Keeper of the Scrapbook

Scrapbook Organization

Over the past six months I have been working to complete my youngest son’s scrapbook for his graduation and I am excited to say that I completed everything except his last two events (still working on those). He was very happy with the album and excited to see it on his display table at graduation. He told me that another parent came up and asked him if I bough the pages premade! NOT! LOL!!

So, as I working on the album I realized I need a better system of organization for both my pictures and future albums. In my search I discovered a couple of things. One of the biggest things is that I am very visual so putting everything away in boxes or closets means “out of sight out of mind” and those things weren’t being used. Another thing I noticed is that many scrapbooking systems tell you to catalog your pictures in boxes, again hidden, so it doesn’t work for me. Then I read an article about a new book by Stacey Julian called Photo Freedom. It is awesome and I highly recommend it. She uses some boxes plus various other storage but she also uses 3 Up photo albums (a 3 Up album is simply a photo album with a slot for 3 pictures per page). For my scrapbook I put all the pictures that I needed to scrap into the 3 Up album by event then when I wanted to scrap an event I simply flipped through the album for the best shots.

A couple of other great ideas from Photo Freedom

1) The scrapbooks are for me and I do not need to make one for every member of my family.

   Note... with digital scrapbooking you can make one page and print as many copies as you need!

2) Each child gets their own scrapbook called ‘School of Life’ about their school years.

3) I do not have to scrapbook chronologically.

4) Many, many other excellent ideas for organizing and scraping your pictures.

Links to Stacy Julian

Book: http://www.simplescrapbooksmag.com/shop/item.ihtml?idx=738

Website: http://www.bigpicturescrapbooking.com/colorquote.php

Blog: http://stacysbigpicture.typepad.com/

I hope this helps you with your scrapbooking and organization.

Marcie

 

 

Graduation Day all digital layout

I am in my 4th and final week of Jessica Sprague's awesome Up and Running with Photoshop online class. I can not believe how much I have learned in such a short time. Not just about digital scrapbooking but I also have a much better understanding of how to use Photoshop Elements for editing my pictures. I highly recommend the class to anyone who wants to improve their digital scrapbooking or Photoshop skills.

Below is my week for all digital layout using a picture from my youngest son's graduation last week. For the layout we converted the picture to Sepia tone so that it coordinated better with the paper and grid that we used - isn't that cool?!

As far as printing I have heard that Costco prints nice 12x12's for around $3 so that is the first option I will try. Some online options include Shutterfly and Scrapbookpictures.com. I'll let you know about my final results.

Thanks for looking!

Marcie

Finally! A actual paper scrapbook page.

Hello it's me again.

I am working diligently to finish the 'School of Life' scrapbook of my  youngest son's high school graduation which is less than 2 weeks away. Fortunately, I have been working on it for two years so I just need to scrap the current events from these last few months. The pictures from this layout are from spring 2007.

I used all Stampin' Up! supplies except for the 8 dew drops (gotta love those!). Not sure if my colors look true in the photo but the background is Soft Sky, the photo's are matted on Not Quite Navy and Chocolate Chip is used for the borders and accents. Accessories include the large and small star punch and a white gel pen for the journaling.

That's it for today. Thanks for looking.

Marcie

May - Photo a day

Hello!

The idea of a photo-a-day sounds deceptively simple and actually it is but it also forces me to focus on what is happening today that I want to record and remember.  One of the primary reason I decided to participate in the challenge was so that I could get better at capturing everyday life. Guess what? It's working!

I am also taking an online Photoshop course so I decided to combine the two things into the digi page you see below. I promise to post an actual paper layout tomorow. LOL

Outta here,

Marcie

May - Photo a day

Sorry I am so behind on my posting! I have been stamping and scrapping just not posting. :-(

The photo a day is challenging but fun. I am also taking an online class for digital scrapbooking and it is awesome! It is an excellent digi scrapbooking class plus in the process you learn Photoshop Elements. Love it!

Below is my photo for Day 1 and a digital scrapbooking page I made using the picture.

That's it for today. I'll try to post my traditional page tomorrow.

Thanks for looking!

Marcie