If you use a three-ring album and you’re unhappy with the gap between your two-page layouts, then this episode is just for you.
This episode is in the archives. To learn how to access the archives, please visit the membership information page.
The Paperclipping birthday celebration is less than two days away. Are you preparing a birthday layout to submit for the contest? You have until Tuesday evening, so don’t forget.
Paperclipping will be one year old on Tuesday and we’re throwing a party!
I will be uploading birthday layouts with scrapbooking tips throughout the day and I want to see your own birthday layouts.
You have until Tuesday to create as many birthday layouts as you’d like to enter into our contest. Photograph or scan your layouts and upload them to your favorite gallery or blog online.
Leave a comment on this entry with a link to your layout (see my note at the bottom of this post if you don’t know how to create a link). I will choose one winner to receive a gift from Izzy and I, compliments of Paperclipping.
That involves a second announcement! We are getting ready to launch the first Premium Episode of Paperclipping. Remember the Schoolwork Project that many of you requested step-by-step instructions for? We are packaging your request as a four-part video tutorial.
Tuesday’s birthday winner will receive the Premium Episode as their prize! So pull out those birthday photos and get scrappin’!
Update: For those of you wondering (one of you emailed me), the release of Premium Episodes will not change the current format of Paperclipping. You can let out the air you may have been holding in because we will continue to provide you free, almost-weekly audio and video, along with almost-daily blog postings. The Premium Episodes are an additional feature for those who like step-by-step tutorials.
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Note: If you do not know how to create a link, copy and paste the URL of your layout location and paste it to the bottom of your comment. I will come and turn it into a link when I have time. If you have any questions, email me at noellhyman (at) gmail (dot) com.
I’m not a fan of calling design principles “rules.” But we can talk about that another time. Right now I thought it would be fun to send you over to my husband’s website because he had me guest host his most recent video, Breaking The Rules.
The specifics are video and film related, but the concept is design, so it applies to scrapbooking.
You can watch the Izzy Video episode by clicking here.
These are the projects where I starting mixing kit products with my own (see the two previous two posts for the kit review). Above is the cover of a minibook that will soon be full of pictures of my siblings and parents.
And this is the first layout to use the Daisy D’s patterned papers in the kit (the others were by Paper Trunk).
This layout is a sign of my need to leap from one style to its extreme opposite. Notice the drastic reduction in product usage after the overload of stuff on the one above! From messy and eclectic to clean and simple in one day.
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The Buckland’s All Grown Up
7 Gypsies Minibook
Products used: Patterned paper (Paper Trunk, My Mind’s Eye); Letter stickers (Thickers for American Crafts); Transparencies (Hambly); Rub-on (My Mind’s Eye); Word strips (7 Gypsies); Rub-on letters (K.I. Memories); Kraft stickers (Making Memories).
Visual
12×12 layout
Journaling reads: It all made sense when you completed a tan-gram that I had given up on. Blake was looking for the solution but you figured it out before he found the solution book. You rock the house in the game, Memory. You beat me every time almost! Blake won’t even play that game with you. Neither of us can figure out how you remember where so many of the cards are, even when you’re being silly and kackling with evil laughter…you don’t seem to be paying attention. You really surprised us when you tried Zuma on the XBox. In one try you beat my highest level. You just kept going and going, never losing once! There is definitely something about shapes and color for you. You are visual.
Products used: Cardstock (Bazzill); Patterned Paper (Daisy D’s); Rub-on’s (Fancy Pants, 7 Gypsies); Label (My Mind’s Eye); Paint (Making Memories and Grumbacher); Brads (Making Memories); Letter stickers (Rusty Pickle); Pen (Making Memories); Pen (American Crafts).
Sun-Kissed
12×12 Layout
Products used: Cardstock (Bazzill); Patterned Paper (Daisy D’s); Letter stickers (Creative Memories); Pen (American Crafts).
