The ScrapBlog

When handled carefully, your memorabilia can look its best even after years of display. Here are some tips to keep your treasures safe.

Keep all of your scrapbooking supplies, albums, photos and negatives in a cool, dry place. Humidity and liquids will destroy these sensitive scrapbook materials.

Handle your photos carefully. Oil from your skin and fingerprints can become visible after time. Wash your hands frequently or wear thin cotton gloves.

Store your memorabilia in acid-free envelopes or plastic sleeves to prevent scratches, tears and bending. Direct sunlight will eventually diminish the quality of your heirlooms.

Use sheet protectors, binders, photo enclosures and photo corners that are made of acrylic or polyester. Some of these items could be made of PVC that will eventually corrode your photos and historical items.

Remove any items that you may have in a magnetic photo album and put them in a safer place. Magnetic albums have an acidic adhesive that may be difficult to remove from your photos. High levels of acid in items like newspaper, regular paper or other memorabilia can cause a chemical reaction with your other photos. Use acid-free paper next to or behind these items.

Portraits are not usually replaceable. Scan and save all portraits before putting them in an album. Use photo corners to mount on acid-free paper. Do not crop Polaroid photos. When the protective seal is broken the image will eventually disappear. Document and file all photos as soon as possible without writing on the back of the photos.

And finally, for long-term album storage, do not lay albums on a flat surface and stack them. Doing this will damage the bindings and put pressure on your photos and embellishments.

Knowing how to care for your scrapbook materials can save you much time, money and effort in the end.

Being pregnant for the first time is quite an adventure, especially when it happens sooner than expected. A few weeks after an intoxicatingly fun wedding reception, surprise! We’re having a baby!

After the initial shock and wide-eyed-what-do-we-do-now looks, we got used to the idea and the excitement for this life-changing event began to grow, as did my belly. And it’s quite a shock on your system. There’s the back pain, swelling ankles and itchy stretch marks. But when you feel and see your baby move and shift, those symptoms disappear for the moment.

But, you can never forget the first sharp pain of a contraction, especially when it happens while eating dinner in a nice restaurant and then trying to make it to the car without causing a commotion. Luckily, the hospital was just down the street, and as it turns out, I was there for two days while our baby slept through labor. This, of course, caused the doctors some concern and decided to do a c-section.

And after what seemed like hours, we heard and saw our new baby, pink and chubby with squinty eyes. Six days later it was time to go home to try and settle into a new routine. When you leave the hospital they want you to bring in the car seat and the baby leaves fastened in it. When we arrived at home we wondered if we could really take care of a baby because we had forgotten to fasten the car seat into the car!

This jolted us into the reality that it wasn’t just the two of us anymore. And after all the baby showers and visits from friends and family were over, we could finally relax and focus on loving and learning from this new little person in our lives.

As learned in this story, when you first become pregnant, you have all kinds of emotions. Take this time and use it to come up with the perfect baby scrapbooking idea. Turn the emotions into words and design your first baby scrapbooking page.

Creating a love or relationship album for that special someone in your life gives you the chance to display those wonderful memories of your life together. How many photos and keepsakes you have can help determine the size, themes and layout of your scrapbooking love album. While any size album will do, a smaller accordion style album can create a more intimate feeling.

Journaling in a scrapbooking love album brings your memories to life. Your statements can be as simple as a few words or more complex with a special poem, quote or song lyrics. When journaling, you can recall a memory in a photo or relive a special moment. Colors also play an important role in creating that warm and personal feeling. Instead of the usual red or pink, many people are choosing softer colors like pale blue and cream or gold and silver. Charms in these colors make nice additions to your page as well.

Topics for your love album could include “A History of Our Relationship” or “10 Things I Love About You.” Topics can also center on the memorabilia you might have. Show off your unique items such as love letters, cards, dried flowers, restaurant menu or concert tickets. Your album could center on relationship milestones. You can describe your first date or your first kiss. Or create a list of questions for both of you to answer in your own handwriting or in a computer layout. Your questions could include: favorite foods, future goals, traditions, pet peeves, favorite pastimes and things you agree or disagree on. Another project for the two of you could be writing a letter to each other, seal them and paste onto your scrapbook page. When you present your scrapbooking love album on a special date or occasion, you can then open your letters to each other.

