Archive for the ‘scrapbooking’ Category
Thursday, August 19th, 2010
You guys know I read your comments here. While I can’t possibly respond to every one, I do my best to address your questions from time to time. One that keeps coming up is — When can we see more sketches??
Well I guess today’s the day. Here’s a new sketch!
Look familiar? Allow me to explain.
I’ve been scrapbooking for 17 years. It’s safe to say it’s in my blood. How I go about preserving our memories has changed and twisted and experimented and EVOLVED over the years. Any of you remember back in the mid- to late-nineties when creative lettering was my niche? I l-o-v-e-d creative lettering. I spent years doing plenty of creative artwork and layout design. Most of you are familiar with my sketches. Another niche. You’re the ones wondering when I’m going to share more. : )
Here’s the thing. In my personal evolution, I’ve had babies. I’ve grown busier. I spend more time outside of myself, and more time serving my family as well as those outside my family. I am equally passionate about scrapbooking as I have always been. Only now I am so, so, so much more practical in my approach. I spend way less hours putting together layouts. All the adorable accents, cool gadgets, and detailed techniques? They’re fun, but I simply don’t prioritize that in my life right now.
Bottom line: This is how I scrapbook now: Project Life. (See pictured sketch above.) Drop the pictures in. Add my journaling. Done. Photos and stories. That’s it. That’s the way I like it. I’m very, very comfortable with the system I’ve settled into and kinda wish all my books from the past 17 years were like this. Honestly. Although, believe me — I appreciate all of those stages and niches and all that resulted from thousands of hours pouring my heart into this hobby.
I still sketch. Only it’s not so much for scrapbook page design. It’s more for product design and web design and things like that. I am so grateful to know my sketches have helped in some way. I appreciate your kind notes and requests. I am just not in that mode of artistic scrapbook pages these days.
I’m in the mode of simplifying. I like helping others to simplify as well.
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Alright. Enough of that. Let’s open up this post to more of your questions. Go for it. : )
Tags: Project Life, sketches
Posted in Q&A, scrapbooking | 82 Comments »
Monday, July 26th, 2010
I’m getting this question a lot:
What do you do with your travel pictures? Do you do a photobook, photo album, layout? Please tell me because I don’t know where to put all the pictures I take in my travels.
 (Taken in the Big Bear Lake, CA area where we recently went for a family reunion.)
————–
It’s an excellent question and on a lot of our minds … so let’s talk about it.
I’ll tell you what I do (you’re going to get a healthy dose of my personal scrapbooking philosophy) and I invite you to share what you do with your vacation/travel photos. Everyone needs to do what feels right for them. Do what works for you, not what you think you “should” do because you’ve seen so-and-so do it that way. Let’s just share ideas and inspire each other, right? Right.
WHAT I USED TO DO. For years and years and years, this was my system: After traveling somewhere I would add that trip to my list of layouts-to-do. It was right there on my handy-dandy list right along with birthdays and holidays and momentous occasions and school pictures and … you name it. Anything and everything I wanted to scrapbook went on this list. I’m an organizer. That’s what I do. When time allowed, I would get around to creating those layouts, one at a time. This layouts-to-do list was always long and I never felt like I could get where I wanted to be, which is current.
WHY THIS NO LONGER WORKS FOR ME. I have this innate need to feel like I’m on top of my pictures. As a lifetime scrapbooker, I was finding it impossible to keep up with my wishful thinking of countless layouts. I wanted to play with my kids instead of spend gobs and gobs of time putting layouts together. I enjoy the art – don’t get me wrong – but it can be oh-so-time-consuming. We all know it. So my list got longer and longer and I wasn’t actually doing any scrapbooking with our pictures — travel and otherwise.
I evolved in my philosophy and approach to scrapbooking. I evolved to a place that is do-able. Realistic. Fun. Focused. And my pictures? I’m scrapbooking them. My list? I’m so over that.
WHAT I DO NOW. Pardon the shameless plug, but I have two words – Project Life. This is how it works for travel pictures: We go somewhere. We come back. I go through our pictures, narrow down, and organize them in our iPhoto library. And then … I choose one picture per day to represent our travel. I add that to our ongoing Project Life book (I personally prefer the digital version). Those travel pictures receive equal treatment to every other picture that goes in our book. That amazing hundreds-of-years-old building we saw? Just as important as Crew learning to feed himself, Claire lining up her stuffed animals for a tea party, Porter losing a tooth, the vegetables we pulled out of the garden, the friends we hang out with.
The little stuff in life is just as important as, if not more important than, the big stuff. It should all be included in telling our life story.
