In today’s episode for the Premium Subscribers I share an album I made to showcase my children’s handmade gifts over the years for Mother’s Day. I share some tricks for including those items that aren’t exactly easy to put into an album.

If you’d like to learn more about the premium membership so you can have access to all of the videos, click here.

Do you have a bare album waiting for you to dress it up? Do you want to cover it while I cover mine?

Join me on Tuesday night for Paperclipping Live and we’ll do it together. You’ll have the example of the album you see above, as well as the one I’ll be covering during the live show.

What you’ll need:

Bare Album (American Crafts Modern or BoBunny both make them)
Patterned paper (one full sheet, plus scraps if desired)
Title (Choose between letter stickers, stamped letters, pre-made titles, etc.)
Focal point item (examples are an over-sized flower, a frame, a metal plate; on the album above I used a ceramic tile piece which also serves as my title; an attractive title can also be the focal point).
Coordinating embellishments (rub-on’s, stickers, stamps, chipboard items, ribbons, flowers, etc).
Optional: Paint, gesso, gel medium.
Sandpaper
PVA adhesive (or whatever you prefer to adhere the patterned paper to the cover; many like Modpodge)
Scissors
Pencil
Brayer or rolling pin

Be here Tuesday night (or Wednesday if you’re in the Australian side of the world) at 6:30 PST. If you’re unsure of the time zone difference, look for your city on this website and then compare it to my city, which is Phoenix.

Register for free at Skype if you’d like to call in with a question. If you have a video camera on your computer you can call toward the end of the show (we’ll go until 8) to show us your cover.

Did you get some sweet handmade gifts from your children or grandchildren? Don’t do anything with them yet because the next episode of Paperclipping will show you an example with some tips for saving and displaying all those wonderful pieces.

Watch for the release of this week’s episode tonight or tomorrow night.

A layout doesn’t have to look like you did it quickly in order for it to actually be a quick one. Below are a couple strategies for interesting layouts that aren’t actually as involved as you’d think.

Choose paper that designs for you.

The one piece of paper I used for the layout above has pattern (the visual texture in the background color and the repetition of stems) and embellishments (flowers) built in for you.

The white space above the flowers is the obvious place to put your photos and journaling. The manufacturer has already made most of the decisions for you and it’s up to you how much more detail you want to add.

Enhance With Stickles

Is it obvious that Stickles by Ranger are on my current favorites list? After two different podcast episodes I still can’t stop telling you the numerous virtues of Stickles. Below are two more I haven’t mentioned yet.

1. Stickles add a lot of pizzaz with little effort.
The glitter glue is so easy to apply that you can zip around the layout, quickly covering all the areas you want. The real trick is telling yourself when it’s time to stop.

It’s also very forgivable if you go out of the lines which means you don’t have to be slow and cautious.

2. Stickles requires no clean up!
That’s my favorite part, since I’m horrible when it comes to cleaning up after using paint, stamps, loose glitter, or embossing. You get the amazing look and pleasure of something you’d expect to be messy without doing any more than to replace the cap.

When there’s no time for labor-intensive layouts, don’t feel you have to sacrifice intricacy for speed. Scrapbook designers can do much of your work for you, while Stickles glitter glue will make a flashy impact with little effort.

Have your kids done the Flat Stanley project in school yet? This is a popular school assignment where students make a large paper “Stanley” and send it to an out-of-state relative or friend. The relative is supposed to send photos, postcards, or souvenirs that represent the location back to the class. It’s a fun way to learn about geography.

My son sent his Flat Stanley to my parents in Kansas City last year and the pictures we got back were priceless. They reminded me of the sense of humor and creativity my parents always had when it came to my own school projects growing up.

I wanted a simple way to tell the story of my parents and Flat Stanley so my kids will know how their grandparents put their hearts into a project. Since the featured subject of the photos was a paper doll, and not my parents, making these into a quick mini-book made more sense to me than scrapbook page. My goal here was not long-term preservation but to tell a story my kids can enjoy right now.

To stiffen the picture-pages, I put thin chipboard between the pairs of front-to-back photos and adhered them together. You could adhere pairs of photos together without chipboard in-between if stiffness is not important to you.

If you do use the thin chipboard, be sure to round your corners before adhering each piece. Paint the edges so each page feels like one piece instead of two or three pieces together.

Involve Your Child

This is where I admit that I jumped on this project and did it all by myself. But now that I think about it, this would have been a very simple thing for my son to help with. Any child can round corners and all children love to paint. Not only would it be great together time, but I could have better reinforced to Blake how clever my parents were.

If your children’s school doesn’t do this project, there is no reason you and your family couldn’t do it yourselves. Click here to learn about the Flat Stanley geography project.

As per your request during Paperclipping Live last night, we now have forums to play in. Thanks to my Izzy, who started building them first thing in the morning, about 4am (and you thought I got up early…).

