Apologies to my deaf audience…I don’t have show notes for this episode. I’ll try to do that for most of the future shows.

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

Happy New Year, everyone! I wish you all lots of happiness in the coming year…happiness in your relationships, your love-life, and, and your paper-clipping.

Are you planning goals or resolutions for the new year? How about making a mini-book where you can evaluate your progress, share your thoughts, and even add photos?

The picture above is a sneak-peek of my own book, still in progress. I will have it ready to share with you later in the week. So if you think you’d like to make your own, you might want to begin preparing your goals.

The mini-book is in a format that works with my own method for a year’s worth of goals, so I’ll share that with you now.

2008 Focus

I chose four areas that need my focus this year. They are:
1. Health & Fitness
2. My Home
3. Scrapbooking & Paperclipping
4. My One-on-one Relationships with my Children

Ali’s One-Word Challenge

Last year Ali Edwards chose one word to describe what she wanted for the coming year rather than making resolutions. I did this as well, and really liked the direction it gave me. This time I’m returning to resolutions, but I also chose a word that illustrates how I see my focus for 2008. The word I chose this year is BUILD.

I made “build” statements for each of my areas of focus:
1. I am building a healthy and fit body.
2. I am building a home that inspires and celebrates creativity.
3. I am building a scrapbooking resource that provides constant and regular inspiration to others.
4. I am building deep one-on-one relationships with each of my growing, evolving children.

Steps For Accomplishing My Goals

Once I chose my areas of focus, I made a list of things to accomplish or evaluate throughout the year so that I can progress in those focus areas.

Make A Schedule

You know how I am about schedules. Schedules are vital for accomplishment. I also believe that a person only has the capacity to focus on one or two big things at a time. So I assigned a month (or two months) to each of my bigger goals.

I also have smaller things I want to evaluate. For example, for one month I will focus on drinking water every hour. Hopefully one month of doing this will make it a habit. But in my experience, it probably won’t be enough to stick. So I’ve made that a side focus for some of the other months throughout the year. Most months have a big project to complete plus some smaller side things to evaluate.

Evaluate

Because some of the goals are subjective and require on-going reflective evaluation, I am designing my mini-book to allow me to write down my reflections, evaluations, and adjusted plans for improvement.

I will also be able to add photos if I want. In all, this book will be a reminder of all my goals, a place to reflect and track progress, and will eventually become a visual record of my direction and accomplishments for the year.

If you’re interested in joining me, you can begin formulating your goals, too.

Thank you for all of the Christmas well-wishes.

I took a wonderful break from all obligations (except obligations to my family, hee hee) and had the funnest, most relaxing and enjoyable holiday I can remember.

I hope your day was magical, too.

Merry Christmas! from izzyvideo on Vimeo.

If you take a close look at the first letters of the my title, you’ll see that the rub-on flourish wraps around my letter stickers, going both under and above.

To get this look, apply the rub-on first, place the letter stickers over it, and then use a pen with a similar size tip as the lines of the flourish (I used a Daisy D’s rub-on and an American Crafts pen with a size .01 tip) to fill in some of the design over the letter stickers.

Thanks to those of you who gave me suggestions for this layout during the last Paperclipping Live!

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Christmas Eve 2005
12×12 Layout

Products used: Cardstock (Bazzill) * Patterned paper (American Crafts, Basic Grey) * Epoxy stickers (s.e.i.) * Bling (Heidi Swapp for Advantus) * Letter stickers (Creative Memories) * Rub-on (Daisy D’s’) * Pen (American Crafts).

In the last article, I wrote about composing good table shots. Now let’s talk about manual camera settings. I took the same photo four times but with different settings so I could show you the differences. Your settings will depend on your own environment and your camera, but it should be similar enough to give you a good idea where to start. Then you can adjust from there.

Photo #1

The settings on this picture allowed too much light. The yellows are blown out so you lose the detail of the pumpkins and some of the dishes. The cup farthest back lost its blue coloring.

The settings are:
aperture: f/2.2
shutter speed: 1/30
ISO: 400

Photo #2

I like the lighting on this one. While a couple of the pumpkins are still a little blown out, I was able to capture good detail overall and kept the ISO at a great speed for the indoors.

The settings are:
aperture: f/3.2
shutter speed: 1/30
ISO: 400

Photo #3

I also like the lighting on this one. The disadvantage of Photo #2 is the slow shutter speed. A shutter speed of 1/30 is too low for hand-holding the camera, which is what I was doing. But sometimes you can get away with it when photographing inanimate objects (as opposed to people, who are always moving, at least a little).

