Scrapropos

Not every page has to be an art piece. Say that out loud. Not every page has to be an art piece. If you get frustrated because you’re in a rut, or because you feel uninspired or uncreative, let it go. Instead of focusing on the layout, focus your energy and passion on the story that needs to be told!

I began blogging about 19 months ago, and I’ve discovered along the way that my family blog contributes a LOT to my scrapbooks! Since I scrap our family photos about a year behind the actual events, I often forget the details behind the photos. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve referenced my family blog to jumpstart my memory. Most times, I’ve blogged about it, but when I haven’t, just being able to put myself back in that place and timeframe is often enough to jog my memory.

Sometimes, I even take the copy straight from my blog and put it on the scrapbook page. That’s what I did here:

This page also illustrates how easy it is to scrapbook two different subjects on one page. While the page isn’t artistic at all, it’s still as valuable - and maybe MORE so - than some of my more creative pages, because the story takes center stage. This is one I don’t want to forget, and now I can rest assured that I won’t.

If I had to pinpoint a time when my scrapbooking style really evolved, I would say, without a doubt, that it was when I discovered Becky Higgins’ layout sketches. Becky publishes a monthly sketch column in Creating Keepsakes magazine, and has two books out as well. Those two books, Creative Sketches for Scrapbooking and Creative Sketches for Scrapbooking Volume 2, are by far the most utilized tools in my studio. (Volume 2 is a step better than Volume 1, because it includes the dimensions for cutting your photos to fit the sketch.)

What makes them so valuable is the way they’re organized. Say you have 9 photos of one event. Simply turn to the section titled “9 Photos”, and choose a sketch that works for you. The sketches work like blueprints - there are no photos or titles, just the drawing itself. I’m sure you’ve seen a layout you liked, then thought, “Aw. If only I had pictures of the kids swimming, I’d copy that.” Sketches taught me to look at layouts differently. Since Becky offers a sketch without photos, you have no preconceived idea of what it should look like. It frees your mind to imagine your OWN photos there. It’s a cross between a blank canvas and a paint-by-number; it’s a coloring book. You’ve got your outline, but you can fill it with whatever colors you want. (The magazine and the books DO show how different people interpreted the layouts, but the sketch is yours to make your own.)

After using Becky’s sketches, I started realizing that when I’m looking for inspiration, I look at ALL layouts this way. Instead of focusing on the PHOTOS in magazine or online gallery layouts, I look at the blueprint of the layout. How can I duplicate that? I also began to see magazine ads the same way. How can I use this layout with photos? Another tip for using sketches: if you have, say, 4 photos to work with, don’t limit yourself to the sketches that feature 4 photos. Look also at the sketches designed for 8 or 9 photos, and only use one side of the sketch. (All sketches are based on double page spreads.) Also remember that you can fill some of the photo spaces with journaling or embellishments.

Here are some of my favorite layouts based on Becky’s sketches. CreatingKeepsakes.com features a section of Becky’s sketches for free, but I’d highly recommend that you buy the books to have on hand. You won’t be disappointed. It will CHANGE the way you approach scrapbooking!

(click on images to enlarge)

From 451press.com:

Did the holidays leave you a little light in the wallet? Are you strapped for cash after months of spending? Well - 451 Press is here to help. We are hosting a contest that could have you walking away with $500 in your pocket on February 1st.

451 Press Comment Contest
451 Press has launched several new sites recently and decided the best way to get people to check out the new writers is to host a comment contest. This will benefit all of the writers in our network, as well as the people who participate. We are calling out to anyone and everyone to stop by one of the sites on our network and leave a quality comment. Not a spam comment that simple gets you entered in the contest, but a comment that contributes to the conversation or adds commentary to the article. Every comment made on one of our sites between now and January 31st will be entered in a random drawing for prizes. Every comment you leave will be considered an entry, so there is no limit as long as you leave quality along with quantity.

We offer a wide variety of categories for you to view. We hope that there are several sites here that interest you. We also hope to launch 40 more before the end of the month, so check back regularly to find writers.

Prizes:
We will award six prizes to the six randomly chosen comments from this month. There will be one (1) $500 cash prize and five (5) $100 cash prizes. We will contact the winning commenters using the email address they enter with the comment. Comments made through January 31st will be entered in the contest and the winners will be announced on February 1st.

451 Press writers are not eligible to win this contest.

So. I’m not eligible to win…. BUT… if one of the commenters chosen commented on this blog, I win $100 too! WHEEE! Comment, people! GO GO GO! How cool would it be if you won $500 of scrapbooking spending money??? what would you BUY??

A few years ago, I was a kitchen table scrapbooker. After that, Darren built shelves for me in a hall closet - I could just open the door and pull up a chair. And so I know I should feel so very, very happy about having an actual scraproom now. But I still find myself dreaming of something different.

