One of My Favorite Timesaving Tools

Here is a page I made about Izzy. I was just so thrilled with it that I wanted to share it and tell how I created it:



I've had the idea in my head for awhile --- the concept of a page showing the changes that Izzy has gone through the last few years. I wasn't sure how I was going translate the concept from a mere idea to a page. With the demands of my busy days and a gaggle of children, I rely a lot on tools that save me time and frustration.

Digital templates are one such tool. They are simple to use and so helpful when you need to speed up your scrapping. When I'm needing to get a page done quick, a template is my go-to solution. The very best part of using templates is that they are great for both traditional and digital scrapbookers.

The page I did of Izzy (shown above) is an example of how to whip up a quick digital page. I chose to work with one of Heather T's Tuesday Templates because I thought the four slots for pictures would work well to show the progression of time. It took me about 15 minutes to choose pictures and mask them (i.e. force them to conform to) the photo slots on the page. I did a bit of manipulation with the elements on the template; I moved some stuff around, added extra copies of the flower jewels, placed borders in a few places, and added a title and some journaling. While I am not the fastest scrapper, I managed to get this layout done during my children's naptime. It was great to complete a page with just a short window of time...and it turned out so pretty (well, at least I think it is...;D).

Here is a link to a great tutorial on how to use a template in PhotoShop/Photoshop Elements, which was put together by Jessica Sprague (please note that she created this video for Creating Keepsakes; I just linked it here rather than from the CK site for convenience). It really doesn't take a lot of time to learn your way around a template and make it work for you.

Now, since I was a paper scrapper for years before taking the plunge into digital, I've been wanting to try out a template on a traditional page. Just yesterday, I decided to see if I could crank out a hybrid page around one of my crazy days (and yesterday was plenty crazy...I think my youngest had about 6 or 7 tantrums). Besides the template, I pledged also to use only paper and supplies I had in my rather large scrapping stash.

In the photo below, you can see that I chose a typical Independence Day palette of red, white, and blue, with a piece of kraft cardstock thrown in. I also picked out a Provo Craft paper I think I've had in my supplies now for about 8 years. It's called "Warm and Wooly," and I still love it even though it's no longer a trendy item. It has a little white dashes in a circular shape that I think are supposed to mimic snowflakes, but I thought they could also pass as little exploding fireworks. I also quickly grabbed a few buttons that I thought would match.




What I did next was create a custom template in Photoshop Elements (PSE) to plop my photos into. My template will work exactly like the one in the previous tutorial. It is tons easier than trying to manually crop my photos with a paper trimmer --- blech! This is an idea that I snagged from Cathy Zielske. Here is Cathy's video tutorial on how to create your own template in PSE (again, I'm skipping the link to Ali Edwards' blog and just linking to the video itself --- I would suggest fast forwarding about 40 seconds to get right to the tutorial).

Once I create my grid, it takes about 10 minutes to select photos, mask them into each space in the template, touch up and resize them to fit the squares. I created the title with digital elements (blue paper, red scallop, and chipboard letters and numbers). I left one square blank so I could adhere some of that cute "Warm and Wooly" paper. From there, I print out my this grouping of pictures onto photo paper. I then cut out the grid, making sure I have an even margin around the outside. I mounted this large block of photos onto the kraft cardstock, and then the navy blue.



I then typed up my journaling block seperately in PSE, and printed it onto a scrap of the kraft paper. Then, the red scallops were placed(they were cut from the patterned paper), and added the buttons. I had regular tan buttons on there at first, but then saw the stars and decided they fit in better with the theme of the page. Not too shabby, eh?

The cool thing about making your own templates for photos is that you are not just limited to squares or rectangles. You can do any combination of shapes you want using the shape tool in PSE. The software allows you to create circles, triangles, or any number of polygons. All of those shapes can be used as masks. Just to illustrate, here's a page I did using triangles:



So here is my verdict on creating a hybrid page: it did take longer for me than when I do one strictly digital. That may have been just because I haven't done a page that combines both in awhile. Part of the extra time was spent in fixing things that were crooked, gluing elements, and making sure all my traditional supplies fit correctly. I can't really do too much resizing with real paper and embellishments. Honestly, though, doing it hybrid is still faster for me than doing it strictly traditional because resizing the pictures and putting them into a template saves lots of time!

