12×12 album with an 8×8 layout on the left and an 8.5×11 on the right.

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In a previous article I shared tips on scrapbooking the stories we write down and then forget about. I made a recommendation that I felt more significant than all the other tips in that post. That recommendation was to knock out a good chunk of your stories in a faster amount of time by doing them in a smaller size.

Most of us have a favorite size, typically 12×12 or 8.5×11. My size for years has been 12×12. Experimenting with other sizes seemed completely inconvenient. What would I do with them?

What To Do With Smaller Sized Layouts

Over the last couple years scrapbookers have seen some amazing minibooks with pages that vary in size. I love minibooks like that and wondered if I could do that with a standard-size album: multiple sizes in one large 12×12.

Thankfully, Lisa McGarvey answered that question for me when she posted a tutorial and slideshow of her album containing pages in three different sizes. I loved how it looked! This is something you can do with the popular American Crafts D-ring binder albums (Modern style). Their 8×8, 8.5×11, and 12×12 page protectors all fit the rings of the 12×12 album.

This allows for a great amount of flexibility and experimentation.

It also means we can pull out those notebooks where we’ve been scribbling stories for future scrapbooking and quickly turn a bunch of those stories into layouts by doing them on small pages and then storing them right along with our regular ones.

Other Options

What if you already use a different type of album that won’t hold smaller pages? How about dedicating an entire smaller album just to the stories?

Or, you could adapt Samantha Walker’s postcard idea and create a box full of stories on altered notecards. This way, you don’t even have to bother hunting down photos to compliment the story, although you can if you’d like. I think this is a fabulous idea if you are overwhelmed with so many stories and you can’t possibly imagine ever scrapbooking them all.

The point is, most of us don’t keep up with all the stories we write down. I outlined three easy ways to do it and do it quickly. If you like to keep all of your scrapbooking in one place instead of multiple albums, the American Crafts albums are a great way to do fast scrapbook pages of varying sizes.

In this episode I share some tips for my favorite ways to use acrylic paint on scrapbooking pages.

This episode is in the archives. To learn how to access the archives, please visit the membership information page.

Enjoy!

When it comes to two-dimensional pages in a book, Dedra Long breaks boundaries. She expands her art past the barriers of the page and the book.

Don’t you love that doorknob?

Altered books tend to be more about the art and the story, and less about the long-term preservation of photos. This means lots of room to play.

Dedra definitely plays. She expands her books, filling them with so many three dimensional wonders that what you are looking at in the picture below is the book when it is shut! She has opened up the possibilities and they are bursting out of her books.

I interviewed Dedra a while back about her minibooks and as our conversation steered toward her altered books, she promised to provide Paperclipping with photos of her “Me” book.

Putting her classy, yet artsy, style aside, Dedra adds things to her books that I would have never considered!

Here’s another view of the gigantic wooden letters Dedra attached to this page. I also love the 3-D effect of the word, “defined.”

I love that Dedra goes beyond the page by adding inserts to journal on, like you see on the tag below:

For each “page” of her altered book, Dedra gathers a chunk of the original pages and binds them together. While some people glue their pages together, you can see in the two photos below that Dedra uses decorative binding like clips, posts, and gaffer tape.

These barely-altered in-between pages are a nice touch of style and also give a breathing cushion between each of the dazzling art pieces on the other side.

Dedra ended this book with an accordion extension:

If you couldn’t get enough of Dedra Long’s gorgeous altered book, there is more! I created a set on my flickr account of every page of Dedra’s book. Enjoy!

Am I the only one like this? I haunt my mailbox as the month winds down in anticipation of the newest issue of my favorite scrapbooking magazine. When it come I’m ecstatic and I pore over it for the next two days.

During that time I have all kinds of thoughts; usually concepts for layouts or minibooks; sometimes techniques or something to check on the magazine’s website. But once I’ve finished and closed the magazine, it’s as if all my ideas stay behind in its pages. When I go back to refresh my memory, only one or two things pop back out at me.

It occurred to me how great it would be if scrapbooking magazines have the same insert that Real Simple Magazine has. Do you know what I’m talking about? Attached to each issue is a rather large bookmark with a calendar and a place to take notes. I never used it for Real Simple, but I’d definitely use it for my scrap mags!

