
Stacy JulianKatie the Scrapbook Lady
Kelly Lautenbach
Treasured Creations
Everything Effer
The Mad Cropper

I scrap for a living, which means I spend a little part of each day at my scrap desk. People often ask how it is that I never get scrapper’s block.

The fact is, I do get it! But since I have clients waiting for completed jobs, I don’t have time to wait for it to pass. Here are some of the techniques that I’ve discovered help me break through the wall.

1. Just scrap. It sounds so simple, doesn’t it? But truly, it works. One of the best pieces of advice regarding the creative process came to me via a college composition professor. “Just write,” he said. “Even if you have nothing to say, say that. Write, ‘I have nothing to say’ over and over if you have to. Just write.” He was right, of course. There have been many times throughout the years when I’ve needed to write something and it just wouldn’t come. Each time that I made myself sit down and DO it, eventually the words began to flow. It’s happened with this very blog. More times than not, I can’t think of anything worthwhile to say. But I always just start writing. Sometimes I keep what comes out, and sometimes the drivel I type serves as a springboard to something better. But the secret is to just START. It’s okay if your pages aren’t works of art. IT IS OKAY. Just scrap. Eventually, you’ll break through, but only if you start chipping away at the bricks to begin with.

2. Challenge yourself. This time last year, I was so burned out that I didn’t care if I ever scrapped again. You think I’m kidding? I could barely make myself walk into my studio. I just didn’t have the creative energy. And yet, I knew I needed to work. So I entered a contest that stretched and worked every creative muscle in me. I worked up 12 layouts for the Creating Keepsakes Hall of Fame contest. I started on January 10th; the deadline was February 6, I think. By the time I overnighted my layouts, I was on FIRE. Darren was sick to death of the contest by then, because for the last two weeks I spent working on it, it’s all I talked about. I couldn’t scrap the ideas that came to me fast enough, and I absolutely loved the pages that I produced during that time. I didn’t win by CK’s standards, but by my own, it was worth every single minute I spent on it. I got my GROOVE back, and in the process, learned more about my ability and tastes by dabbling with new techniques and products.

3. Do a photo shoot for the sole purpose of scrapping. One of my favorite layouts for the contest last year was one I did of my boys. I’d taken them down to the river for the sole purpose of taking photos to scrap for the contest. I was bored with the photos in my stash. I wanted something fresh. Give yourself permission to scrap something NEW. Who cares if it’s out of chronological order? Who cares if you’ve already planned the paper and embellishments in your head and you’re taking fake pictures just to make it work? Give yourself permission to SCRAP FOR FUN.
(click to enlarge)

4. CASE something. CASE= Copy and Scrap Exactly. Don’t be shy. Find a layout you love in a magazine or in an online gallery, and CASE away. Then contact the originator if possible and let her know you CASEd her. You’ll break out of your rut, and in the process, you’ll make her day!

5. Spend time with your scrap stuff. Go to your stash and paw the stuff you have. Pull together kits with the paper, ribbon, frames, quotes, brads, etc that you have on hand. Reorganize. Discard the stuff you don’t like. Dust and sweep your scrap space. Clean and polish your scraproom windows. If you don’t have a scrapspace, MAKE one. Whether it’s a closet or a cupboard or a blanket box that you keep under your bed, make a space for yourself.

6. Make something off-the-page. Use your supplies to create an altered canvas, or a clock, or a frame, or a wooden letter. Peruse galleries online and in magazines for inspiration. Take a stroll through your LSS or local craft store for ideas.

7. Take a class. Local Scrapbook Stores offer a myriad of classes, from page layouts to altered art pieces. Take advantage of all the expertise and enthusiasm that your LSS can offer!

8. Go shopping. Make a shopping list and head to your LSS. Sort through your photos and write down what you need: soccer, purple uniforms. Red bandana print, blue jeans. Baby girl, pink, roses. Apple Orchard, fall colors. Snowman, blue knit toboggan hat, orange mittens. Give yourself a spending limit and challenge yourself to stick to it.

9. Discipline yourself. Log off the computer and turn off the TV, and spend those hours in your scraproom instead. When you’ve completed a page, reward yourself with a long IM chat or with a pint of Ben and Jerry’s… whatever works for you!