Most of my time on this project was spent arranging elements and ruling the ones out that I decided not to use. This is where I am particularly slow, but it's OK. I still got it done in just part of a day; I worked on it in the late afternoon/early evening in between interruptions and the everyday stuff I had to get done. The layout was finished shortly after dinnertime.

I don't know how often I'll do hybrid pages at this point, but I enjoyed it so much that I can't wait to do more of them once my kids become less dependent on me.

So anyways, I hope you enjoyed seeing me go through the motions on both types of pages. If you are not a template user, I encourage you to try them out! Jessica Sprague teaches great classes on how to use Photoshop/PSE and you can easily learn some basic skills there even if you aren't interested in switching completely to digtal pages. Additionally, Sande Krieger offers free digital tutorials over on the Two Peas digital board. Both are worth checking out (the links to these sites are found in my sidebar).

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!
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To Each, Their Own

A few months back, I read a really interesting post on Two Peas. The topic of the thread was, in essence, "traditional vs. digital scrapbooking." Here is the link to the actual thread if you would like to read through it. For the most part, I thought a lot of those who replied to the original post were polite and had constructive things to say. There were some snarky remarks about digital scrapbooking, but some wise rebuttals were posted concerning the unkind things that were said. Here are two of my favorite replies:

"It's just disappointing when, as hobbyists who all enjoy the same hobby, we have this "us against them" mentality...Even if creating a certain style of page isn't for me - I can find something to like in every layout, if only the heart behind it (posted by WriterMom1)."


"From what I can see from hanging out both on this board as well as the digi board, strict paper scrappers tend to be a lot more hostile toward the concept of digi than vice versa. I say just go with what you like (posted by StreetScrapper)!"


All I can say to that is amen, girls! It seems like when I first started scrapbooking, those who were into it were mostly thrilled by idea of creating pages and having a more creative way to showcase their pictures. Most hobbyists focused on their own work and didn't care how different their stuff was from someone else's. Currently, in some circles inside the scrapbooking world, it seems that there's not much room for personal preference or diversity.

It's not just digital scrapbooking that comes under fire; page size, paper and product lines, your style (or a defined lack thereof), etc. are also subjects that are debated hotly from time to time.

We live in a world that offers us a myriad of choices everyday, and we all have our preferences, so I think it's perfectly logical to choose the things we like and that work for us. I mean honestly, most people aren't going to hotly debate the paper, plastic, or bring your own" grocery bags issue with their neighbors. It seems just as silly to insist that your friend take up a hobby like knitting because you enjoy it. The friend might prefer woodcrafts to making things with yarn, and as long as both of you are happy, the two don't have to enjoy the same things. It's fine to have our own way of doing things, while respecting others and their right to do the same.

I see scrapbooking in the same way. All of us don't have to like the same method for getting it done (whether traditional or digital), use the same embellishments, or use the same page size. A few years back, I used to get caught up in discussing page size with other scrappers. I am an 8.5 x 11 scrapper in a sea of 12 inch page fans. In some ways, I felt a bit like I had to defend my position. I finally realizedthat debating page size is silly, since I like what I like and other scrappers like what they like. It counterproductive to talk someone out of something they like and makes the most sense for them. A more valid discussion might be to talk about the advantages of different page sizes, products and so on.

Last fall, I took Cathy Zielske's "Design Your Life" class over at Big Picture Scrapbooking. Throughout the course, we did pages in a variety of page sizes: 12 x 12, 8.5 x 11, 8 x 8, and 6 x 6. Here is sampling of the layouts I did (all of these are lifts of Cathy Zielske's class samples, and Melissa Gaston created the digital templates I used to create these pages, so the design ideas belong to them). The only thing I take credit for are the paper and embellishment choices:































In the above pages, there are two of the square pages that are 8 x 8, and the others are 12 inch, but I did more of each size; these are few examples. I was pleasantly surprised to find as I did each page that it was fun switching things up. It also taught me that size is just a number, and there was not a huge difference in the pages unless I went from one of the larger sizes down to 6 x 6.

One of the most helpful discoveries I made while I took the class was that if I really, really wanted to do a 12 inch page, but didn't want to invest in a 12 inch album, I could make my page that size and then print it out as an 8 x 8 page. Photoshop Elements allows me to print it in the smaller size so that I can still fit it in my 8.5 x 11 album with my rectangular pages.

I also wanted to comment on the whole "digi vs. traditional" pages. Here's where I am on the spectrum right now. I will always love paper scrapping and the "hands on" aspect of it. The dimension and texture of traditional scrapping will always be superior in the "tactile" sense. I don't think I'll ever completely abandon my paper stash.