If you have the same problem I have, of losing your ideas, you may want to try what I just started doing. I’m putting my own piece of paper in my magazine to use as a bookmark and to take notes.

To reduce waste, I’m not using regular paper. Instead, I pulled out those subscriptions cards from that always drive me nuts (from between the magazine pages), painted over the non-colored side, and jotted my thoughts on them. Not only am I saving paper, but I will have some yummy color to inspire me when it’s time to pull my notes out of the magazine and pin them onto my inspiration board.

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The magazine in the photo above is Creating Keepsakes.

If you’re like me you write down all those funny things your kids say on scraps of paper or spiral notebooks, but very rarely do they make their way into your scrapbooks. Do you tend to scrapbook from your photos and forget the stories?

I have battled this tendency and I’ve finally won. Do you want to know my secret?

Here are five tips to make it easier for you to scrap the stories you want to remember.

1. Store them in a recipe file box, filed by person, album, or date. Forget neatness: just rip the stories out of your notebook (or scoop up those floating loose papers) and put them as-is in the appropriate file. When it comes time to scrapbook, you can flip that box open and choose.

2. Stay underwhelmed by scrapping these stories on smaller sized layouts, such as 8×8. I finished three of the four layouts for this article in the time it normally takes me complete a 12×12 page (all four are 8×8). I love these condensed layouts!

If you scrapbook a different size and you don’t know what you would do with a stack of 8×8 pages, stay tuned for an upcoming article on how to solve this problem.

3. Pull a picture from an event that has more photos than a single layout can handle. That is what I did with the two layouts about my toddler, Aiden. The actual story in the page below took place in our kitchen, but the photo compliments it.

4. Use a leftover photo that never quite inspired you on its own to supplement your stories on a layout. This picture in the “Not Shy” layout is out of focus, so I wasn’t going to make a page of it; that is until I needed a photo that shows my daughter’s self-confidence for her one of her stories.

5. Combine multiple stories that run along one theme. One layout I hope to create soon will be called, “The World, According To Aiden,” and will contain a number of funny things he has said. This will be a 12×12 layout, I’m sure.

Next time you sit down to scrapbook, don’t go searching through your photos just yet. Instead, devote a chunk of time to tackling those stories!

Related article:
A Simple System To Capture Your Stories

I think you’ll be excited about the technique in this episode of Paperclipping!

This episode is in the archives. To learn how to access the archives, please visit the membership information page.

Follow this link if you would like to see the layout from today’s video.

I posed this question and a hypothetical in a forum on Two Peas In A Bucket:

Just for fun…

Let’s say your family adores your scrapbooking style. But you start to branch out, for whatever reason, into a bit of a different look. Perhaps it’s more artsy, or just something else, but your family doesn’t care for it. You feel that this new look is finally, totally, truly, you. You’ve never felt so much passion and fulfillment from scrapbooking as now. But they want the old style back.

What would you do?

Revive your previous style because you scrap partially for them?
Do a little of both? If so, in what way?
Encourage them to take up scrapping if they want albums to look a certain way because you found your thing and you’re sticking with it…

Or something else?

Note: I don’t think any one choice is better than another. We all have different reasons/motivations for scrapbooking. I’m just curious to see what people say.

Your answer will really depend on the balance of your motivations for scrapbooking. What percentage of your motivation is for your own personal enjoyment? For your children to recall family memories? For your older self to recall them?

I am very curious to know what Paperclipping readers would do in the above situation. I’ll tell you what I would do, but I’m going to leave it in a comment. I want to give you a chance to think about it for yourself before you read my answer.

And, by the way, while you’re in the comments area reading my thoughts, go ahead and leave your own!

Has your method of scrapbooking remained static since you first began scrapbooking? Are the types of products you use the same as in the beginning?

No?

Then neither should be the way you organize your supplies.

Change Your Organization Whenever Your Scrapbooking Changes.

I once heard someone “confess” that she periodically rearranges their scrapbook space. She wondered if she had a “issues” because of her regular need to revamp her system.

The fact is, we evolve. And the way we scrapbook evolves. This means the way we organize our supplies must evolve to meet our most current needs.

