Originally uploaded by Matt Browne.

Although most everyone uses digital cameras now, many scrapbookers are still in a film mindset and don’t realize it. If there are items you would like to use in your scrapbooks but don’t because they are not acid-free, you have probably not oriented yourself to the implications of digital photography.

Get Out Of The Film Mindset

In the days of film photography, prints were precious because negatives scratch easily. You never knew how long your negatives would continue to give you decent photos, so each print could be your only print. We also had less photos to choose from.

If you are using a digital camera, it is the digital file of the photo that is precious. A print is just a hard-copy version of your photo file. You can print hundreds of copies, wait ten years, and print a hundred more.

Prioritize Preservation Of Your Photo Files

Our children’s generation will be the first to have an absurd overabundance of childhood photos and the first to have easy access to as many of those photos as they want, as long as they have access to your computer.

I am more concerned about preserving my digital photo files than I am about the prints. As long as we preserve the original files we can make as many prints as we want.

Preservation Of Scrapbooks

We take more pictures than any generation before us. We document more events, feelings, thoughts, and stories than ever before. If some of the pages don’t withstand the years because of periodic acidic items, our children and grandchildren will still inherit many more well-preserved photos than what we’ll get (or got) from our parents.

As long as they have access to your digital files, they can replace a faded photo on a layout with a new print. It’s not like all of the layouts will crumble away because of some acidic items. I have an album that my husband’s deceased mother made when she was in junior high. It was a story of her life with photos, typed stories, hand-drawings and memorabilia. Some of the items have yellowed and the paper feels brittle, but that is part of the charm of the book. How much better will our scrapbooks last with mostly acid-free products and a sprinkling of acidic items throughout.

A Return To The Original Meaning Of Scrapbooks

With the heavy emphasis on acid-free scrapbook industry products, we moved away from the original meaning of “scrapbook.” We became afraid of adding actual pieces of our lives, other than photos and words. Recently, though, we do see more people returning to the use of life’s “scraps” in scrapbooks. Digital photography justifies that.

If you’re still stuck in the film mentality, un-stick yourself. It is the digital photo files that we really need to worry about and not their printed versions.

In drawing, one of the most fundamental lessons to master is negative space (often called white space). Negative space is the area that is around and between the subject of an image. Give attention to the negative space between your photos and decorative elements and you will put together a strong design that gives the viewer direction and focus.

Surround An Element With A Lot Of Negative Space For Eye-Catching Attention

The large amount of negative space around the title of my layout pulls your attention first.

The circular sticker with the number two immediately draws you over to the main photos. That sticker not only connects the two photos together, it also gets your notice because it crosses lines and breaks through the negative space between the two photos.

That white line directs you down to the next horizontal, then over and down again to the bottom set of photos. The other two circular stickers help you move along. This all happens so quickly and is so subtle that we are unaware that all these decorations are acting as maps and sign posts.

Why Size Matters

The larger the space between two elements, the more disconnected those elements will seem. A small amount of negative space between two items will group those items together. When assembling a layout, pay attention to the size of the space you create around and between all your photos (the margins).

On my layout the space between each of the photos is very small, so the pictures feel connected to each other as one cohesive whole.

On the other hand, within the box of four photos, we understand the top two pictures to be slightly separate from the bottom two because of the large amounts of white space on the sides (the stickers also work to group the pairs). The margin between the top and bottom photos are exactly the same as the margin between the two pairs, but if I had made that space slightly bigger, the two pairs would have felt much more separate. That is fine if you want to make a distinction between the two groupings but in my case, I wanted to give almost equal weight to each photo.

On the layout above, there is a sense that my photos and the title are in their own space, separate from the decorated borders at the top and bottom. This is because the negative space between the photos and the borders is relatively large.

Putting The Principles Into Practice

If all this seems too analytical for you, don’t feel like you need to think through all of these principles as you plan your pages. I am not this calculated when I put my layouts together. I usually work more from a feeling I want to portray. An awareness of basic principles just helps me along.

The important thing is to think about what you want (for example, is there one photo that should stand out above the rest or do you want to treat all of them as equals?) and to periodically ask yourself if what you are doing is accomplishing that. As you go, you will recall a design principle or two. With practice, these principles will come more naturally and putting together each layout will get easier.

Sometimes I scrapbook to the sounds of Spongebob after I’ve plopped Aiden in front of the t.v. But I mostly scrapbook when the kids are at school and I get to listen to something I really like. I’ve found a few favorites. If what you’ve been listening to is getting stale try some of my recommendations.