Honestly, speaking, though, paper scrapping doesn't fit into my life right now. Since I've become a mom, I have a hard time digging through my traditional supplies. I get interrupted too much, forget what I was looking for after my kids needed me for something, and the mess created from it gets to overwhelming and a real hassle to deal with. The kids create enough messes (even though I make them help clean up), and I don't want to deal with any more clutter than I have to.

Additionally, while I used to view my trips to the scrapbook store as a release and stress reliever, there are just days when I'm too tired to drag myself down there. Trying to concentrate on how many pieces of cardstock I need or what colors I should be getting currently doesn't seem very palatable, and I loathe running out of adhesive.

With digital scrapping, I can buy a kit once, and reuse the papers and embellishments as many times as I need. If I need to go shopping, I can go online and shop for anything I want, pretty much 24/7. I can stay in my PJs and buy things while I sit at the kitchen table. Since there's no gluing, I never run out of adhesive, and if I accidentally put something in the wrong place, I don't have to pry it off.

I would also go crazy trying to figure out what to do if I ran out of a letter I wanted for my title or captions. It always felt like such a waste to buy a whole sheet of letter stickers, have half of them leftover, but yet unusable unless I bought another full sheet to make up for the vowels or consonants I've already used up. This is one issue that virtually disappears when I create digital pages.

I like having everything (i.e. photos, digital kits, etc.) on my laptop. I don't have to get out/and put away so much anymore because I can leave a project half finished on the computer without worrying that someone will get into it. Because of this, I whip through pages much faster than I used to.

I don't find that I miss real texture created on traditional pages so much anymore. Using drop shadows, textures, filters and effects in Photoshop Elements are all things that help me create implied texture on my digi pages. According to principles I've learned in art classes, texture is texture whether it's real or implied, so that's good enough for me personally.

I think most people who read over my reasons can see why they are compelling enough for me to be doing my scrapping this way for now. It may not be what suits them, but I think most could see my point of view. I think that's the key here --- we can at least appreciate another person's point of view.

Am I telling you that I will never again use my paper supplies? Nope. Someday I will return to it --- although I will probably be more of a hybrid scrapper instead of a strictly paper one. I plan to use the stash I've got so far, partly because I love the stuff I've got and party because I want to be frugal and make the best use of it that I can. My return to consistenly paper scrapping won't occur for a few years, until all of my kids hit elementary school. By that time, they will be less needy and I will have time during the day to get into my stash without so many interruptions. I'm sure my preferences for scrapping at that time will be different than they are now.

So until then, I'm going to enjoy my digital scrapbooking, dabble in paper occasionally, and be respectful of other scrappers and their preferences. To each, their own.
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My Latest Pages

It's time for some shameless page sharing! I cannot tell you how nice it is to have my scrapbooking activities back to a regular occurance instead of a sporaidic one. Let me show you what I've been working on lately.

Here are the most recent pages I've done for Heather T's creative team. These are pages for kits she has for sale over at Pixel Canvas. I used the "Painted Corners and Dividers," "Country Dream," and "The Softer Side" kits:








Heather also got a designer gig over at Gotta Pixel, another online store with great digital goodies (yea!), so here's some pages I did with paper and embellies from her "How It Works" kit:






I was also pretty excited to see that Heather had posted about her new creative team here and to see that I am part of such a great team. I'm so lucky ---thank you, Heather!

And, last but not least, here is my July 12 of 12 page:



If you've made it this far, thanks for letting me share my work and have a great day!
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Use the Stash #1: A Simple Calendar

From time to time, I'd like to share how I'm using the supplies I've stockpiled so far. As scrapbookers, we do tend to do a lot of "collecting," sometimes more than we do our actual creating. My goal is to seriously shrink down my stash and use the supplies I've purchased with hard-earned money.

Now that I know how to digi-scrap, I'd like to use those skills and the paper and supplies I have on hand to create more hybrid projects.

Here is one such project:



This past year in school, Izzy, my kindergartner would bring home a calendar she made in class. At the start of each new month, she would show me her simple creation, made on a big piece of construction paper that was adorned with her artwork. She was always excited to show us what she did on each of them, and expressed more interest in learning the days of the week. I was pleasantly surprised to watch her learn how to correctly identify the current date. All we did was put her calendar up on her bedroom wall, and she took it from there.