10. Ground yourself. Seriously! Enforce a self-imposed moratorium on scrapbook spending until you’ve used some of what you have. You never intended to be a scrapbook COLLECTOR. You intended to be a scrapBOOKER. It’s not too late. Get outta here. Go CROP!

Scrapbooker Kristi Carman is a mother of 5 busy children ranging in ages from 3 to 15. When she’s not busy remodeling her house in one of Fort Worth’s beautiful historic neighborhoods, she’s working with and loving children and young women in the inner city who struggle with poverty or are working their way out of it. Kristi began scrapbooking 3 years ago with the Fortress Scrapbooking Ministry, which she now helps direct. One of the greatest things that has come out of her scrapbooking hobby is that it’s allowed her to contribute financially to the adoption costs for her youngest son. Kristi sells her custom-made paper bag scrapbooks and kits at craft fairs, Canton Trade Days, and on eBay. She uses 12×12 albums for her family scrapbooks, and scraps in 8.5×11 for each of her children’s books.

When you hit a creative wall, how do you work your way around it?
So far, I can’t say that I’ve ever really been in a slump!

What influences have made you the scrapper you are today?
Stacy Kocur, first of all, number one. Probably #2 is magazines and the internet. They all inspire me.

How do you approach a layout once you’ve chosen the photos?
Sometimes I look in a magazine for inspiration. Sometimes I’ll go through my scraps and try to use up as many as I can before cutting up more paper.

How would you describe your scrapbooking style?
Hodge Podge, free-for-all, scrappy. (LOL) ‘Cause I like my scraps. Wild. I’m not simple by any means.

What is your best organizing tip?
Stay organized and don’t let it get out of control. Be creative with your organizing. You don’t always have to use stuff that’s meant for scrapbooking. I have my grandfather’s tool cabinet in my scrap area. The flat drawers that were for saws and wrenches now hold my papers and pages. The small drawers that were meant for screws and nails now hold everything from paper clips to tape to brads and eyelets, fibers, buttons, etc. All of my embellisments fit in the 20 little drawers. I put labels on the outside of each drawer - I’m so proud of myself! lol!

How do you find time to scrap?
I don’t find time. It’s never there. I MAKE time. In the afternoon during naptime or in the evening during TV time is when I scrap the most.

What’s the biggest obstacle you face when scrapping?
Journaling. I’ve never been a writer. I had an English teacher in school who always wanted to hear a certain specific thing in our papers and I never seemed to write what she wanted. So now I’m sorta hesitant about writing, even when it comes to journaling. Except that you always say to write anyway, that it doesn’t matter how it sounds, as long as I write it.

I still haven’t gotten the hang of…
OH. The computer, definitely. I’d like to print some titles or journaling, but I’m computer illiterate! I hate the computer!

Favorite page and why?
Ooooh. I don’t know. That’s a hard one. You know I have a lot of favorites. I always like the ones where I use a lot of torn paper and layering. There’s one of Faith that says “Future Scrapbooker”. It’s at one of my first crops, and she’s just sitting there with paper and scissors, and concentrating on cutting. Totally in her element. It was probably one of my first really good pages. Because it says “Future Scrapbooker”, I was able to really use a lot of different elements. Different letters, brads, etc. I was able to really be free with it. It’s all orange and pink. I love the expression on Faith’s face. The pictures are just really good.

Projects on the horizon?
I’m excited to make a scrapbooking calendar that I saw in a magazine recently.

Tell me about your first page.
It was one of Faith’s. It was titled “I be-leaf in you.” The journaling says “Faith has been fascinated by dirt and leaves since the time she could crawl.” That’s it. That’s all I wrote! It’s plain and ugly - a piece of white cardstock glued on a piece of orange cardstock. i just stuck the pictures on and stuck a bunch of leaves everywhere. Its’ not too bad, I guess. LOL

Besides the obvious gift that scrapping is for your family, why do you enjoy it?
It’s therapy. It’s calms me. It’s the one thing that takes me away from the everyday grind and let’s me be creative.

txboys asks: How do you make journaling come alive? (I get stuck in the rut of labeling who is in the picture, their ages, date, and a 4 word description of what they’re doing….boring!) I really struggle with this, especially when scrapping pictures that are several years old.

