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Archive for June, 2010

PRT 026 – Organize Your Photos

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

How do you organize your photos for scrapbooking? This week we have an organization expert on the show to give some tips.

You can use this audio player to listen to the show:

You need Adobe Flash Player to view this video.

If you want, you can also right click this link to save the show to your computer manually.

The Panel

Picks of the Week

(Affiliate links wherever possible.)

WE HAVE A SPONSOR!

This show is sponsored by Big Picture Scrapbooking. Click here for the promo code to save 10% on any class at BPS!

How to subscribe…

Did you know that when you subscribe in iTunes (which is free), you’re helping support Paperclipping Roundtable? It’s true. iTunes measures every subscription, so it’s like casting a “vote” for the show. It helps us move up the ranks and helps us grow the audience.

iTunes is free. Subscribing is free, so why not use it to download the show? Subscribe in iTunes (iTunes link) right now so your computer will automatically download each new episode as they become available. (If you don’t know how to do that, you can watch a video here that shows you how.)

PDS 004 – Photoshop is a Body Part

Thursday, June 24th, 2010

What was it like for digital scrapbooking pioneers who began sharing their digital layouts online, in person with other traditional scrapbookers, or submitting to magazines?

This week we’re talking to some digital scrapbooking pioneers on the Paperclipping Digi Show!

You can use this audio player to listen to the show:

You need Adobe Flash Player to view this video.

If you want, you can also right click this link to save the show to your computer manually.

The Panel

“Intro to Video” Discount

Get $20 off Izzy’s “Intro to Video” course (normally $50 but only $30 for PDS listeners). Follow this link to get the coupon code!

Picks of the Week

(Affiliate links wherever possible.)

How to subscribe…

We’re in the iTunes directory so you can just click on this link to go there and subscribe,… or if you want to do it the hard way, you can subscribe to the show’s RSS feed.

Your thoughts?

What did you think of the show? What questions or feedback do you have? Please let us know in the comments!

PRT 025 – Jen McGuire Gets Her Fix

Thursday, June 24th, 2010

How do you use up old products? What are some old products that you have revived, and how did you use them in a way that you love? How can scrapbookers minimize the overstock of unloved products in the first place?

This is the subject of this week’s Paperclipping Roundtable!

You can use this audio player to listen to the show:

You need Adobe Flash Player to view this video.

If you want, you can also right click this link to save the show to your computer manually.

The Panel

Picks of the Week

(Affiliate links wherever possible.)

WE HAVE A SPONSOR!

This show is sponsored by Big Picture Scrapbooking. Click here for the promo code to save 10% on any class at BPS!

How to subscribe…

Did you know that when you subscribe in iTunes (which is free), you’re helping support Paperclipping Roundtable? It’s true. iTunes measures every subscription, so it’s like casting a “vote” for the show. It helps us move up the ranks and helps us grow the audience.

iTunes is free. Subscribing is free, so why not use it to download the show? Subscribe in iTunes (iTunes link) right now so your computer will automatically download each new episode as they become available. (If you don’t know how to do that, you can watch a video here that shows you how.)

Welcome to the Paperclipping Festival!

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

The Paperclipping Festival is where we get to see a whole variety of styles and story-telling from the our members! I invited members to share a layout or project that incorporates at least one of the Paperclipping tutorials. A little over twenty people decided to play along. You’ll see that design is not about a specific clean-lined graphic look. Design is a group of principles to help you communicate visually, and you can find elements of design in anything we find attractive.

So let’s see how some of our Paperclipping Members have taken what they learned through the Paperclipping Video Tutorials to create visual stories to share with others…

Angie Ladeau: Leading The Eye

angie_ladeau
Angie Ladeau is a digital scrapbooker but she took principles I share on how to lead the eye across the page of a multi-photo layout, and combined them with some digital tricks I have yet to learn.

Please follow this link to Angie’s blog post. There she explains exactly how she incorporated my tips from two different episodes. She details where she wanted the eye to go and in what order, and she also shares what her journaling says!

Jess Forster: Design With Lines

jess_forster
While I have many episodes about how to use lines on your layout for various purposes, the episode that Jess chose for this page is about lines that you do not see. While designing your page, you will establish balance by visualizing lines around your page that are not actually there.