The room I work in is tiny. It was once a screened porch on the back of the house, and measures about 6′ x8′. I have every square inch of that room filled with stuff; even one of the windows is covered! I’m about to go vertical, in the form of a pot rack hanging from the ceiling above my desk.

In many ways, my small space is perfect because everything I need is at my fingertips, and anything I *don’t* need stays at the store. Having so little room makes me be pretty choosy about I allow myself to bring home. My room is also perfectly situated between our family room and the kitchen, making it the center of my family’s activity. And its windows look out over the backyard, which comes in handy for when the boys want to play outside.

Even so, I dream about a different space - a dedicated studio - sitting where my dilapidated garage is now. We’d construct a new garage, and attached to it would be a cottage-style studio space, with a stone path leading from the backdoor of my house. I imagine English Ivy growing up the sides of the building, a sitting porch on the balcony above. It’d have shutters and a lot of character - a funky front door and lots of windows.

Inside, the cozy space would feature my work desk facing the center of the room, not pushed against a wall. Around the walls to the side and behind my desk would be built-in bookcases with open shelves where I could display the little things that make me smile, as well as the jars and baskets and bins of colorful scrapbooking doodads that inspire me. Beneath the open shelves would be enclosed cabinets where I could hide the workhorses and tools of my trade: pages, punches, alphabets, etc.

There would be at least one super comfy chair in the corner facing my desk, with a reading lamp and a soft throw tossed over the side; there, I’d read my magazines and books. The room would be outfitted with music and speakers built in to the walls, and a speaker system that would connect me to the family across the lawn.

The colors would be rich and warm - golden honey, reds, maybe some mossy greens and browns thrown in. I’d have a huge round clock on one wall, and lots of whimsy throughout.

Upstairs, the room would extend above the garage and provide ample space for multiple tables so that friends could come and crop with me. There would be skylights and picture windows to let the sunshine in, and track lighting for late-night crops. The space would be outfitted with a tiny dorm-sized kitchen - just enough space for a mini-fridge and a microwave. And there would be Murphy Beds here and there so that room could be converted to guest quarters when needed.

Like I said, a girl can dream. Until the Money Fairy decides to alight on our doorstep, it’s just a dream.
In the meantime, I think I’ll make the best of what I’ve got. It’s what I’ve always done, and it’s always worked well for me!
I have honey-golden paint chips from Lowes, and a brush or two in the garage.

How do you decide how to embellish? And how do you know when to stop? This question was posed to me recently, and my off-the-cuff answer was, “Just do it!” After thinking about it more, though, that’s still my answer. Just DO it. Don’t overthink it - just have fun. And remember… sometimes less is more.

Tonight, I helped my sister create letters for her daughter, and took photos as we went through the creation process. I hope this helps answer more questions!

1. Decide on a color scheme. Bobbie chose black and white with pink accents. After pawing through my paper stash and not finding anything “just right”, we decided to use ink and stamps instead. It was a lot faster than using paper!

2. While waiting for the ink to dry, we pulled out embellishments, and concentrated on finding pink ones. Bobbie knew she’d want to use flowers and ribbons, but we pulled other things too, in case something struck us as perfect.

3. We started with the flowers, since we knew for certain that we wanted to use them. After placing them on the a couple of different letters, we decided that we liked them on the B best. At first, we had 5 laid out, but then decided that 3 actually looked better. (A good rule of thumb in design is to use odd numbers.) For added interest, we double layered one of the flowers.

4. Next, we pulled ribbons and started tying them around the T, covering flaws in the stamping as we went. At first, we only had pink ribbons, but then I noticed the pink button on the ribbon card, and said, “Hey, what do you think about adding this touch of green?” Bobbie liked the idea, so I tied it on. Then we decided to switch the pink brads on the flowers to green ones, to carry the green throughout the set. After that, Bobbie added brads here and there to the ribbons, and finally, we added one more touch of green with the plaid ribbon. We decided to beribbon only one side of the T’s crossbar; asymmetry adds visual interest.

5. I didn’t like that the I was so much darker than all the other letters, so I lightened it up by adding the white flower ribbon. Because the lines of the stamping are horizontal, I purposely adhered the ribbon in diagonal lines, so that none of the stamped design was lost.

6. We played around with some of the other embellishments, but ultimately decided that we liked the remaining two letters unadorned.

Result? The whole project took less than an hour (including ink drying time), and Bobbie loves it!

One of my favorite layout techniques, especially when I’m working with a photo I really love, is to super-enlarge the photo and feature it on the page. Since I usually work on 12×12 pages, I’ve found that 10×13 or 11×14 enlargements work really well. Just trim the longest side to 12″, and trim the other side to whatever size best compliments your photo.

In this layout, I had the photo printed as an 11×14 (at Costco, the price is a mere $2.99, which is cheaper than many embellisments you could choose to use!). When planning to use enlargements, plan ahead. You probably won’t want to digitally crop the photo, because you’ll want to have plenty of cropping allowance on the enlargement itself. For instance, I knew I’d need to crop 2 inches off the width of this photo to fit it on the page. I needed to allow room for that without having to cut off Aidan’s feet.