The disadvantage of this one is that I had to crank the ISO up to 800 in order to let in more light. The higher the ISO, the grainier the shot. Photos #2 and #3 were a compromise between slight blur and a little grain. The lower shutter speed in the previous photo let in more light than the higher ISO in this one.

The settings:
aperture: f/3.2
shutter speed: 1/80
ISO: 800

Photo #4

Looking at this photo, you can see that one of the two compromises I mentioned above is necessary. The reason is that trying to get a good ISO and a good shutter speed for hand-holding required a higher f-stop (or smaller aperture).

Even in this well-lit room the smaller aperture produced a dark picture. I wouldn’t want it any darker than it was in Photo #3.
The settings are:
aperture: f/5
shutter speed: 60
ISO: 400

The natural light in your dining room will have a large effect on your settings. Because this was our breakfast table, and because our room gets the most light in the morning, I had a lot of help from the sun. If the sun doesn’t grace your room at the time of your picture-taking, don’t be afraid to push the ISO to 800. Any resulting graininess won’t show up as much in a 4×6 as it will in enlargements.

I hope this give you a good starting point for your own documentation of your holiday table.

Do you have a layout or project to put together?

Pull up your computer, a cup of tea, and scrap while I scrap! I would love it if you join the chat room and let me know what you’re working on.

Go to www.paperclipping.com/live where I will be scrapbooking live. See you soon!

If you’re like me, a major part of most holidays is the mood you set in the home, and much of that revolves around the dinner table. These photos are from this year’s Thanksgiving breakfast, but the principles apply whether you’re photographing your Christmas meal, New Years dinner party, or any other formal dinner.

Avoid full table shots. Instead, take a combination of close-ups and partial table pictures to show the ambiance of your Christmas (or other holiday) table.

Lean down to the level of one of the place settings to get a view of the dinnerware and the table beyond. Set the camera at a fairly low f-stop to focus on the place setting near you while the rest of the table is just slightly out-of-focus. For this photo, the f-stop is 3.2.

Getting an extreme close-up like this gives you texture.

To show the look of the overall table, you only need to photograph a part of it. Put the centerpiece to one side of the frame and get just a few of the place settings at the other side. Stand on a chair to get an above-view.

Now move in closer to the place settings to get a view of the dishes, the napkin rings, and the textured place mats. Notice the line that the edge of the table makes, the negative space on the other side, and the line of the plates and cups or glasses. Make sure the lines and negative space are attractive.

There is a common thread in all but one of these pictures. Do you see the L-shape? I usually place the tallest item (in this case, the over-sized vase) to one side, making the vertical line of the L. All the others stretch out sideways, forming the horizontal line. The photo above is a backward L, which is okay, too. An L-shape is an aesthetically pleasing ways to compose a photo.

Last of all, don’t forget to highlight the most romantic part of any formal setting: the candle light and its reflection on all the glass pieces.

Take lots of pictures and put the focus on different pieces to see what kind of effect you get. In the next post we’ll talk a little more about camera settings so that you can get perfect lighting around your candle-lit table.

I apologize for the low number of posts last week. I was finishing all my handmade gifts to mail in time for Christmas. To make up for it, we will pack this week full of exciting Christmas and non-Christmas ideas, beginning with today’s video tutorial on layering embellishments.

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

Also, for the first time, I am also providing show notes for those who are deaf or hard-of-hearing.

One of my common objectives when putting together a layout is to create an obscure sort of triangle.

Where is the triangle on this page?

It’s not obvious. It starts at the top right edge of the scalloped paper, peaks at the tab to the left of the photos, and then ends at the right edge of the torn red paper toward the bottom.

There are no lines connecting these three points to make an obvious triangle, but you can see how the layers of papers creep gradually toward that outer left triangular point.

The overall shape of a triangle just tends to be aesthetically pleasing, especially when it is an irregular one. (Mine is irregular because if you were to draw lines to connect the three points, the line stretching from the top right to the left corner would be longer than the other lines).

Placing the left point at the very center of the page for a regular-shaped triangle would feel too planned. When you try building your own triangle shape on a layout, be sure the side point is either above or below center.

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Unconditional Cuteness
12×12 layout

Products used: Cardstock (Bazzill) * Patterned paper (Creative Imaginations, 7 Gypsies) * Rub on’s (My Mind’s Eye, Art Warehouse) * Brad (7 Gypsies) * Journal spots and tab (Heidi Swapp for Advantus) * Pens (American Crafts) * Other: Ribbon, buckle, birdie from own stash or from reclaimed junk items.