In her blog post, Jess used the same technique I used in the episode to show readers where she visualized her lines to decide where to place the elements on her page. Every scrapbooker of every style will benefit from this type of instruction, so please head over and take a look at how her layout grew to the completed page it is now.

You’ll also get to read the beautiful story that inspired the page in the first place!

Irene Dunne: Scrapbook With Everyday Items

irene_dunn
There is something so beautiful and authentic (plus green and inexpensive!) about bringing the stuff of real life into our stories! In this case, Irene altered the tags that she kept from her experience of altering wedding gowns, and turned them into the pages of a mini-book to showcase some of those dresses.

You’ll enjoy her blog post where she shares her tag altering technique and the gorgeous details of her book.

More on Scrapbooking With Everyday Items:
Want to see some great examples of everyday items that were not altered? Click on these links…

Linda Tieu – Linda combined my Scrapbook With Everyday Items episode with my tutorial on How To Mix Styles and created a three-dimensional scrapbook in a picture frame!

Janaina Oliveira – Jana took my episode called, A Use For Old Tags, and made it her own by combining her son’s old clothing tags and receipts to tell a photo-less collage story about his fast growth as a baby.

Carla and Christine: Anchoring Lines

carla
You can anchor your design elements to make them feel grounded in a number of ways and Carla used my episode on Anchoring Lines to ground her photo collages to the right side of each apple page in her mini-book. She made her lines with word strips!

You can see all of the pages of Carla’s book by clicking this link.
christine_anchor_lines
Christine has a very different style from Carla, but uses the same design principle of supporting her photos with a very ornate line. Christine shares some details about how she made this layout in a blog post for her store in Dubai. Just scroll down a bit to see it.

More on Anchoring Lines:
It turns out this was a popular topic! Want to see how others made use of this design principle? Check out these layouts by more Paperclipping Members…

Deanna Munger – Deanna used my episode on Using Handmade Backgrounds to make a beautiful sandy background. Then she used lines behind her focal point photo as a grounding method.

Lynn Mercurio and Karen Hanim both used anchoring lines either above or below their photos.

Sue Althouse: Make Beautiful Layouts With Lots Of Photos

sue_althouse
It can be hard to make beautiful layouts with a lot of photos! Sue did it! In her blog post, she gave the details of how she used each of my six tips. You’ll definitely learn a lot by looking at her process.

What especially impressed me is how she applied the principles to her own situation. One concept I shared was balance. I showed how color needs to be balanced throughout the spread of photos. The colors of her photos are all the same, so she applied the principle in terms of balancing the size variation in her photos!

More On Multi-Photo Layouts:
Debbie Piercey – Debbie shares how this same episode helped her learn to choose which photos to print in smaller sizes without having to plan a layout design ahead of time. She also shared a great tip on a super easy and inexpensive way to print those smaller sizes at the photo developer!

Jamie De Luna & Ann Walterich: Techniques

jamie_de_luna
Paperclipping does provide technique-heavy episodes, too (almost always with some design principles along the way!). Jamie De Luna learned how to adhere these super cute transparencies (above). She shared how on her blog here.
ETA: This blog link is now correct!

ann_walterich
In a tutorial on how to make a Spring Album, I showed the steps for making a big chunky flower like Ann’s on this minibook. Ann Walterich personalized hers by making the bottom layer a different color, laying the pearls in a more organic fashion, and making it half-sized so she could line it up with the edge of her mini-book.

Flexible Templates
Many of you know about my Flexible Templates, which I designed as quick-starts to layout that give you more flexibility than sketches. Belle Ender made a layout using my Circular Anchor template. Tracy Gregory made a page with the Square On The Third Lines template, and Claire Armstrong made one with my Moving Panels template. Please click on the names of each of these ladies to see their pages and to get the links to the original template posts that inspired their pages.

Embellishments
I probably get more requests for tutorials on embellishments — how to use them, how to make them — than almost any other topic. We have a lot of tutorials on embellishments. See how Karen (Lady Doc) used my Embellishment Crescendo concept to make a very gorgeous and intricate gathering.