My largest paper supply used to be my cardstock and I didn’t use as much patterned paper. Now days, I not only use less cardstock, I also use a limited number of shades! I just don’t choose a a big variety of colors…at least right now.

As a result, I have moved my main cardstock supply into a smaller container and put my patterned paper in a larger one.

Likewise, I have a load of stamps that haven’t touched ink or paper in years. It’s time to move those stamps away from my scrapping area so that I can put things that I actually use in their place.

Don’t spend big bucks on organization supplies.

You have permission to change the way you organize as often as your needs demand. But remember that buying new organization tools every time you change things could could soak up some major dough. I try very hard to use things I already have for my supplies.

Sometimes what we have doesn’t fit all our needs. Make sure that whatever you do buy is versatile enough to change with your ever-shifting scrapbooking systems.

For ideas on items you can purchase, read Tracie Claiborne’s system on scrapbook organization, which she wrote specifically to a friend in dire need. You’ll love all the pictures of her pristine scrap space, as well as the specific names of organization products she uses.

Other Tips For Organizing

Tracie and I share some of the same philosophies. She spent some time sharing those in her blog posting. I will outline them here and you can head over to read the finer details on her blog:

1. Don’t overbuy scrapbooking products. Only buy what you have enough space for; only buy as much as you can use over the next little while. Why? Because you’ll be shopping again soon, right? If you shop once a month or every two months, you don’t need enough product to last you the next six.

2. Keep items you use a lot in sight and in reach. What you can’t see you won’t use (or remember)!

3. Store paper upright. Trying to pull out paper that is underneath something else will only make a bigger mess and will slow you down.

If you’ve felt guilty for revamping your space again and again, let go of that weight and know that you are doing exactly what you need to! If you haven’t changed it in a long time, consider whether your current system is still as effective as it used to be. If not, what are you waiting for?

It’s been a number of months since my last scrap-space make-over and I’m long overdue for another. Now that my kids have started school this week, I’m ready to schedule myself some re-organization time.

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Note: If you’re interested in learning more about Julie Ann and hybrid scrapbooking, head over to Nat’s blog to read another interview.

It is so exciting to discover a scrapbooker who’s pages really speak to you! I got that lucky yesterday when I discovered Kim Buzan.

Creating A Clean-styled Layout From Busy Pictures

Look at the photos on kim’s page and think about what she did here. I imagine that three 4×6 color photos of your daughter shopping could make for quite the busy spread.

But that wouldn’t fit with Kim’s clean style. Instead, she figured out how to make the photos work with her taste for simplicity.

Let’s talk about the techniques Kim used to create a clean layout with large impact from three busy photos. Kim used two major approaches to simplify the look of what might otherwise be a busy layout. The first is with photo manipulation. The second has to do with design.

Manipulating Photos For Clean Look

1. Kim cropped the photos to a smaller size. She did it digitally, but you can also crop by hand.

2. She turned the photos to black and white, eliminating the distracting color detail. All the focus is on her daughter.

3. Kim clustered the photos together in the middle of the page. Overlapping them gives them a hand-placed look, while keeping them straight instead of tilted offers a clean and strong feel.

Designing For A Clean Look

1. The smaller photos allowed Kim to leave a lot of white space around the central focus of the layout.

2. A key principle Kim used is that of visual triangles. Kim arranged all of the decorative elements in a triangle and tucked them right up around the three photos. Our eyes stay in this one central spot.

Visual Triangles

Note how the title is one point of the triangle. Sometimes we assume the corner points of a visual triangle must have all the same items. You might think you have to put more circles where the title is to complete the triangle. That is not necessarily the case, as you see here.

To make the three corners of different items (title, circles) work together as a triangle, the left corner contains all the elements of the other two corner points. It has the black outline of a flower that mimics the black title in the bottom corner. It has the circles, buttons, and colors that you see in the top corner. And all three corners have words of the same font.

By creating one tight visual triangle around the photos instead of spreading them throughout the layout, your eye comes to one place and stays there. This creates a clean and simple look with strong impact.

If you love this layout like as much as I do, then you’ll also enjoy Kim’s gallery! It is full of many more amazing layouts, so make sure you treat yourself with a tour!