For The Music Lover

What if you could customize your own radio station with all your favorite styles of music–some that you already love, along with some new songs chosen especially to suit your taste?

This is what I do on www.pandora.com. Pandora creates a station just for you when you type in a favorite singer or band. The website begins playing a stream of music that has qualities similar to what you chose. They let you rate the songs it plays to help Pandora streamline your music even more.

You can create a station with a narrow style by listing only one artist. Or you can make it diverse by adding “seeds,” or more artists. You can also have more than one station.

Right now I’m listening to a station based on Sarah McLachlan, Jason Mraz, Jewel, and Train. I’ve heard new songs, plus old songs I’ve loved but forgotten.

For The Information Seeker

Sometimes it’s a good discussion that I want; something to stimulate my brain. My favorite audio podcast, which I get from iTunes, is This American Life. I love all the stories and the way they cause me to look at the world through a different window.

Second to that is Radio Lab, which always has intriguing scientific findings that will make you question almost everything you thought you knew. Don’t let the word, “scientific,” scare you away. This show is so entertaining, even my kids listen and laugh when we play it in the car.

What do you listen to while you’re scrapbooking? If it’s time to liven up your audio, give one of my suggestions a try and then leave a comment to tell us what you think.

One of my favorite things about this minibook, aside from the photos, are the bits and pieces from my life and the vacation.

The shells are from Rocky Point, Mexico and I picked them up on our very first visit to that country. the round circular brown beads are from a hair clip I bought when I lived in the Philippines.

Some of you may recognize the brown printed paper…it’s from a World Market small shopping bag. The starfish that hangs from the string of shells is a gift from a friend, meant to be hung on a key chain.

On the inside of the first page is a plane ticket from our trip. I soaked it in tea for a while so it wouldn’t be such a stark white. Do you see the paper that says, “Thirsty for more travel?” It’s from a napkin on our flight. I loved the question and kept it.

I’ll just show you a couple more pictures of the inside.

This minibook by 7 Gypsies comes with a surprising amount of pages. While I love their minibooks, I am actually not very happy with this particular one. You may want to avoid this post-bound type. They are difficult to open up once put together, especially as you get toward the back.

I want to shout out a thank-you to my friend, Dedra Long, for directing me to Home Depot when neither of us could think of a good adhesive for shells. Thanks, Dedra!

If you didn’t see the most recent episode of Paperclipping, you may want to see how I attached the sea shells to the front cover. You can click here to watch the episode.

Products used:
Minibook (7 Gypsies); Patterned paper (My Mind’s Eye, Creative Imaginations, Scenic Route); Chipboard letters (Heidi Swapp); Stickers (Creative Imaginations, 7 Gypsies); Rub-on’s (American Crafts, Fancy Pants); Letter stickers (EK Success, Creative Memories); pens (American Crafts); paper from a World Market bag, shells, fiber.

Here is a tutorial for those of you haven’t gotten around to your summer vacation photos yet. Did you hit the beach this year? Do you live by one? If so, this episode is for you.

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

It’s a good chance you’re going to get a complete picture of a person when, looking through their scrapbooking gallery, you see a layout titled, “Love Never Fades” next to a layout called, “Cats Are Butts.” Those pages represents two very different frames of mind.

Can scrapbooks become an alternative form of the memoir or autobiography?

I think so, and my visit to Rebecca (”Becca”) Lundin’s gallery confirmed my opinion. Having known of Becca on 2 Peas In A Bucket for a year and a half, and having read many of her comments and posts on the message board, I realized I had no idea who this spunky twenty-three year old girl was until I looked through her scrapbooking pages.

It was her layout about hating laundry and cleaning dishes that first pulled me in. How many scrapbookers do you know that title their pages with the candor of, “Man, Dishes Bite,” and then decorate them with glitter and flowers? It is this type of un-self-conscious humor that felt to me like an invitation to come inside.

I wasn’t surprised when Becca told me, “My scrapbook is more of a journal than anything else.”

She’s not even trying to be funny. It’s just what comes out of her. When I asked Becca if she was conscious of putting humor into many of her pages, she said, “I don’t think I am aware of the humor in my layouts. They’re just my thoughts, and I am a sarcastic fun loving girl. I don’t like to scrap the usual and I find much more satisfaction in scrapping the more ‘weird’ subject matter.”