Who-What-When-Where-Why-How. This old standby high school composition guide still works when you journal, and sometimes, that’s enough. The fact is, not all layouts need extra journaling. I don’t write flowery, emotional, descriptive prose on every page. But your most important stories and memories will be lost if you approach every page with the simple who-what-when strategy. How do you know when to add more? How do you know WHAT to add? Here are a few tips for approaching the journaling portion of your layout:

1. Determine who you’re writing for.Who is your intended audience? This will help determine what, and how much, you decide to write. In the layout above, I decided that I was writing for my kids. That helped me decide to focus on who Grandma is to them, rather than what the occassion was for her being there. Sometimes, I write as if talking to my husband. Sometimes I write for myself. Other times, I write for a general audience or for future decendants. You don’t have to address the audience in your journaling, but thinking this way helps focus your journaling on what’s important to tell. When you approach a layout from this angle, it also helps you choose and cull your photos. There were a lot of photos in this batch of Aidan opening his presents from Grandma, but they didn’t help tell the story and emotions I ultimately wanted to convey.

2. Look beyond the obvious.Decide what you want that audience to know. It would’ve been easy for me to journal the following: “Grandma Nancy came over on Aidan’s birthday. She gave him a MagnaDoodle and a Knight in Shining Armor costume. He loved his presents. We had lots of fun.” But really, what does that TELL the reader? What do they know about the people in the photos that they didn’t know before? Is there a behavior that’s being exhibited that you can focus on? Maybe there’s a conversation that took place that needs to be remembered. Train yourself to look at the deeper STORY the pictures tell rather than the obvious pictures themselves.

3. Focus on relationships.Whether you’re scrapping photos of your cat napping in the windowsill, or your kids building a snowman, or your parents at their 50th wedding anniversary, or your grandkids opening gifts at Christmas… consider focusing on the relationships between you and the subjects, or between the subjects themselves. Too often, we journal about stuff that really doesn’t matter. “For his birthday, Aidan got a MagnaDoodle and an armor costume from Grandma.” Who cares? Why is that important? Tell about the relationship instead.

4. Elaborate.Use colorful descriptors. Use a thesaurus and replace standard verbs and adjectives with words that bring your journaling alive. (You’ll find that after a while, you won’t even need a thesaurus anymore!) Ask yourself questions to further your thoughts, and then answer the questions in your journaling.
“The boys love it when Grandma comes over.”
WHY?
“Because she plays with them.”
HOW?
“She plays hard with them - tickling, wrestling, sword-fighting.”

“The kids are happy when Grandma comes over.”
HOW DO YOU KNOW?
“They laugh.”
HOW MUCH DO THEY LAUGH?
“Enough that the sound fills my entire house.”
HOW DOES THAT MAKE ME FEEL?
“I am blessed.”

5. Journal about moments instead of events.
I love the quote in this layout: “We do not remember days; we remember moments.” Isn’t that true? What do you want to remember about the photos you’re getting ready to journal about? What MOMENTS can you elaborate on? What EMOTIONS can you convey in your journaling? In the end, it hardly matters that this was a birthday. It hardly matters that Grandma brought presents. The MOMENT I wanted to capture was that this woman PLAYS with her grandkids, and they adore her for that. She brings happiness to our household. That’s what I want my kids to remember about her. That’s what I journal about.

Here are a few more layouts that feature journaling that feels “alive”. Thanks for the great question, txboys! Go - journal your life!

(click to enlarge)

Last week, I sketched out a layout plan that included a letter I’d written to my son and a 5×7 photo. When I sat down to scrap it, I deviated from my plan a little, but ultimately, I love the way it turned out.

As the photo sat in front of me, I realized that I didn’t want it to be placed at an angle. Aidan’s expression is so straight-forward and intense that I wanted the photo placement to echo that. Angling it almost seemed to add whimsy, and it just didn’t work.

Printed paper - Die Cuts with a View
alphabet tiles - L’il Davis
alphabet clip - The Paper Studio

(click in image to enlarge)

I’m leaving tomorrow morning for a scrapbooking retreat. As always, I waited until the last minute to organize and pack my stuff. Argh.