I recently came across a neat idea for a scrapbook. The person, who created it, took her family’s favorite (and famous) recipes and created a scrapbook out of them. Recipe scrapbooking is such a great way to make sure all these great recipes of members of the extended family are preserved.

Start by getting all the recipes together. Look through your own notes. You’ll be surprised how many of the recipes you already have. Mine are usually scribbled on pieces of notepaper and then stuck into one of the cookbooks I have.

You can handwrite the recipes directly in the scrapbook, on a piece of paper or even a recipe card. Of course you could also type them up in your computer and print them out.

Take a quick inventory of the recipes from other family members that you already have. Are you missing Aunt Betty’s famous peach cobbler recipe? Call her up and get it.

Talk to other members of your extended family about your recipe scrapbooking idea. You will get plenty of suggestions about what else to include.

You can organize the recipes within the scrapbook by course, or by the family members. Group a few of the recipes on one page, or dedicate an entire page to each recipe. Include pictures of the person you received them from and pictures of the dish itself if you have them. I also like to add a little note about each recipe. You could write about how your great-grandmother brought this recipe with her from Italy, or how you invented your famous pie because you were missing one of the ingredients of the traditional recipe.

Add some cooking or baking related borders and pick up a set of recipe themed stickers to complete your family recipe scrapbooking album. Take it to your next family function to share it with everyone that contributed a recipe. You could even ask them to add a personal note about each recipe. Be prepared to add more pages, or create a second book as more family recipes start to surface.

You may be tempted to dig out the scrapbook next time you are fixing grandma’s famous roast. Don’t leave the scrapbook lying on your kitchen counter while you cook. It’s to easy to spill or splatter something and ruin all your hard work. Instead, jot the recipe down on a piece of paper, or even better, get a small binder and put all the recipe form your family recipe scrapbook in plastic page protectors that you can easily wipe off.

Creating a family recipe scrapbook is a great way to preserve your family’s recipes and pass them on to the next generation of family cooks.

Have you tried scrapbooking instead of picture album. It is so much fun and can turn into a family project. I am in the process of doing a scrapbook for my two children then one for each of my grandsons.

I have seen some with just stickers in them and also with a lot of writing around the picture. I decided to combine both, but I also make the scrapbook tell a story. All of the stickers I use on my page, has to do with the picture. If it is beach pictures, then I use sand buckets, umbrella, flip flops, towels etc. If I come across another page for the beach I try to use something different that has to do with the beach. Fishing pictures, nothing like adding some fishing poles, fish, a small boat etc. The ideas come into your head, once you get started.

I also bought a sticker making machine. It didn’t cost much and you can create your own stickers. I go online and find click art and save them. Once I got what I want, I put them all together in a program, then print them out, and then run them through my sticker machine. They are just as good as the ones you buy in the store, if not better.

Something else to make a nice and fun page, I use tiny colored popsicle sticks for picture frames around the pictures. Sponge letters look great and I also use a lot of the sticky letters instead of writing. All my headlines are in sponge letters, or fancy letters. I also got little swimsuits and dresses for the special occasions my daughter went to when she was growing up.

There are a lot of background scenes you can get offline, but you got to be careful, some of them are only the size of the paper in your printer and if you are using the 12 by 12 paper, you will have to print two pages out and match them up to make a page. I don’t use the background. I only use soft pastel colors. I am not one to use loud colors and I don’t like a lot of stickers on my pages, or a lot of pictures. I use up to six pictures, and they are all cut down to a different shape, too many pictures and stickers can make you page look junky and unattractive. None are square like you get them when they are developed. I also use the scissors that give the different fancy cuts, no straight cuts. They make it more interesting.

I also found, when you start to scrap book you need to find a place that you can lay your stuff out and it won’t be in the way. Otherwise, you will get tired of cleaning up everything every time you get into it, and if you are like me, you will lose interest in it for a while.

One other thing, before starting the scrapbook, make a cd of all the pictures you have, that way, if you are making this as a gift, you will still have the pictures to look back on.

HAPPY SCRAPBOOKING!

Scrapbooking has become a very popular hobby in the U.S. and is becoming increasingly popular around the world. Although it is a craft and hobby, the materials and tools scrappers use can become quite expensive. I would like to give you a few tips on how you can save money.