WHY THIS WORKS FOR ME. I am a practical woman. Like really, truly practical. I try to do what makes the most sense and feels right. So for me – for our family - we now have our pictures and stories actually being recorded and preserved in a format we can enjoy, instead of making a list of scrapbook pages I’d like to do “someday”. If you see me in person and ask about it, you’ll have a hard time shutting me up because I am that passionate about the system and its ease and its flexibility. I want this to help so many people (scrapbookers and non-scrapbookers alike) because it has helped me.
WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF THE PICTURES? I knew you’d ask. : ) We took a lot of pictures on our recent trip to Finland. After narrowing down, I have exactly 573 pictures that are now stored in iPhoto. Will I scrapbook all of those? Of course not. Would that be nice? Sure. Is it realistic? Heck no. There are thousands and thousands of pictures in our iPhoto library that aren’t being scrapbooked. I’m over it. Sometimes we browse through our pictures on the computer. Sometimes we incorporate our favorites into our home decor. Sometimes we share random pictures with loved ones. Sometimes we make iMovies with the pictures. There are so many other ways to enjoy photographs outside of actual scrapbooks.
ABOUT THAT LIST. Going back to what I said about “do what works for you” — I do realize that there are many of my readers who are true-blue-traditional-layout scrapbookers. I love that. For those of you in that category who are also list-makers and who would be interested in keeping an ongoing list like I mentioned (because it works for you), I’m happy to share that list format again:
So … what works for you?
Tags: big bear lake, philosophy
Posted in organization, scrapbooking, travel | 63 Comments »
Tuesday, July 13th, 2010
I know many of you are anxious to know when Project Life will be available again. An appointment is finally set for Amazon to receive the shipment on Thursday which means … Project Life is expected to be available THS WEEK, probably on Thursday or Friday.
Say hello to Candace and Ross who live in Indiana (gorgeous couple, aren’t they?):
Here is part of an email Candace sent to me:
“I got married on January 1st of this year and Ross (my husband) and I are loving documenting our first year of marriage! Ross has taken an awesome interest in the project too, taking pictures of his daily activities and journaling at least 2 or 3 of the days each week. Without fail, every weekend he asks if he can go get our “pictures of the day” printed! It’s been so much fun. Not only have we already been able to document our wedding and honeymoon during this year’s project life, but we have a lot of big milestones coming up this year too! This book will be something we both cherish for the remainder of our married life because we will be able to remember all those special moments from our first year together in such an awesome way!”
I’d like to extend a special THANK YOU to Jan in Indianapolis. Who’s Jan? Jan Gerbers is Candace’s sister and the one who gave Project Life to the new couple. Candace is just entering the world of scrapbooking and I’m so, so, so pleased that she’s entering with Project Life.
I’ve heard from many other readers who have given the gift of Project Life as wedding gifts and graduation gifts and I just want to let you know how much I appreciate that. You are truly giving a gift that will keep on giving. Project Life can start any time, any season, at any age or stage.
Here’s the thing.
Scrapbooking can get a bad reputation. There are so many who view this wonderful hobby as one that requires a lot of time and creativity and even money, right? I don’t blame them for thinking that. Scrapbooking can be that. But it doesn’t have to be. They are the reason — and you are the reason — that I created Project Life. So that anyone who would like a beautiful scrapbook can achieve that WITHOUT all the time and creativity and money.
Project Life is scrapbooking in the simplest form.
So think about your friends and family members. Think about who you know that could really benefit from knowing about Project Life and give them the heads-up that this week they’ll be available again. When they sell out, they are gone until we release the next edition later this year. My blog is the place for the most current information. I’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, what questions might you have about Project Life? Ask me here in the comments. Be sure to check out the Project Life FAQ section here too, as your question might already be addressed.
And remember — the digital version of Project Life doesn’t run out. Anyone can try that out for free, any time.
Tags: gift idea, newlyweds, Project Life
Posted in giving, products, scrapbooking | 17 Comments »
Saturday, July 3rd, 2010
Scrapbooking isn’t in every little corner of the world, of course, but it is very wide-spread and very much a passion for many, all over the world. I love that. I love that this desire to do something with our photos, record our memories, and express creativity through scrapbooking is shared with so many … in Finland, South Africa, New Zealand, Chile, Japan, United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Australia …
These 3 women – Linda, Outi, and her daughter Heini – are a few of my parents’ many new friends there in Finland. They also happen to be scrapbookers. It was a pleasure to stop by their scrapbook gathering to say hi on one of the evenings while we were there.