You’d think after doing this for so many years, I’d have a system. I don’t. Well, I sorta do. I’m on my WAY to having one, I think.

I’ve slowly accumulated 2 sets of most of my tools, so the bulk of my must-haves, like trimmers, scissors, hole punches, exacto blades… those stay packed. I have a 12-inch slide trimmer that stays packed - I don’t use it at home. The huge honkin’ 12″ Tonic guillotine cutter that I love so much will stay behind this weekend. I don’t have room to pack it.

There have been scrapbook retreats where I took every piece of paper I owned. This works for obvious reasons: I don’t have to plan ahead, and anything I might want to use is right there. Just like at home. But this time, I don’t have space. I’m taking myself AND four other people in one vehicle. I have to pack light.

So I planned ahead. I just spent 3 hours in my studio sorting my photos and choosing paper to go with each set. I don’t usually like to work this way. I’m not a planner-aheader; I feel stifled when I try to plan too much. Inevitably, when I actually get to working on my photos and I’m “in the groove”, I totally ditch what I’d planned and go a completely different route. I’m a little nervous that I won’t have that option this weekend. I’ve gotta go with the plan.

Embellishment-wise, I allowed myself 1 12×12 box full. I crammed it with ribbon, rub-ons, brads, a few metal accents, chipboard….

I’m taking my new 48-color set of Zig pens that Darren bought me for Christmas.

I’m taking all of my foam stamps, but none of my rubber ones.
All of my fluid chalks and inks, and all of my paints.
All of my Sizzlits but none of my Sizzix.

Ooooh. Just remembered that I forgot to pack the little soft-bristled child’s toothbrush that I use to clean my foam stamps.

Must go do that before I forget.

Happy Weekend!
I hope you find time to scrap!

You know you have a sickness when, at 2 o’clock in the morning, you get out of bed and head downstairs because you can’t clear your mind of scrapbook layouts.

I’ve been thinking about this layout with Aidan (the one mentioned in the previous post). It’s a letter to him, so I don’t want to print it straight from the blog in blog format. And I don’t really wanna handwrite it, either, because it’s a lot of writing to cram onto a page. I know that I want to use a 5×7 since it’ll be the only photo on the layout.

So for the first time ever, I’ve done a sketch of my own. It’s simple simple simple. I’m allowing space for a title and for some fun accents, but those aren’t sketched in. Mostly, I wanted to see how much space I’d have after the journaling was added.

Then, I remembered my font. I created it a couple of years ago at www.fontifier.com for a mere $9. I had a little trouble getting the resolution to look good when printed, but the guys at Fontifier were extremely helpful and customer-friendly. Try it! Make your own font!

So, issue resolved. I’ll print the letter and it’ll still be in my own handwriting. PERFECT! Even better, I’ll print it to wrap around the photo. When I get ready to scrap this page, all I’ll have to do is stick everything down and embellish it. The “work” of the layout is done.

I sketched my layout using Microsoft Publisher, but you can do it with almost any software. In MS Publisher, here are the steps:

1. Go to Page Setup (under “File”) and choose a custom size. Make it 12×12 (or whatever size scrapbook page you’re using).
2. Create a text box and enter your journaling.
3. Create another text box (or paste in the actual photo) and make it the size you want the photo to be. Place it where you want the photo to be placed on the page.
4. Go to Text Wrapping (under “Arrange”) and choose “wrap through”. Adjust the line spacing and font size until you make all the text fit.

Simple simple simple!
Now maybe I can sleep.

Another reason I blog: to remember the moments.

Coming up in my scrapbook queue:
this photo, and this blog entry from 2005.

Saturday, August 20, 2005

Dear Aidan ,

*sigh*

I love you. I want to go upstairs right now, scoop you up out of your bed and hold you like a little baby. I want to stroke your cheek, kiss your nose, smooth your hair and watch your eyes flutter and twitch as you dream.

Today was such a very hard day. You tested me at every turn. You pushed every limit. You acted out in every extreme. You exhausted me. A few months ago, I often described you as the boy who “only wants to make people happy. He’ll go to great lengths to please you, to make you proud, to make you smile. He’s thoughtful, obedient and sweet, by nature.” Today, and actually for the past two months or so, I would not use that description.