When school got out a few weeks ago, she asked if she could make a calendar during the short time she had off. I knew somewhere in my digital stash, I had a calendar grid, so I went digging and found the one shown above. It was part of the goodies I got when I bought Jessica Sprague's Computer Tricks 3.

I kept the whole thing pretty straightforward. I saved a copy of the grid and deleted the extra layers I didn't need, printed it in Photoshop Elements, and let Izzy fill in the numbers on each day. She then colored her own picture for the top portion of the calendar, and she glued the picture to one piece of construction paper and the grid to another. We taped the two pieces together, and we were done. Using the construction paper also helped us get into a stash of art supplies I have for the kids to use, which has also gone untouched for quite awhile.

This isn't a groundbreaking idea or anything, but I forget sometimes that I don't have to use my scrapping supplies just for pages or cards. I thought it turned out very cute! And, if it helps my daughter learn a little along the way, then that's great,too.

Thanks for stopping by...:)
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Showing More of Ourselves in Our Scrapbooks: Documenting the Peaks and Valleys of Life

I really enjoyed this past Mother's Day. The kids are getting old enough to understand why we have the holiday, they get excited to give gifts and cards, and love coming upstairs to watch me open them. Their attention spans are longer now and they appreciate family togetherness more, so it was fun for me to create this page about our day together:



I love creating the "happy" layouts! I do feel it's important to document optimism, family togetherness, and everything that's good. But, honestly, I feel equally compelled to make pages about things like this:



It's not the most popular choice amongst scrapbookers to show the unpleasant realities of life in their albums. Some people have questioned why I would create a page about things my kids do that bother me. They have said they don't want to focus on the difficult things, and that the positive should only be accentuated. I do think being positive is important in our pages, but I see no reason why the "rosey" parts of our lives should completely dominate them.

I'll tell you one reason I feel this way. I overheard a conversation once --- I believe it was right before Christmas one year. There was a small group of ladies in an aerobics class I was taking, and before class started, they were discussing things that were hard for them about the holidays. One of the things they lamented was receiving the yearly Christmas letters from family and friends. They were talking about how weary they were of hearing about their friends "perfect" life, their "perfect" children, who were "perfect" in all their extra-curriculars, their "perfect" houses, and etc. These gals said additionally, that they didn't believe those who said everything in their lives were "stunning" and "always ideal."

I thought about what was being said and decided there was some truth to it. Making things appear perfect isn't always interesting. Sometimes, it can also come off as fake and insincere.

So, a few years later, when I discovered scrapping, I decided I would try to present a balanced view as I created my albums. While I don't believe that our scrapbooks need to have a gloomy tone, I think it's acceptable and even important to show that our lives have peaks and valleys. There are wonderful times, and then there those days when things are rough.

I made a choice to document our difficulties because I want my kids to see that life is not always smooth sailing. I think it will be a great teaching tool for them. They need to see that tough times in our life can be overcome and can teach us important lessons. I hope that by showing how we worked our way through the rough patches, we became better as individuals and families.

So how does one create a page on a hard subject? By being tactfully honest, which to me, means:

-speaking from your heart (as corny as that sounds)
-writing about what you've learned during your experience
-ensuring that your content is tasteful and not offensive
-not sharing any information that has been told to you in confidence

As I have applied these guidelines, it has helped me make layouts that tell the not-so-happy story with sensitivity.

For example, before my husband and I adopted our kids, we had a long, arduous battle with infertility. We had made the decision to file adoption papers and have me receive fertility treatments at the same time. There came a point when we knew we had had enough pills, needles, and doctor appointments, and that we were done with the medical aspect of trying to have children.

At that point, I made an album documenting my experience with infertility and the loss of having my own biological children. One of the reasons I did this was to provide a way for me to say goodbye to that dream. It helped me mourn the loss and enabled me to embrace the idea of adoption. One of the layouts I did was a goodbye letter to my biological child, the one I wouldn't ever get to hold in my arms:




When the album was finished, I realized that it has also served as a catharsis. Creating it had enabled me to feel my sad feelings and move on with my life. And, on those days when I still feel the grief and long for that dream child, I read through the album once more, touch the pages, and cry. It has turned out to be a work that continues to heal and comfort me.

The album is too big to share in its entirety here, so if you wish to see more, then you can see it at my gallery over at Two Peas.

Whew! That was a lot to say! I hope that something I wrote today will get you thinking about what you share in your layouts, and inspire you to show the peaks and the valleys.

Have a good day!
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