I noticed Sanna’s comment in yesterday’s post and wanted to briefly address the concern she expressed about so many disappointed Finns not knowing that I was coming. First of all, I send big hugs. I know I would have loved meeting all of you.
You should know that I made a very thoughtful, intentional decision a few years ago to stop traveling for work. I haven’t been teaching classes, doing book signings, or making appearances since then.
That said, David and I went to Finland to experience Finland, to spend time with my parents, and to enjoy a getaway together. My reason for the brief visit to this scrapbook gathering was 100% personal. It was not about who I am or what I do or promoting my brand or selling products or any of that. It was because a few of these women and their families have become so dear to my parents over the past year. We wanted to stop by and say hi, but they kept it on the down-low because they weren’t even 100% sure if I was going to come. They were very respectful of our vacation time. I love them for that.
(I love them even more for so many other reasons. We ended up spending more time with Outi and Heini and their lovely family at their summer cottage and it was just remarkable. David and I will always be grateful for their generosity and examples of being completely lovely and inviting and genuine.)
It’s also worth noting that these ladies wanted to have a smaller, more intimate gathering. They didn’t want it to be any bigger than it was and they didn’t make any money doing this. I was so touched that they put this together purely to share their love of scrapbooking with others in the area and to create an opportunity for these women to connect on this level.
Tags: Finland, scrapbookers
Posted in scrapbooking, travel | 15 Comments »
Friday, May 21st, 2010
I wanted to re-cap this whole school scrapbook project and give you an overview of the concept and the layouts.
- This is not a product I sell. I’ve just been sharing the files all school year, one month at a time, here on my blog. If you want to obtain those files for future use, do a search for school layout and you should be able to find them. (See the right side of my blog for the search field.)
- It’s a super-duper simple format that is easy for young children to do. I wanted their creativity to shine in the art and handwriting, not the scrapbooking supplies or techniques.
- Porter’s teacher and I came up with a theme for each month and that’s how I determined which pictures I would take. They were: first day of school, centers, library, recess, lunch, computer lab, classroom party, field day, class play, and friends.
- Doing this project with the kids gave me an opportunity to be in Porter’s classroom at least twice a month. Once to take the pictures and once to scrapbook with them. At this age, he still thinks it’s cool when mom comes into the classroom. I’m totally taking advantage of this sweet attitude before it changes. : )
- I prepped everything ahead of time. When I went in to scrapbook with the kids I gave each child their pictures and page elements all ready in their individual baggies.
- The end result is a scrapbook that shows the child’s growth in a school year. It’s a wonderful little keepsake that will showcase their art, their improving writing skills, and of course pictures and memories from the school year.
           
Tags: kids, personal yearbook, school
Posted in DIY, family & children, scrapbooking | 17 Comments »
Thursday, May 20th, 2010
For those of you who have been sticking with it and doing monthly layouts with school children, GOOD FOR YOU. I hope you haven’t completely relied on my file-sharing to create you books with the kids since I haven’t been able to make it my no. 1 priority to post those ahead of each month. In any case, here are the April layout and May layout files … in case it helps anyone.
The theme for April was their little play they put on.
The theme for May was friendship. It’s hard to believe another school year is over.
And for the last page of the book, we did a simple list of what the classroom rules were for the the school year and a silly picture of the whole class.
When I did these pages with the kids last week, I emphasized the significance of that last page, which is this: When we follow rules and help others and show courtesy and choose the right in general, that’s how we can have the best time and the greatest happiness.
In school and in life.
Amen. : )
The files are PDFs. I’m having issues with the Word and Pages documents so if you want to adapt these last few pages for your own project, just work from one of the previous month’s files.
april.labels
april.page.1
april.page.2
may.labels
may.page.1
may.page.2
class.rules
class.rules.labels
Tags: april, kids, may, personal yearbook, school
Posted in DIY, family & children, scrapbooking | 13 Comments »
Thursday, April 1st, 2010
Forget about April Fools Day. (Never loved the made-up holiday anyway.) Let’s make today … Project Life Resolution Day!
For anyone who might be new around here (hello, hello!), Project Life is all about keeping a photo + story documentation of your life … without stressing over what a lot of folks don’t love about scrapbooking. It’s simplicity at its finest. Learn more here.
Note: Yes, we sold out. Yes, we’re making more. More kits should be available next month. The digital version is available to anyone, any time, anywhere … and completely free to create a book online. You only pay if/when you’re ready to have us print a book for you.