You’re not a bad boy. On the contrary, I believe that the core of you is still very good. You desire to be good, and to do good. I think this is just a phase. A very miserable phase for both of us, but a phase just the same. My heart hurts, because today, more than once, I said to you through clinched teeth, “Aidan, you are a BAD BOY.” The second time, you just looked at your feet and said, “Yah.” I’m so sorry. You made bad choices today, but you are NOT a bad boy. You remember EVERYthing. I swear, Aidan, you have the memory of an elephant!! I know that you’ll wake up tomorrow morning and remember that you’re a bad boy. And that breaks my heart.

And so, tomorrow, I’m going to do everything in my power to remind you that you are a GOOD BOY. ‘Cause you are. You’re precious and sweet and all that is pure. And even on days like today, when I want to take you down to the zoo and move you in with Mama Monkey, I love you. From the very deepest depths of my heart, I love you.

When you grow up and are big enough to read this, I want you to know that.

What do you do when you only have one sheet of the PERFECT paper, but you have a two-page spread worth of photos? You go back to the store and pay a premium price for it, ’cause it’s not on sale anymore… and while you’re at it, you impulse-buy another $12 worth of paper, plus a couple of ink pads, and WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT - rubber stamps are on sale!

ERRRRRRRRNGH. Wrong answer! You stretch what you have. Here’s how.

In the above layout, I needed a journal box for the right-hand side, so I cut a piece of the blue paper from behind one of the photos on the left-hand side. Voila!

For the JUMP layout, I only had one sheet each of the blue/green - not enough to do any layering - so I cut them both in half and spread them across the 2-page spread.

Mt Elbert is another example of cutting the paper from behind the photo to make journal boxes.

If you use Creative Memories albums like I do, you’ll always have a 1/2″ piece of paper that has to be trimmed off. Use those strips to carry patterned paper from one page to the next! Also, if you only have one sheet of accent paper, don’t be afraid to tear it and use it in corners or in blocks.

QUESTION:
How do you know when simple is better with all the new more creative things out there? - Tonya in Fort Worth

How *do* you know? I’m not even sure how to answer it. Except to say, sometimes the photos and the stories they’re telling just SPEAK to you, if you’ll listen.

What is it that you want to convey? What are the photos telling you? Is the story full of excitement, laughter, energy, noise, action? If so, you can reflect that by using papers and embellishments that are loud, busy, and interactive. Are the photos telling you a story that’s sweet, simple, straight-forward, shy, calm? Evoke those emotions by using colors and embellishments that lean towards those feelings.

For this page, I wanted to convey a feeling of spunkiness, and yet, the colors I needed to work with don’t really say “spunk”. To help liven it up, I chose papers that were complementary, yet not too matchy. Layering, tearing and inking added more personality to the page.

This photo whispered softness and simplicity to me, so I used bare-bones techniques and soft colors:

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that sometimes, I buy papers and embellishments just because I like them. When this Bohemia line of paper came out last year, I snapped it up. I couldn’t WAIT to find a use for it. I went straight home, pored over my photo files, and found one that worked perfectly after I converted it to sepia tones. I knew I wanted it to be a simple layout, but when I was finished, it seemed to still be missing something. Something small, but something nonetheless. The initialed paper clip embellishment was the perfect answer.

Everyone takes photos that aren’t wonderful, but still need to be included in the family albums. Maybe they’re just standard Christmas photos of everyone opening gifts. Perhaps it’s another series of soccer game pics. Maybe it’s your kid playing dress-up, or trains, but there’s nothing really special about the photos except that they capture the sweetness of childhood. In those instances, don’t be afraid to scrap simply. Not every page has to be a work of art. Here are some of my “just get it scrapped” pages where I didn’t worry so much about the creativity aspect of it:

You know whether to scrap simply or creatively when the photos tell you to. My friend and fellow scrapper Elaine in AL is an artist and does some really creative pages. But even she understands the value of a simple page. Tonight as we were chatting, she said, “I just slapped a page together. Felt good. Just cropped the pictures, tore some borders, slapped ‘em down, journaled. Ahhh.”

