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Finding Time to Scrapbook Part 2

June 21, 2011 By tmscrapb Leave a Comment

(The first six tips are listed in the article “Finding Time to Scrapbook Part 1″)

7.  Make your scrapbooking time enjoyable and something you can look forward to.  For some, that may mean time to themselves, where for others it means time to socialize.  For myself, I know that it helps if good food and tea or a Slurpee are involved!  Perhaps for you, scrapbook time is more relaxing if your favourite music or movie is playing while you design your pages.  Whatever it is that will make the time a treat for you will also increase the amount of time that you will dedicate to it.

8.  Take the pressure off yourself!  Scraplifting (that’s scrapbooker speak for copying someone else’s layout) is considered flattery and completely acceptable in most scrapbook circles, so if the creativity juices aren’t flowing, just copy a layout.  Don’t compare yourself to someone else.  I am a fast scrapbooker, but my pages are nowhere near as artistic and intricate as the pages of others.  It would be depressing for me to compare my layouts to theirs and depressing for them to focus on how many pages I had been able to complete compared to themselves.  Instead, celebrate your own accomplishments.  If you’ve already set realistic goals for yourself, that should be easy to do.

9.  Pre-plan your layouts.  Put the photos you will be using for a page, along with the paper, any stickers or embellishments, and a sticky note with a rough sketch or journalling ideas together ahead of time.  Before I go on a weekend retreat (see #12), I lay out all of my pages this way and stack them in a box.  It increases my productivity and makes me feel more organized.  It also cuts back on the amount of “stuff” I have to bring with me.

10.  Have an area to scrapbook.  Most of us are not fortunate enough to have a room set aside just for scrapbooking (though it is an added bonus if you do!), but having an area in your home where there is a clear surface that you can work on such as a coffee table, kitchen table, or desk will enable you to pull out your project and do a page here and there at home.

11.  Get into a routine with a friend or group of friends where you meet to scrapbook on a regular basis.  This will work on two levels.  The routine will become a habit, and having a commitment with friends will ensure that you keep each other accountable.

12.  The hands-down best way that I have found to enable me to work on my scrapbooks is to go away on weekend scrapbook retreats.  I make sure that I do this at least once a year.  I am a fast scrapbooker and by being very organized ahead of time (see #9), I am able to complete between 80 and 100 pages per retreat.  I have to keep that in perspective by saying that as the mom of seven children, when I have a weekend away to scrapbook, I scrapbook!  I don’t sleep much.  It is just as acceptable to go away on the retreat, read a book, sleep in, and complete ten pages.

Good luck and happy scrapbooking!!!

Written by pocketsofchange
mother of seven children, freelance writer

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Scrapbook Ideas for Baby’s First Year

June 21, 2011 By tmscrapb Leave a Comment

Over the years scrapbooking has become more and more popular because it is a great way to present your memories. You can choose to do any theme, ranging from family vacations to summer filled days. As a mother I wanted to make a scrapbook of my baby’s first year. A baby’s first birthday is a momentous occasion and what better way can you show off their year, than creating a scrapbook.

Milestones

You can create many pages for your scrapbook by capturing your baby’s milestones. I personally used photos of my son when he was learning to sit up by himself, the first time he ate baby food, his first steps, and of course his first hair cut. For the first hair cut make sure you take a photo before and a photo after so you can really see the end result.

Holidays

The holidays can truly make the greatest scrapbook pages. Make sure to take plenty of photos during Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Fourth of July, and any other holiday you celebrate. The more photos that you have, the greater options you will be able to choose from. Many craft stores carry pre-packaged and ready-to-use kits with everything you need to create your scrapbook pages. They typically include sheets of decorative paper, stickers, and various embellishments.

Family Vacations

Although family vacations are not remembered by your baby, they will always be memories you will have. Displaying your family vacation photos in your baby’s scrapbook will show your child later in life what fun they had and also make great additions to your scrapbook. There is a wide range of available products that are travel themed for your pages. They offer stickers and pages that are beached themed and specific cities or countries, such as Paris or Mexico.

Professional Photographs

For my son I had professional photographs taken of him every month until he was a year old. I used those photos to separate the months in his scrapbook. In other words, I would use his one month professional photo at the beginning and then I would use the two month photo after all the one month photos were used. I did this as a separator and so that it was easier for someone to know his age at that point.

Everyday Moments

Photos doing ordinary and everyday things are my personal favorite. These are the photos that truly capture who they are. This is where the fun creating a scrapbook really comes in. You can create your pages however you like and use a wide variety of pages, stickers, and embellishments.

Remember that a scrapbook is your project and you can create it however you like. Be as creative as you can. When I was finished with my baby’s first year scrapbook I brought it to his birthday party and laid it out so everyone could see it. Everyone truly enjoyed being able to see him grow through the pages. After the party, make sure you create pages at the end of his first birthday party to conclude your scrapbook.

Written by HollyMiller
Student, Freelance writer

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All About Emotions and Scrapbooking

June 21, 2011 By tmscrapb Leave a Comment

If you would like to make powerful scrapbooking layouts, you need to use emotions. The trick is to capture just the right moments in your photographs, and the emotions will shine through onto your layouts.

Scrapbooking is a wonderful way of recording events and special times with our loved ones. You should try and go beyond the public façade, and show how you feel both in good times and bad.

You may say you only want to scrapbook the good times, but good or bad, it is part of life. Try to challenge yourself to express some emotion through the pictures that you use on your layouts. You could show through photographs things like joy, anticipation, love, sadness, loneliness and even foolishness.

Here are some ideas for you to get your emotions through without necessarily writing about them.

To express love people often show people hugging or kissing, but why not try focusing on body language.

Maybe photograph two hands clinging to each other, or an arm hanging casually over someone’s back. You don’t always need to show faces in your photographs.

I did see a lovely idea in a scrapbooking layout that depicted loneliness. It was a photograph of a cat on a decaying garden bench surrounded by nothing but an unkempt garden. He just looked so alone lying there on that bench. The artist used this photograph as her background, and put her other photo’s around this theme. It was very effective.

Anticipation could be depicted by someone doing a bungee jump or just before they come to the ground when they jump off of a ski ramp or out of an airplane.

There is nothing like photographing happy children playing to depict joy. Those little faces tell a story of their own.

Same thing with happiness. A photo graph showing the running legs of children playing could give the reader a feeling of happiness and freedom.

It will be more difficult to find good photographs to underline negative emotions. A photograph of a staircase full of sad people going to work can bring on quite powerful emotions. A subway station can also leave you feeling a little glum, as nobody is smiling. A melancholy mood could be depicted by a photograph of a dark and cloudy day.

Robert Plutchik was a philosopher and he identified eight basic emotions – anticipation, fear, disgust, anger, joy acceptance,surprise and sadness. This list could come in handy when you are thinking about different emotions to portray.

Michel Maling has enjoyed her scrapbooking hobby for more than six years. If you are passionate about scrapbooking, here are some more wonderful ideas for you. http://scrapbookideasandsolutions.blogspot.com

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