· Trade supplies you already have with other scrappers you know. You never know what you’ll find and what you might be able to use.

· Make use of your cardstock and paper scraps by keeping them for smaller projects or use them for punching out tags or other shapes. Use them for matting, journaling, as photo corners or for color blocking, etc. You would be surprised how you can use the smallest scraps on your layouts.

· You know those 3D pop dots? Don’t just use the actual dots and throw the rest away. Cut up the frame and use that as well. If you use punch out letters, numbers or shapes, use the remaining punched out paper as a stencil.

· Instead of tools like a bone folder, you can also use the back of a kitchen knife or a ruler. For quilling you can also use a toothpick instead of a quilling tool.

· Check out your house, in the drawers to see if you can’t find items to use, such as pop caps, bottle caps, paper clips, scraps of material you don’t need anymore, thread, yarn, etc. There are just so many possibilities.

· Use computer printouts for tags, quotes, shapes to embellish your layout.

· Inventory your supplies on a regular basis to see what you still have. You might be surprised at how much you find that you didn’t know you had a stash of.

· For chipboard embellishments, use the back of notepads or parts of cartons / boxes, cover in patterned paper, cut out and there you have your chipboard embellishment. You can also print large letters backwards on patterned paper and then cover the chipboard, then cut it out with a craft knife.

· Instead of a special scrapbooking caddy, use a kitchen caddy. Believe me, it does the trick. You also might want to use transparent organizing bins that you can find in a hardware or office supply store, rather then purchasing expensive “special” scrapbooking organizers.

· Check for discounts (obviously) on scrapbook items. Check out Michael’s or Joann’s. They usually have great deals on a regular basis. Also check out your local office supply store. They might just have something you can use and it’s usually less expensive than at your local scrapbooking store.

Hope this helps you in your endeavor to “save money” while scrapping fabulous layouts!

“We’re having a heat wave, a tropical heat wave.” No doubt you are one of many in our nation trying to get through a long hot summer. Well, take heart! There is one activity which will not only give you pleasure, but memories to last a lifetime. It’s time to take out your new scrapbook, dust it off, and add new pages of photos to it. Use a photo tip in the next section to make sure you are capturing the best summer pictures ever.

Summer yields a myriad of opportunities. Photograph your favorite flower, plant or tree. If you enjoy the beach or pool, flash the splash! Take different shots of children at play using color and/or black and white. Dare to be different!

If you enjoy early morning walks, take your camera with you. Whether you walk around Central Park or simply around your own block, nature has a way of revealing the minutest detail of summer to you. Capture it!

Here are some photo tips:

•Use a digital camera so that you can edit your photos on line. If a digital camera is not available to you, use a standard camera and have plenty of film and batteries on hand according to the camera’s specifications.

•Keep an account of where you took the photos so that you will be able to label them in your scrapbook.

•When taking pictures outdoors, stay away from direct sunlight as it will result in shadowed photos. Overcast days are ideal for picture-taking.

•Experiment with close-ups, i.e., zoom in - zoom out.

•Use light and dark to give your photos perspective. Indoor picture-taking also allows you to experiment with light and dark…flash on - flash off.

•When traveling to any local or foreign destination include scenic photos of waterfalls, the local streets, people, rock formations, beaches, towns, historic landmarks, etc.

•When taking a picture of a friend or loved one in front of an historic setting, stand as far back as possible so that the entire backdrop is captured. Take a picture of a sunset. The colors derived from it can never be duplicated.

•Be creative! Photography is quite subjective. Only you know what appeals to you. Enjoy the experience.

Now that your photos are ready for the scrapbook, begin to improvise on how you wish it to look. Use pastels or textured paper for summer photos. There are many scrapbook sites online that give you excellent ideas on how to set up, maintain, and enjoy the process. Memories last a lifetime. Ensure that your photos last as well. Remember, the world consists of objects and colors with which you can begin to compose the painting in your mind’s eye.

Do a quick search on the internet for scraplifting and you’ll find a lot of discussions on the subject. (And a few junkyard websites… but that’s a whole different definition of the term.) For our purposes, scraplifting is the act of taking another person’s published layout and copying it without making significant changes.