Siri Fjortoft made a strong statement with her clean yet elegant gathering on her personality page. Laura Piccioli gathered some older flower embellishments to make a beautiful corner, while Susie Moore gathered her older embellishments around her title.

Heritage, Handmade Backgrounds, and Photo Editing Techniques
I don’t feel like I see nearly enough heritage layouts. Please take a look at Rosann Santos-Elliot’s beautiful and intricate wedding/anniversary page where she also made her own background and shared some tips on her techniques!

And finally, you would never realize that Suz Gray used my two tutorials on editing photos to fix the great pictures she displayed on the page she entered for this festival!

Update: I have to add one more! KikiK.’s submission got lost in Facebook Message Land. Definitely check it out, though, because she shared twelve different layouts in her post! TWELVE!

Much Applause To Our Contributing Members!

I loved seeing all these projects! Thank you to all who participated! I will be compensating the eight members whose project photos I displayed in this post by giving them three additional months to their memberships!

If you are wishing you could watch all these tutorials, please consider joining our members! You can learn about membership by clicking here.

If I missed your entry (and you sent it to me by last Saturday) or misspelled your name, please email me at noell@paperclipping.com

Paperclipping 147 – Fix Your Journaling Disasters

Monday, June 21st, 2010
You need the free Flash Player to view this video.

What do you do when you write your journaling directly onto your background paper and then find it horribly wrong?

I don’t mind crossing out a word or two, but sometimes the “error” is beyond a few misspelled words. In this week’s episode, I share some of my journaled background near-tragedies and fixes!

These aren’t just “passable” fixes. These are fixes that left me even happier with the results than my original plan. I’m excited to share with you not only my techniques, but the design principles that make them work so you can apply them to your own journaling mistakes.

This week’s episode is for members only. You can watch the trailer video if you’re not a member. Please click here to find out how you can become a Paperclipping Member and get access to the archive of over 140 video tutorials.

Need to see some samples first? I have posted several full episodes for free.

Below are the “fixed” layouts I featured in this week’s tutorial…

Little Rascal

12×12 layout
little_rascal
Journaling to Aiden, age 3, reads:

the story
During one of Blake’s baseball practices an older boy, about 7 years old, challenged you to a race. You agreed and off you went. Of course, we couldn’t expect your little legs to keep up with him and he hit the finish-line with the declaration, “I won!” long before you did.

true confessions
Here I was, your protective mother, irritated that this 7-year-old boy was gloating about beating you, my 3-year-old. But then you reached the finish-line, still at a full run, and with a huge smile on your face. You began yelling, “I won! I won! I won! I won!…!”

Confidence.

the juicy part
That boy tried his best to convince you (and the rest of us!) that he beat you. But he could not overcome your boisterous, “I won!” celebrations. He was frustrated. And I have never stopped smiling about it.

T is for Trinity

12×12 layout
t_is_for_trinity
Journaling reads:

A conversation with Aiden, age 5…

a: Mom, I want a “T” on my forehead.

(after hearing him mumble, “Trinity . . . Trinity . . .” I made a guess)
m: You want a “T” on your forehead for “Trinity?”

a: Mmm-hmm.

m: T for Trinity? Because you love her?

a: Yep. I love her.

To become a Paperclipping Member, please click here for information, and to sign up!

PDS 003 – I Made My Own Shadows

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

What ideas, suggestions, and tips do you have for someone trying to learn a new program? How long does it take to get a handle on the software? What makes it easier when trying to learn a new program?

All this and more on this week’s Paperclipping Digi Show!

You can use this audio player to listen to the show:

You need Adobe Flash Player to view this video.

If you want, you can also right click this link to save the show to your computer manually.

The Panel

“Intro to Video” Discount

Get $20 off Izzy’s “Intro to Video” course (normally $50 but only $30 for PDS listeners). Follow this link to get the coupon code!

Picks of the Week

(Affiliate links wherever possible.)

How to subscribe…

We’re in the iTunes directory so you can just click on this link to go there and subscribe,… or if you want to do it the hard way, you can subscribe to the show’s RSS feed.

Your thoughts?