The coolest feature of the club is that the kits are customizable. They priced the basic kit low…half the amount of all the other kits I’ve seen and tried. They did this so that you could add the products you really want.
You can add expansion packs to your basic kit. So if you like to have two sheets of each paper, you can add that for $3. Or if you love rub-on’s like me, you can add another sheet and they’ll make sure it’s different from the first. You can get the larger expansion pack which, at least this month, has a minibook.
The smaller expansion options mainly allow you to get more of what’s already in the kit and I would have preferred it if you could get something different, like coordinating ribbon or brads. Variety is nice. But if you’re used to spending $30 on your scrapbook kits, you could spend that same amount with Kits & Pieces and get two completely different sets. There’s some real variety for you.
The most important thing, of course, is the quality of the actual products. I loved the products. They’re very trendy. And, as you’ll see when I add more layouts tomorrow, I couldn’t stop myself from making more and more stuff with them.
If you like what you see, head over to their website because they’re running some specials right now.
Note: Someone pointed it out to me that I dated the Thanksgiving layout for 2007. Oops! Do you ever do that out of habit? I’ll be changing the date of my layout to 2006, but I just wanted to let any other observant people know…
Today’s episode is part of my review of a brand new kit club, Kits & Pieces. I’ll be back soon to post all of the projects and layouts for you to view and to finish my review of the kit.
I like to walk away from a layout when I finish it and come back later to see it from a different perspective. I set my layouts upright on the shelf above my table so I can look at them when I walk by. If a page still feels right half a day later, then I decide it’s done.
But sometimes the new perspective reveals that something is off. The picture below on the left was my initial take and the one on the right is the final version (the same as the one above). It wasn’t long before I realized my first version was off-balance.
Darker colored items have a heavier weight than light-colored ones. Where is the weight on first layout? It’s all at the top and right corner ( the matted photo and the title, which also looks off as a result of my shortening the word, “grade,” because I was missing a letter).
The bottom left corner looks light. You have to be careful when you put your heavy-weighted elements on top because this contradicts our natural intuition that heavy things are usually on the ground while light things float
But heavy on top can work sometimes. There is more to this problem than that. Remember the first episode of the Paperclipping videos on visual triangles? Triangles and odd numbers (especially the number three) are an important part of balance.
On the left layout there are two heavy-weighted items and two light-weighted ones (the two photos with thin hand-drawn lines around them and the flower-like embellishment are light-weighted). Two sets of two, with each pair together in their own half of the layout, is the biggest problem.
The solution is to change one element and make it either heavy or light so that one of the two weights comes in three’s and the other is on its own. I decided to add to the heavy-weighted items and matted the bottom photos.
There is now a balance of heavy items across the entire layout, as well as a balance of weight in terms of visual triangles. Next time you have a page that doesn’t feel right, see whether balance of color or weight is the problem.
Note: Three of the products I used on this layout are from a new kit club, which I will be reviewing in the next episode of the Paperclipping Video Podcast. I’ll have lots of layouts to upload that show off products from the kit so be sure to come back.
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Products used: Cardstock (Bazzill Basics Paper); Patterned paper (Basic Grey); Mask (Heidi Swapp); Paint (Making Memories, Grumbacher); Rub-on (Fancy Pants); Letter stickers (Thickers by American Crafts, Creative Memories), Ink (Stampin’ Up).
I am a sucker for Creative Imaginations sticker products and I tend to purchase more than I can use. Do you have these too?
You’re supposed to fold them around the edge of a page (or piece of paper on a page), like a tab. I like them for minibooks and you can see how I used them in my Cancun minibook. But I still have a lot left.
I thought of another way to put them to use. Turn them into a “buckle” for ribbon like I did on my card above.
Punch two holes on the ends and weave the ribbon through.
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Products used: Cardstock (Stampin’ Up); Patterned Paper (Cosmo Cricket); Stamps (Stampington Company and Stampin’ Up); Ink (Stampin’ Up); Sticker (Creative Imaginations); Ribbon (own stash).
