It seems that time waits for no scrapper! Once you get going on a scrapbook for a particular holiday, another one is soon to follow! Time management is an important factor here. I know how long some scrapbook projects can take because you may be looking at a load of pictures before choosing the right ones to go into the binder. Then, it can take a while to think of the embellishments and journaling to add to it, let alone what kind of binder you are going to put everything in!
With Easter, you think of the religious connotation it has and it is not hard to shop for embellishments. It is fun too, because we blend in the religious significance with the American tradition of the Easter Bunny and Easter eggs, and so on! The key is to combine both so that neither "over powers" the other.
Now is the time to get out to your local crafts store, your local grocery store, and your local stationary store. Between all three of these places, you have all your embellishments covered. Be careful to shop smartly. Quite often, some products you can get are cheaper at any of the other stores mentioned here. If you saved some Easter celebration pictures from last year, I suggest you grab some of those to insert in your scrapbook. If you are waiting for some fresh Easter celebration pictures, then wait until the holiday comes and goes. Then you can sort out which of the pictures for this year you can put in the scrapbook. Now is the time to think of the journaling entries you want to include as well. This scrapbook does not have to be really thick. Remember to keep your pictures in air tight bags so air does not get to it.
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The perfect scrapbook to do for a family is a memoir scrapbook for grand-parents. What is great about this topic is that there no shortage of pictures. Grand parents have so much rich history to tell with their pictures from when they were children to their teens and adolescents and finally young adults. They went through the war time, saw many of the modern appliances develop, the invention of the automobile, the first man on the moon, and so on. It is literally a "time machine" of memories!
Care must be given to the older pictures which may have faded over time. You want to get those old pictures behind acid free picture protectors as soon as possible. You may even find it a pleasant experience when interviewing your grand parent on what happened to them during each particular picture. They may even go off on a tangent and tell you about other life awakening stories that you can include in the journaling part of the scrapbook.
For embellishments you may find some heirloom objects that they are willing to part with so you can inlcude them directly into a scrapbook page. Old love letters, badges, certificates, even baby shoes! Somehow, you can find a way to attach them to the scrapbook.
Make sure, when doing the journaling, that you are putting everything chronological order. The most compelling memoirs are the one’s that can have consistency from the beginning of one’s life to the present.
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With Valentine’s Day out of the way, we have to look towards March and St. Patrick’s Day. There is a wide variety of embellishments that you can buy from any craft store in your local area. Some of the embellishments that are available arel; green clover leafs, green hats, leprechaun silhouettes, lucky charms, shallelies, dancing elves, banyon trees, pot of gold, rainbows, and so much more.
You can make a short binder full of pictures, embellishments and journaling. It is just like the Valentine’s Day scrapbook where, it is obvious that there will not be many pictures inside. Now some creative scrapbookers are buying royalty free pictures from sites like istockphoto.com or Getty Photos, etc. and either printing them out or getting hard copy prints from their local camera store.
For journaling, there is a site, http://www.quotegarden.com/st-patricks-day.html that has many St. Patrick’s Day quotes that you can use. As a matter of fact, this site, quote garden is a great place to bookmark for any type of themed scrapbook.
May the luck of the Irish be with you!
Having trouble finding ways to say "I love you" to your special someone in the Valentine scrapbook? There is a website called Love Quotes that has over 100 most popular and obscure sayings about romance. I would expect that most of you will have the least amount of pictures and plenty of space for embellishments, frames, binder styles and journaling. You may have to bulk up on embellishments and journalling of special sayings…many different ways of saying how much you love the object of your love. We posted a short video below for ideas on how to make your Valentine themed scrapbook when you are short on "love" photos.
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As we end January, Valentines Day is just around the corner. As mentioned in a previous post, any avid scrapper should keep track of all holidays and national celebrations for ideas on making your next scrapbook.
Which comes to the point of time management. Many of our email tells us that scrappers often do not have enough time in the day or week to keep building their scrapbooks. A good way of making sure you are getting your scrapbooks done in time is to make sure you have a scratch pad on a table in a set place and a daytimer with you at all times that you keep track of "to do’s" That way, you can make an entry in the scratch pad and the daytimer of when you need the scrapbook done by. In either case, make sure you start a system in which reminds you of the deadline in which to finish your scrapbook. This is true especially for time sensitive themes such as birthdays, anniversaries and holidays.