What did you think of the show? What questions or feedback do you have? Please let us know in the comments!

A Photography Tip for You: See the Lines

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

Hi, again!

Through years of dance classes I learned to pay attention to lines. The lines of the body in dance are key. The curving line of the back. The line of a neck. The long — or sometimes bent — line of a leg or an arm or a hand.

seeing_mushroom
Now I use things other than my own legs, arms, and torso to make visual art. Like you I use paper, photos, text, and embellishments. But lines are still a key component, not just in designing a scrapbook page, but in photography as well.

A great way to improve your photography is to identify the lines in your favorite photos, and then practice noticing lines when you’re taking photos. Let me share some examples…
chipotles
A line of people. The line of a bar. And if you’re lucky, the lines of two pursed lips that mimic the slanted line of a protective piece of glass.
playing_chess
The back-lit line of an arm leading toward the subject. The angled lines of a game board. The vertical lines, like spires, of game pieces.
slide
Repetitive vertical lines. The diagonal line of a slide and a body, both leading to the subject of the photo. The lines of a frame around that subject.

Lines lead the eye. They add structure. And if there were no other relevant purpose, it would be enough that lines can be truly beautiful in and of themselves. So when you’re done reading this week’s newsletter, why don’t you open your photo manager and make an assessment?

Are you making use of all the beautiful lines around you?

Your Suggestions — My Responses

Last week I asked you what you would like to see if you could choose the next Paperclipping Video Tutorial. I got so many great responses, and I am happy to find that most of what everybody asked for were topics I had rolling around in my head. Your responses helped me to prioritize the specifics of those topics you want to see. So first, let me say thank you for your help! I hope you like the episodes we’re planning for the coming months.

There were some questions or requests that I want to respond to. I’ll share one here today and a few more in the next two newsletters…


“I’m not sure if you work with sketches but if you do I’d love to see your process. I struggle with scrapping with a sketch and maybe you have tips and techniques we can learn from?”

While I know sketches are great tools for many scrapbookers, sketches are not good for the way I personally get creative.

  • I prefer not having visual inspiration in front of me while I am trying to create something. I feel more creative when I work from within my head.
  • I like my photos and my story to dictate the structure or design of the layout. When working with sketches in the past, I felt like I was trying to force my story into someone else’s strict structure.

I do have a system that I use, though, that is more fluid and flexible than a sketch. The system is a set of visual starting points that I call Flexible Templates.

My Flexible Templates are very loose and general foundations — ways to lay photos and lines that always work. I don’t sketch out the placement: instead I share an image that you can visualize in your head, such as Moving Panels, and show a number of examples of how you can place your photos, titles, journaling, and embellishments in and around that image. Here are two Moving Panel layouts:
moving_panel_boots
moving_panels_thanksgiving
Most of my Flexible Templates can vary from single-photo layouts to multi-photo two-page spreads. That’s how flexible they are!

The episode where I first introduced my Flexible Template concept is free for anyone to watch. You can view it, even if you’re not a member, by clicking here. Then, if you have a Paperclipping Membership, or if you choose to become a member, you can watch some of the other Flexible Templates I have shared so far…

I have more Flexible Templates that I will share in the future, so keep an eye out if you like the idea of having a jumping off point that doesn’t strap you down before you’ve taken flight.

Don’t forget!

I hope the tips and tutorials I mentioned in this newsletter give you a stronger foundation in design from which you can let your creativity spin free this week! Have fun paperclipping!

Best Regards,

Noell
Host, Paperclipping

PRT 024 – I Did It But Hid It

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

How do you get beyond the typical obvious description and journal a more compelling and revealing story that will mean more to people over time?

This is the subject of this week’s Paperclipping Roundtable!

You can use this audio player to listen to the show:

You need Adobe Flash Player to view this video.

If you want, you can also right click this link to save the show to your computer manually.

The Panel

Picks of the Week

(Affiliate links wherever possible.)

WE HAVE A SPONSOR!

This show is sponsored by Big Picture Scrapbooking. Click here for the promo code to save 10% on any class at BPS!