Now. For all of you who are already doing Project Life … let’s assess where we are, shall we? In the spirit of motivation, let’s talk about it. I’m going to guess that some of you are not skipping a beat. Perhaps you’re totally on top of taking a picture and jotting a note or two of journaling every single day. Kudos to you! Or maybe you’re doing a different version instead of the picture-a-day concept. You’re doing a handful of favorite photos of your baby each month and you’re able to stay on top of those layouts. Or you’re taking a different approach and doing a topic at a time for each layout. Like snow adventures. Family dinners. Spring Break. Around our home. Neighbors. School. Whatever you’re doing. GOOD FOR YOU. Keep it up!
My focus today, is really more for those of you who are doing Project Life but perhaps you’ve fallen a little behind where you’d like to be with your project. Welcome to my club. That’s me too. (Feel better?)
I don’t want anyone feeling like this has become a chore at all. After all, the whole point of Project Life (besides the documentation) is to have fun with it! And while you’re capturing slices of your life, a little here and a little there, no matter what your frequency … you should be more aware of the blessings in your life. More aware of how cool your life is. How much you love your family. How unique and truly wonderful you are.
I want to share something with you. Kerrin in Ontario, Canada emailed me recently because she had an a-ha moment. With her permission, here is part of her email:
Kerrin writes: I decided to do this POTD thing for the same reasons other people take on this project. I wanted to capture my family’s day to day life and I was ready for a break from traditional scrapbooking. So I have been faithfully taking a picture and journaling its significance daily. It had become another chore on my list each day. Until today. I realized that this isn’t just about completing a task. This is about appreciating our life and all it has to offer. It is about really seeing the beauty and joy in each and every day. It is about sharing these joys with my family. And it is about teaching my 4 year old daughter that every day is full of gifts and it is important to honour those gifts. Funny, I think that she “got it” before I did. She has been suggesting ideas for POTD and even taking a few herself. Another gift that this project has given me. So thank you Becky! Thank you for creating this kit. For making it so easy that I don’t need to spend tones of time on it. Instead I can use that time to live in the moments we are capturing each and every day.
Okay. Hello. Kerrin gets it completely. I love that.
So let’s move on to a plan of action. A Project Life Resolution. If you’ve fallen a little behind with the pace you want to keep with your own project, how do you catch up? I’ll share what I’m doing. And then, as always, I invite you to share your own input in the Comments.
I’m taking a picture a day. Zero problems with that. I keep all the daily images in a folder on my desktop labeled 2010 POTD. I am doing the digital version. Ideally I’d be going online and spending 5 quick minutes to sign into my account, upload the new picture, and write my quick journaling blurb. But since I’ve fallen several weeks behind, this is what I’m doing:
Most days lately, I am adding my POTD and writing my journaling … plus … I spend an extra 20 minutes or so going back and doing a full week that I still need to do. So every day I’m not only staying current (so as to not fall further behind) but I’m catching up on a full week because really, it’s only like 20-30 minutes a day. I can do that. I want to do that. I want to get back on track so that I’m back to a daily 5-minute routine. And now, because I’ve been prioritizing and doing this, I’m just about caught up again. Feels so good. Feels so good telling my family’s story and keeping these snippets of our life in a book.
Okay. Your turn. What are you doing to stay caught up? What tips do you have to share with others?
PS: Don’t forget that we have a new Project Life Gallery up & running now. Check out others’ photography & full layouts for Project Life inspiration at your fingertips.
Tags: digital Project Life, Project Life
Posted in scrapbooking | 54 Comments »
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010
My blog is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.
One day I’m talking about organizing a bathroom closet, then it’s sharing free downloads to make a book with your kids’ class at school, then it’s a mushy topic like showing love, and then on to bacon. Bacon! But then it’s a health-related topic. And then I’m doing some give-away for fun. And talking about how to nurture creativity in our children. And paying tribute to photography. Then answering your random questions about … everything random.
(If you missed the bacon post, it’s here.)
So … yeah. I’m pretty random. Just the way I like it. But I’m guessing what brought a lot of you here in the first place is scrapbooking.
So let’s talk about scrapbooking for a minute. Specifically, let’s talk about scrapbooking SYSTEMS. The numero uno thing I want to say, and I believe most scrapbookers who work in the scrapbooking industry would also say this … is that there is not one, end-all-be-all approach that works for everyone. We all agree on that, right? Good? Good. Okay.
And that’s precisely why this is such a fun discussion.
The second thing I want to say is that the reason I’m bringing this up now is because I’m having a hard look at my own system right now. Reflecting on what I’ve done for the past 15 years and thinking about my personal evolution in the organization of it all.