For Valentines Day, now is the time to go to your hobbie or craft store because they probably now carry Valentine themed embellishments. Do be late! You need to start looking late in January or early February before all the products and embellishments are all looked over the the best of the best items are taken!
Obvious embellishments are: foil valentine shapes, red colored yarn, small valentine shaped candy, cutting heart shaped silouttes from construction paper, red buttons, lace, call out "clouds" that you can fill in "love you" messages in it, small valentine shaped sprinkles, and so on. A great idea is to cut out a medium sized heart shape out of construction paper and insert a picture of you and your loved one behind it so the heart shape becomes a "frame" around it.
Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, start your scrapbook now!
There is a great scrapbook site that you should take a look at if you have been scrapbooking for any while. It is called creatingkeepsakes.com
It is a very polished site that has many features. Some of the great things it has on it are; community bulletin board to share with other scrappers, featured stories of other scrapbookers, blogs of other scrappers, access to online scrapbook magazines, scrapbook store for your materials and supplies needs, they even provide a workspace for your photos and layouts.
The only catch is that you have to register as a member (free) with them in order to access the main and prefered features of the site. We have many favorable recommendations to this site.
Try this site out and give us your honest opinion of their service.
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A great idea for scrapbook enthusiasts is to form or join a scrapbook club. There are many advantages to belonging to a scrapbook club. Here are some of them:
- Sharing ideas of scrapbook themes and techniques
- Able to save money by spreading the cost of embellishments, binders, etc.
- Sharing fellowship with other like minded people
- Being able to meet at many different and interesting locations, such as other people’s homes or halls
- "Buddy" up with other scrapbookers to encourage finishing up large scrapbooks.
- Just having fun!
Yes, having the opportunity to meet together makes for a nice way to regularly spend time to work on your scrapbook. Too many times, a "lone" scrapper may feel lonely or may make an excuse to drop time to "nurse" a scrapbook project. By belonging to a scrapbook club, you can feel that your moving forward towards finishing your scrapbook.
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Thought you might be interested in how scrapbooker Becky Higgins uses her tools. Please check it out below:
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The other day, I had a wonderful conversation with a scrapbook nut! I have known this lady for over 10 years and never knew that she was addicted to scrapbooks. I came to find out that she is the master scrapper and is very accomplished at her craft. She told me that she has a designated work place to make her creations and a well organized shelf space for her materials and tools. I was amazed at how much she paid attention to the details of putting scrapbooks together.
One of the great topics that she discussed with me was scrapping on a budget. It sure sounds like a timely topic since we are going through our down economy now. (USA) There are literally hundreds, if not thousands of items you can get from flea markets, thumbing through your friends "junk" collection before they were going to throw things away, yard sales, or just going through your boxes of personal belongings that you forgot about years ago. We are talking about embellishments mainly. Getting a collection of pictures together on a topic is no problem, it is the embellishments that are hard to find if you are to "theme" your scrapbook out properly.
For example, let’s say you choose a theme about cars. There must be many embellishments you could gather about cars…from car emblems, hood ornaments, pictures of hub caps, stickers, license plates, parts of the owners manuals, old car keys, and so on. You could gather pictures of you and your family riding in the family car. It could have been and oldie classic, restored relic, or modern sports car. Even the family jalopy could conjure up many fond memories!
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As we approach a new year (2009) there is much to do in thinking about your next scrapbook. If you have not finished your holiday scrapbook or any other scrapbook that you were working on for someone else, you should either putting them aside for now or complete it soon. As with the new year, ideas for a new scrapbook abound. You may even be planning a "2009" scrapbook theme or an upcoming birthday of a grand child or a "valentines" scrapbook as a gift to your loved one.
Here are more ideas for new scrapbooks you might consider to start planning for:
- Upcoming wedding
- Welcome home military
- New Year
- Valentines
- Spring Break
- Mother’s Day
- Wedding Anniversary
- Graduation
- New Baby
- Birthday
- Family Reunion
You can see that there are many ideas you can plan for now. Time goes by so quickly so you need to get a head start on purchasing materials, sorting out through photos, choosing a binder cover, selecting embellishments, and what journalling elements you will put into it.
Whatever theme you choose for the next scrapbook, get on it!
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