I know that feeling. Ahhhhhh. It’s the feeling you get when you’ve completed a page, savored the memory, and enjoyed the process. If you’ve agonized over it too much, you haven’t enjoyed it. If you’ve spent too much money on it, you likely feel guilty somehow. Sometimes, less isn’t necessarily MORE, but it’s enough. As Elaine’s favorite quilting teacher once said, “Sometimes the eye just needs somewhere to rest.” If every one of your pages is crammed with trendy, creative blasts of color and embellishments, there’s no rest.

Let the story be your guide. Let the photos tell you that story.
And in the end, remember my scrap hero Ali Edwards’ famous words: “It is okay.”

I saw an idea similar to this in a magazine or online gallery several years ago, and loved it. It’s a perfect way to “time capsule” your family.

This simple page tells so much about our family: Darren’s ring finger still shows evidence of being dislocated years ago. Dani’s guitar-playing fingers were as long as mine this year. The boys still had pudgy little boy hands. (I need to do a new page like this, because Aidan’s hands are all grown up. Knobby, knuckly little boy fingers. No more sweet indentions where the knuckles SHOULD be. He has full-out KNUCKLES now.) And we had a new kitty, who actually let Ian hold her paw down while I traced around it. (I highly doubt she’d let me do that THIS year. She has too many opinions these days!)

Go ahead. Scraplift. It’s what I did!

The very first client album I did was for a woman whose son was graduating high school. He lived with his Dad in Hawaii, and had for his 4 years of high school. She wanted to give him a “this is your life” type of album, chronicalling all the years he’d spent living with her in Texas.

We sat down together and sorted through years and years of photos, and ended up dividing the album into three categories, for the three houses they’d lived in while he grew up. She began telling me stories. And more stories. Every photo brought back sweet memories for her. Finally, she said, “Aren’t you going to write this stuff down?”

I reminded her that I don’t do the journaling for clients.

“Oh, but you HAVE to,” she protested. “I don’t have time. And besides, I don’t know what to say!”

I encouraged her to write it exactly as she was telling me. “Just put it on paper, exactly what you’d tell someone you were showing these pictures to. You know what to say - you’re saying it beautifully to me!”

“Oh, but I can’t. I just can’t write it in a scrapbook! My handwriting is horrible.”

“You’re handwriting is invaluable,” I argued.

“But I just can’t. I don’t have time.”

“We’ll figure out a way to MAKE time.”

“But what if I just tell YOU what I want it to say. You could write it for me.” She wasn’t giving up easily. But neither was I.

“Because,” I smiled, “then the stories will be in MY voice, and in MY handwriting. Your son doesn’t want to hear about his childhood in my voice. He wants to hear it in yours. He won’t care about my handwriting, but he’ll cherish every word written in yours.”

“I’ll pay you extra,” she said. “Just tell me how much.”

“There’s something magical that happens when you put your pen to paper,” I explained. “Once you start writing, you’ll find that memories come flooding back. More memories than if you just TELL the story. When you WRITE it, the emotions and the smells and the sounds… it all comes back. You end up with a story that’s ALIVE with memories.”

She wasn’t happy with me, and when I delivered the album, she tried to coax me into journaling again. My final words to her were, “Do it on the plane. It’s a long flight to Hawaii.” I gave her a black journaling pen and wondered if she’d actually do it.

Several weeks later, she came to me and said, “He loved it. He cried.” I was ecstatic. She was my first client, and I’d been second guessing myself the whole time, wondering if I’d lost a customer because of my passion about journaling.

Then SHE began to cry. “I didn’t want to give it to him,” she said softly. “After I’d written in it, I didn’t want to part with it! You were right. I needed to write those stories. I became part of that book, and it was the hardest thing to part with when I came home.”

I had tears too. She got it. She GOT it!
The value of journaling…. it’s priceless.
You can tell me the stories, and the places. You can describe them in great detail, with deep emotion. You can offer me big money to do it for you, but I won’t.
Because I want you to GET it. I want you to experience the magic that happens when you get over your fear and worry and self-doubt and BUSYness… and put the pen to paper. You may not be a writer. But you are your only family historian. It’s YOUR life.

Journal it.