More Links

How to subscribe…

Did you know that when you subscribe in iTunes (which is free), you’re helping support Paperclipping Roundtable? It’s true. iTunes measures every subscription, so it’s like casting a “vote” for the show. It helps us move up the ranks and helps us grow the audience.

iTunes is free. Subscribing is free, so why not use it to download the show? Subscribe in iTunes (iTunes link) right now so your computer will automatically download each new episode as they become available. (If you don’t know how to do that, you can watch a video here that shows you how.)

Even Your Teens Will Love You For This

Thursday, June 10th, 2010

Hi again!
faces
You know Pam from the television show, The Office? I saw her face in an issue of O Magazine once, and since The Office is one of the only TV shows I watch, I had to find out what the actress, Jenna Fischer, had to say to O readers. Surprisingly, what she said applies directly to us as scrapbookers.

Jenna had the same teenage angst most teens feel toward their parents. One day, while fishing through a drawer that contained memorabilia from her childhood, she found an old datebook her parents kept while she was a baby. Periodically, they would write a quick note on a particular day about what she was doing, or how they were dealing with the struggles and wonder of a having new child.

This is how those simple notes affected Jenna…

As I read, I realized for the first time ever that my parents were human beings. It had honestly never dawned on me that the people responsible for incarcerating me in my bedroom, who forced me into the manual labor of taking out the garbage, had once been two kids who were overwhelmed and excited about having their first baby. And they adored me. To see that kind of humanness in them at a time when I felt so disconnected from them was deeply affecting. I could have hugged them immediately, told them how much I loved them. But I didn’t. In my own subtle, teenage way, I just…appreciated them more.

I have kept the datebook in that drawer ever since, as a reminder of how much my parents did for me, how much they love me, how much I love them.

This article moved me — so much so that I’m writing to you about it three years later! What is it about her story that causes me to recall it again and again? It’s so human. We all relate to it. I found five tips from Jenna’s experience — and from her own way of telling the story — that you and I can use as scrapbookers to encourage a similar result of mutual understanding and compassion between ourselves and the people we scrapbook about.

  1. Talk to your subject, instead of about your subject. Example: “You always wanted me to hold you facing outward so you could see all the action that was going on,” instead of, “Trinity always wanted me to hold her facing outward so she could see all the action that was going on.”
  2. Be real. Be honest. Share some of your struggles.
  3. Sometimes it’s better to let your family members come across your messages to them on their own. You don’t have to show them every page you make right away. They’ll find it later. You also don’t always have to see their responses, or be assured of your impact on them.
  4. Simplicity in communication is beautiful.
  5. Writing something down — no matter how small or mundane — is better than not writing anything at all.

And if I can add my own tip — one that is totally unrelated to the article — it would be this: spend a meal passing the camera around and make embarrassing faces when it’s on you. Your kids will love you for that, both now and in the future.

Weekly Paperclipping Roundup

Save The Date

  • The Paperclipping Festival – June 22nd! Members should have received their second email regarding how to participate. If you’re a member, and you’re not getting these, please email me. (If you’re not a member, you can learn about a membership here.)
  • Paperclipping Live! – Don’t forget to come scrapbook with us every Tuesday night at 6:30 pm PST!

How To Navigate Around the Changes to the Paperclipping Website

You probably noticed some things are in different places all of a sudden (And we’re not done making changes). You might be wondering how you can make sure you’ll see everything. Here’s the scoop…

The homepage (what you see when you go to www.paperclipping.com) only houses recent video tutorials.

The blog is where you’ll find all of the posts, including…

  • Video Tutorials
  • Roundtable
  • Digi Show
  • Newsletters
  • Monthly Challenge Highlights
  • Festival
  • anything else we want to share

You can find the blog and see everything by clicking on the link that says “blog” in the navigation bar at the top of the homepage (or any page).

You can also subscribe to the feed by clicking the RSS link in the upper left-hand corner of the site, or the RSS button inside your browser. If you were already subscribed to the old feed before we posted this newsletter you will only get the videos. To get everything, please resubscribe now.

Thanks to everyone who actively participates. You’ve shown us a need to grow and expand all that we’re doing. Many thanks to our members who make all that growth possible!

Best Regards,

Noell
Host, Paperclipping