You can get to the forums any time by clicking on the link in the column to the left. You see it?

You may also notice the other link called, Paperclipping Gallery. That is our Flickr group page where you can post layouts, mini-books, and other scrap-related projects, especially if they were inspired by a Paperclipping Video Tutorial, blog article, Paperclipping Live, or the Schoolwork Scrapbook Tutorial.

When you upload your projects, please tell us which tutorial or concept you used in the description. It’s not required, but it puts a smile on my face.

I hope you enjoy the new features! Look for a new blog article tomorrow.

Paperclipping 42 - More on Stickles from izzyvideo on Vimeo.
One final gift from National Scrapbook Day…a second free episode in a row. Next week will be a Member’s Only one.

As usual, we have a high-quality version and show notes.

Congratulations, Jennifer…you are the new owner of a FRED!

Jennifer was a scrapping-machine over the last couple days and completed a lot of layouts. Here is just one example of her gorgeous pages…

Please email me with your address and full name at noell(at)paperclipping(dot)com.

I will be back later in the day to add a list of all of yesterday’s winners and their prizes, and to respond to all the emails of the winners. Thanks to everyone for contributing your energy to such a fun celebration of our hobby.

Special thanks to Aptus Designs for helping us award two FRED’s and to Dedra Long who was generous with her skills and her many prizes during the afternoon show!

UPDATE:

I want to announce all the other winners from yesterday!

FRED: IrishStamper! Huge congrats to you. Please email me with your address.

Mini-book supplies from Dedra:
Maria
LeftyScraps
TMarie
Emeline
Cindy
AussieQ
(Maria and LeftyScraps: please email me your addresses)

Premium Membership Subscription
SoonerFanOKC
Iraida
Maria
(Please email me if you haven’t yet so I can reply with your coupon code).

Schoolwork Scrapbook Tutorial
LeftyScraps
ScrapbookBabe
(Please email me if you haven’t yet so I can reply with your coupon code).

Runner-up’s for FRED
Tray Chic
Coffee Addict
BB70 Rhonda
(Please email me with your choice of a Premium Membership Subscription or the Schoolwork Scrapbook Tutorial).

I will send everyone’s coupon codes as soon as I learn the choices of the runner-up’s. Congratulations, everyone!

Here are a handful of some of the layouts in the new Paperclipping Gallery. These will be part of the drawing for a free FRED. Make sure you check the challenges and get your layouts up, too! You can continue working through our live celebrations tomorrow. Just be sure to load them before Sunday morning, my time.

I have been enjoying looking through these layouts so much. You can see all the challenges by clicking here.

National Scrapbook Day Schedule, May 3rd:

8:30 -10:30am

1:00-3:00pm

7:00-8:30pm

If you’re unsure of the time zone difference, look for your city on this website and then compare it to my city, which is Phoenix.

More Prizes

The 1-3 time will focus a lot on mini-books and Dedra Long will be my guest, since she is the master of mini-books, in my opinion. If you’ve ever had a question about mini-books and altering them, be ready to ask Dedra. You can ask them through the chat, but it’ll be even better if you call in through Skype.

And here is some more exciting news: Dedra is bringing mini-book related prizes to give out during that session!

In total, your possible prizes from the Paperclipping National Scrapbook Day are FRED, mini-book and scrap items, the Paperclipping Premium Subscription, and the Paperclipping Schoolwork Scrapbook Tutorial. It’s going to be a very fun and exciting day.

If my live shows aren’t enough for you, you may want to hop over to Terri Bradford’s NSD celebration after our morning party is over. Her live show is from 10:30-11:30am PST. Most of you know Terri as the moderator of Paperclipping Live. She’ll be giving out prizes and challenges as well.

So, get tomorrow’s meals prepped, have lots of photos ready to scrap, and get a good night’s sleep. See you tomorrow!

Can you say F.R.E.D.? If you’ve been coveting my scrappin’ buddy, Fred, you’ll be blissful about my next announcement. The makers of FRED are a sponsor for Paperclipping’s National Scrapbook Day event.

Izzy and I will be giving away two FRED’s this weekend. One will go to a participant in our live event. The other will go to a participant in the challenges. Double your chances by joining in on both.

The more entries you upload to our new flickr group, the more likely your name will be picked in the drawing for a FRED. You may begin posting your entries any time. See the previous blog posting below for optional challenges.

We will also be giving out Paperclipping Premium Subscriptions (worth $36) and the Schoolwork Scrapbook Tutorial (worth $7.99).

So who’s participating? Make sure you join the Paperclipping flickr group and upload your layouts by Saturday night, (which is Sunday for all you Aussies and Pinoys, way over there). In order for your entry to count, you must post it to your own flickr account (they’re free) and then send it to the Paperclipping Group. I will announce the winner on Sunday.

Click here to see the schedule for the Paperclipping Live events. Hope you can make the party!