Like the rest of us, though, Becca is a three-dimensional, complicated person with a serious side and her own pocketful of struggles. She exposes those struggles in layouts like this:

“My style tends to always be straight lined and I enjoy the brighter colors. I have leaned more to the graphic side of scrapbooking within the last month or so but I will never stay with one style. I will pop back over to cluttered eye-candy sooner then I know it.”

Becca may do a lot of style exploration, but one thing is present in most of her layouts: the straight lines. You can see how she often divides up her space into varied-sized-compartments and puts embellishments around and within them. But there is nothing mechanical or “pre-determined about Becca’s process. Her method is as spontaneous as her personality seems to be.

“Inspiration for my layouts is my life around me. It is what ever I am thinking or feeling. What ever I find funny or annoying. As far as how the layout turns out I just sit down and start working. There is no predetermined finished product in mind, nor will I try to emulate a layout I have seen. It just comes.”

I had to ask Becca if there is any subject she won’t touch. Her answer to me was, “I can’t think of any. I have scrapbooked my most embarrassing moments, my saddest moments, and all those in between. I feel that if you are there to scrapbook memories you should scrapbook all of them and not just the select ones. Not just the happy one or the cute ones, but ALL of them. This is your life. It is the road that has made you who you are, and you should remember it.”

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Note: All four layouts in this posting belong to Rebecca Lundin.

Multi-photo layouts are a struggle for many scrapbookers. But when the multiple photos have lots of people and lots of different colored clothing, it can be a real mess. Here are some tips that might help you the next time you have a pile of cluttered but important pictures.

Give Your Focal-Point Photo It’s Own Space

With so many photos, the natural inclination might be to take advantage of the real estate and spread the photos out. By giving the main photo its own space and grouping the others together on the opposite side, you create contrast, which adds interest.

Not only that, but the larger amount of empty space on the main photo page becomes a calm resting place so you have a moment to breathe before and after looking at the opposite side.

Choose A Monochromatic Color Scheme

It doesn’t have to be neutral, like mine. It can be bold, black, or bright. Just make sure the color you choose highlights the photos and accentuate color that is distracting. You can learn how a background color can change what you see in a photo by watching Episode 4 of Paperclipping.

Vary The tones Of Your Chosen Color.

The variations that I chose from tan were cream, dark brown, and ivory.

My layout isn’t one hundred percent monochromatic, and yours doesn’t have to be either. I added touch of orange and green, but they are similar in tone to the other colors and don’t distract.

Create Variety By Adding Texture.

Since you’re not using lots of different colors, you need to get variety through different means. I used buttons and vellum with a subtle print for a tone-on-tone look.

There is no one right way to tackle a problem. The tips above are not rules, or even guidelines. They are a few of the many options for turning a potentially chaotic layout into one you can enjoy.

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Happy Birthday, Grandma’s
2-page 12×12 layout

Journaling: Grandma Holt is an amazing 95 years old. Grandma Gertrude made sure all of the great grandchildren (14 minus the babies) stuck their fingers into the cake frosting to have a good lick. Good times.

After a major switch in direction, an uproar from readers, and then a unique move to meet customer desires, Memory Makers Magazine had my attention. I wanted to know what was in the minds behind the magazine and what inspires some of the characteristics that make it unique.

Listen with me as I interview Beth Williams, the magazine’s Executive Editor. You’ll love how open and candid she is. Even better, you’ll know how the magazine evolved and where it is going.

Here is the layout from the most recent episode of Paperclipping.

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Products used: Cardstock (Bazzill); Rub-on’s (Basic Grey, Chatterbox, Fancy Pants); Letter stickers (Thickers for American Crafts, Creative Memories); Tags from clothing; Pen (American Crafts).

For many years my scrapbooking activity was on-again, off-again. I scrapbooked in spurts when a burst of inspiration triggered my mojo; but if something else stole my attention, it could be weeks, or even months, before the birth of another layout.

Does this sound like you? Would you like to be more consistent and finish layouts every single week?

A couple years ago I made one lifestyle change and now I finish multiple layouts a week–every week.

For me, the holy grail for consistent page completion is the weekly, daily, hourly schedule that I rework every time there is a change in our life, like a new school year or summer season.

I schedule time to scrapbook every single day. Some days have more time than others, and sometimes I have to shift things to accommodate the unexpected. But the key is that everyday there is a time that I know I am supposed to be scrapbooking.

If you’re not enjoying your favorite hobby as often as you wish, try making a schedule! Stick to that schedule for a few weeks and see if you’re not doing two to three times as many layouts.