For the following layout, I enlarged the photo to 12×18 at Costco ($2.99), then cropped it down to about 6×12.
Here’s the image as I uploaded and printed it:

And here it is after I cropped and scrapbooked it:

In the year since I had these photos printed, Costco has added an 8×12 option ($1.49) to its 1-hour printing service, which makes using enlargements even easier!

Recently, two very talented scrapbookers posted the following layouts on ScrapShare.com, the message board I call home. With their permission, I’m posting their work here, as they’re both wonderful examples of using enlargements. I’m guessing on the sizes they had printed; I forgot to ask them! If I’m wrong, I hope they’ll correct me here!

Snow Capped Mountains, by Veronica Wuthrich, Australia:
My guess is that Veronica had an 8×10 photo printed, then cropped it down to 8×8. You can see the uncropped version of the photo on the facing page.

Winter Wonderland, by Mary Garren, Oklahoma: Mary’s photo looks like a 10×13 that she cut one inch off of.

There’s an online service,ScrapbookPictures.com, that offers 12×12 photos, but I haven’t tried it yet. I think I’ll do it soon!
Do a little cost comparison with the photo services available to you, and give this a try.
If you’re hesitant to do it, or are afraid you’ll mess up, just print a practice photo on your home printer, or even have enlarged on a copy machine at Kinko’s. Play around with it, then work with the real thing. I promise, you’ll love the results!

My friend Cara has made quite a name for herself with these “Name Frames”. She made one as a gift last fall, and then orders started pouring in from people who saw it. Isn’t it adorable? This was my Christmas gift from her. She uses scrapbooking paper, stamps and ink from Stampin’ Up, and scrapbooking embellishments to create a one-of-a-kind piece of art for each name. Mine matches my family room perfectly!

Just goes to show you what can be done with the tools and supplies at your fingertips. Scrapbooking - it’s not just for scrapbooks anymore.

One of the best things that has come out of my passion for scrapbooking has been the gift of my family’s total understanding of it. A couple of years ago, for Mother’s Day and unbeknownst to me, Darren and Dani created layouts for my “Book of Me”. I was so touched by that gift; tears flowed freely.

They’ve always enjoyed my layouts, and they’ve always eagerly shared the scrapbooks with extended family and friends who visit us. Darren often shares my layout website with coworkers. But having them actually scrapbook FOR ME… well, that’s a whole different ballgame. Every scrapbooker should be so lucky.

A few days before Christmas, I had a mild temper tantrum. I’ve been dieting for 2 months, and on that day, I was just worn out and tired of feeling deprived. Everywhere I turned were holiday treats, savory aromas, and spreads of party fare. At dinner, while my family spread butter on honey biscuits, I threw up my arms in disgust and said, “I’m not eating!”… and promptly sulked out of the kitchen and into the family room, landing with a thud in the computer chair. I knew I’d cast a cloud over the dinner table, and even though I felt sorta guilty about that, I didn’t try to fix it. I just enjoyed the sulk and the feeling of impending defeat. I really wondered if this long uphill battle is worth it. I began to doubt that I’ll be able to lose the weight I need to lose.

An hour or so later, Dani appeared with this:


Again, the tears came easily.
Dani wanted to cheer me on. She knows me well enough to know that a pep talk would only harden me, so she found a way that she knew would get me. Celebrating the 12 pounds I’d lost so far, she journaled 12 things that define who I am to her. I couldn’t have asked for more meaningful motivation. She made me realize that it IS worth fighting for - this goal of mine. And she reminded me that scrapbooking isn’t about the ART of it. It’s about the HEART of it.

1. Keep my studio tidier.
2. Clean up and reorganize after each project.
3. Keep regular scrapbooking hours. If I don’t have a paid job to be working on, work on my own photos during those “office hours”.
4. Submit for publication. I’ve always wanted to, but I’ve never gone to the trouble of doing it.
5. Participate in one class/new challenge per month, whether it’s online or at a local scrapbook store.
6. Update my business site on a more regular basis. (www.stacykocur.com)
7. When I’m hosting a Fortress scrapbook ministry crop, do NOT work on a job - instead, work on Fortress photos or my own.
8. Send physical thank-you notes for every donation to the ministry.
9. Finish the charity albums I’ve promised, and take on more charity projects when those are done.
10. Page protect and add pages to my albums as they’re completed instead of stacking them in “the pile”.
11. Write daily, M-F, for this blog, and categorize each post for ease in searching.

What are YOUR scrapbooking resolutions? Make them doable so you won’t be immediately overwhelmed by them. What will help you be a better memory keeper? Think about it, write ‘em down, then share ‘em with me. Let’s keep each other accountable to our scrapbooking goals this year!