So what is a ‘significant change’ and if I do not comply, will the scraplifting police be showing up at my door and confiscating all of my scrap booking goodies?

It has been suggested by many published scrappers that a modification should result in at least a 30% change in order to escape being branded as a scrap lifter. The changes should be in the format and also preferably in materials used in the project.

Unless you’re a mathematical genius, you’re likely to have a hard time deciding if you have met the 30% rule. And to be practical, scrap lifting something you’ve seen in an idea book or an online gallery isn’t really an issue for most scrappers. Chances are no one will ever know where you came up with your inspiration.

Lifting another person’s layout and then publishing it as your own is on the other hand a big problem, especially if you accept payment for it. It’s dishonest, unethical and you put yourself at serious risk legally.

Some scrappers argue that many accusations of scrap lifting can be attributed to coincidence. Scrap booking product lines offer suggested uses and two different users follow a similar plan and end up producing a similar end product. No malicious idea stealing involved.

Scrappers often admit that they set out to lift a layout that they admired, but end up following their own creativity along the way and come out with something completely different.

One rule of thumb that most agree on is giving credit for another’s inspiration if you are incorporating a large element of their design into a layout that will be published as your own creation.

A mini scrapbook album is a perfect scrap booking party project. Invite a group of gal pals over for a night of scrapping fun. Tell each one to bring a yummy snack, their left over scraps and bits and 10-15 photographs from a recent event that they’d like to create a brag book about. You pick up a bundle of inexpensive mini albums at the store. They usually come six by six or seven by seven inches and cost just a few dollars.

Have your computer and scanner set up and ready with some card stock by the printer to be able to create text headings for the individual mini scrapbook album pages or to create a title graphic for the cover if there’s a place for one.

Spread out all of your leftovers and tools and everything your friends brought with them and prepare to have a blast creating from what you have. There isn’t a lot of room for complicated layouts on a mini scrapbook album page so you should find that you have plenty of material to work with.

It’s like a treasure hunt to explore all of the little bits that others have been saving for just the right little project. Ask the women to share stories about the original projects these leftovers came from, this out to spark some really interesting conversation.

Creativity seems to pour out when you get together in a group to do something like this. Watching each other’s ideas take shape is fun and inspiring. This is also a great opportunity to introduce a friend to scrapping for the first time. She can experience the process, get ideas and not have to have spent a lot of money on supplies in advance.

A mini scrapbook albums party lets you create some fun new memories while you celebrate older memories and friendships at the same time.

As a frugal mother, Sharon had to admit that she never got into scrap booking over the years because one visit to a scrap book supply shop sent her into sticker shock. With three kids and a limited budget, she knew she couldn’t afford all of the supplies and tools that she would want to use. So her children’s photos remained in shoeboxes.

In 2005 she discovered a digital scrapbooking kit, the practice of creating scrap book layouts on a computer using digital images. Sharon pulled out her shoeboxes and spent weeks at the computer scanning in every memory. The kids started to think Mom was going a bit mad though when she started to scan everything else she could get her hands on.

She scanned all kinds of fabric, curtains, blankets and scarves. She scanned greeting cards, calendars, wall paper and macaroni and cheese boxes. If it fit onto her scanner, she added it to her digital scrapbooking kit.

Then, with a simple image program, she went to work.

Without scissors or glue or double sided tape, she created page after digital page. With every new layout she thought up she felt like she was getting away with something sneaky. Surely she should have to pay someone something for all of the fun that she was having?

Digital scrap booking has matured to the point where you don’t have to find out own digital crafting elements, you can find some online for free and other image sets you can pay for.

As to be expected, digital image sets are far less costly when compared to purchasing paper and fabric and accessories. It really is an attractive alternative to someone scrap booking on a budget.

Sharon keeps her digital projects strictly on her computer, using the layouts as a screen saver slide show. Many others choose to share their creations online or even to print out their layouts and bind them together in a book.

If you would like to try your hand at digital scrapping you’ll want to check and see what kind of image manipulation software you have on your computer. If you don’t find something appropriate you can download a copy of the free public license graphic software named Gimp.

Learning to work with digital scrapbooking kits will take some practice, but you’ll have fun in the process and soon be creating fun layouts for your memories.