My approach is different than yours. And your approach is different than your sister-in-law’s. And her approach is different than … okay, you get it. So let’s get to it. I’ll share with you where I am with my SYSTEM right now. These are some of our ongoing chronological albums.
I transitioned from doing these “traditional” (whatever that means) scrapbooks for our family albums in 2009. Since then, I have been preserving our family’s story with the Project Life format, which has been very liberating and really fun. Now, with the addition of the digital version that we launched for 2010, I am doing one digital Project Life book each year now. This will be our annual family yearbook and I will make copies for each of the kids. (they’re very thin books, so space is no longer a concern as it is with big albums).
Okay, so on to the kids. And the “big albums” I’m referring to. This is where I still do scrapbooking in the “traditional” paper sense.
Porter’s albums are green.
Claire’s albums are yellow.
Crew’s albums are blue.
All albums (including the red family ones) are from We R Memory Keepers.
The main reason I am keeping the kids’ books like this is because kids have stuff. The stuff needs to go somewhere. Plus, let’s be honest. Scrapbooking is just in my blood. I gotta do it. I enjoy it. Just in smaller doses than I used to. That’s why I feel really, really good about our family stories being in a different format now.
I spent years and years deeply engrossed in the creative side of scrapbooking. Now, 3 kids later, I still enjoy keeping scrapbooks for each of our kids. My pages are simple. I still get to play with pretty papers and fun letter stickers and I still enjoy the art of putting a complete layout together. But I keep it really simple. My main purpose in doing books for my children isn’t to feed my creative spirit. (Although that’s certainly a fun side effect.) It’s to record their story and tell them how loved and valued they are. It’s to document their milestones, achievements, struggles, friends, excursions, family history, and education.
Lately, however … as in the past several months, I haven’t touched scrapbooking stuff. It’s been on the back burner. It’s been a busy season and I’ve been perfectly okay letting stuff pile up a bit.
I have just been sticking items on top of the albums lately. The pile is patiently waiting for me to organize and put away in albums. And I will. I can sense those creative juices flowing just a bit. I can tell that I’m ready to do a few layouts. Still need to finish Crew’s first year (one layout per month — still love that system) and I have a few school layouts to do for Porter’s and Claire’s books.
Here’s the bottom line for my CORE SYSTEM:
[ one ] Each child has a chronological, ongoing series of scrapbooks. The big-picture goal is that each child will have about 6-7 albums total that will cover their entire childhood, from birth through high school. My school kit will be the backbone of this system and create natural flow throughout the albums.
[ two ] I am doing an online family yearbook of each calendar year (Project Life) and printing copies for each child and for us to keep here at home. Right now I’m keeping up with a-picture-a-day and I love it. The big-picture goal is that everyone will have a series of skinny yearbooks representing our family life.
Okay, your turn. If you have a system of keeping memories & photos & stories that you want to share — because it really works for you — please do share with us. Give us the bottom line CORE SYSTEM. Can’t wait to learn from you!
Tags: albums, Project Life, scrapbooking system
Posted in organization, scrapbooking | 79 Comments »
Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010
I recently had the chance to chat and chat and chat about all sorts of stuff — starting a business, the theory behind Project Life, the evolution of personal style, how I feel about scrapbooking, etc. This conversation with Amy Coon (The Paper Life) is on her blog. I get pretty passionate in the interview. Sweet Amy hardly got a word in at times. ; )
Click HERE to listen.
Tags: amy coon, interview, the paper life
Posted in Q&A, scrapbooking | 8 Comments »
Monday, February 22nd, 2010
February’s theme for the kids’ scrapbooks: Classroom parties! Our specific focus – and the POTM (photo of the month) – was from the classroom’s Valentines party earlier in the month.
Here’s a completed layout:
Those of you who have been doing this project know that I keep it simple. I usually give the kids strips that either go across the top of the layout or on the sides. I’m usually throwing the layout components together at the last-minute so keeping is simple isn’t just my style. It’s also due to time constraints.
Anyway — decided to take a few extra minutes this time and do some free-hand-giant-scallop-cutting on the strips. Just take those scissors and cut a couple at a time. Scoop, scoop, scoop. Keep it irregular for a whimsical look.
Pink for girls. Red for boys. Our theme was Valentines, after all.
Here are the files in 3 different formats:
february.page.1.doc
february.page.2.doc
february.labels.doc
february.page.1.pages
february.page.2.pages
february.labels.pages
february.page.1.pdf
february.page.2.pdf
february.labels.pdf
Tags: kids, personal yearbook, school
Posted in DIY, family & children, scrapbooking | 1 Comment »
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