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Project Life 2012: My Intro Page

Monday, January 2nd, 2012

Looks like I’m taking the plunge…

I’ll be taking a family photo soon and adding it in. I also think I’ll pull out that top right piece and replace it with something that doesn’t fight for attention.

I’m still formulating in my mind how Project Life will fit into my scrapbooking system between the two main parts that I’m so passionate about:

Chronological access to the photos that best tell our stories, along with my journaled notes in the photo file’s metadata, organized by quarter. This can be found on my computer, on our tv, and on Flickr.
Scrapbook pages that tell the stories that can’t be told with a photo and it’s journaling alone.

One thing that’s missing from above is the day-to-day ephemera and thoughts that don’t seem significant enough to bother saving for a scrapbook page. In 2010 I started a scrap journal — like a smash book — where I could write a few thoughts and stick in my stuff. That journal morphed into a place to brainstorm and doodle and generate ideas.

So I’m thinking I’ll start adding the stuff and the small everyday thoughts into Project Life, instead. I’m just not sure how many of my photos I’ll include, and how I’ll determine which ones.

I want to have a defined purpose so I don’t end up duplicating memory-keeping, since I’m so happy with the day-to-day chronology of my digital pictures. And because I have other things I want to spend time on, too. I figure the slant I decide to take for Project Life will manifest in the first couple of weeks.

What I do know is that I’m not adding a photo for each day.

Here are some closeup’s of embellishments I added to my front page.

#5 Banner piece is from Calico Studio’s Die Cut Tags (on clearance!).

These flower brads are years old, and I think these particular Thickers numbers are discontinued too.

I used 2-inch Scalloped Punch to punch out one of the gridded cards from PL, and this heart punch with one of the patterned cards. The wood chip house is made by Studio Calico (also on clearance, and a definite product fave of mine!).

While I was pulling out the embellishments, I found a few others that match the Clementine Project Life kit (minus the green pieces). I’ll be keeping them with my Project Life kit this year.

Studio Calico Chipboard Butterflies
Echo Park letters and banners
Studio Calico Tags
The party pins were from Girls Loft and are no longer available.

So if all goes well, I’ll post my weekly spreads.

Are you doing Project Life this year? What are your plans for it?

Tags: project life
Posted in Project Life, Scrapbook Albums, Scrapbook Organization | 58 Comments »

My Current Active Scrapbook Albums

Wednesday, September 7th, 2011

These are the albums I’m most actively adding layouts to all the time right now.

I scrapbook whatever I feel like at the moment, and then I slip the page into the album I want it to go into.

Here are topics of the active albums (shown above):

Everyday Life #2 - The kinds of stuff we do from day to day.
This is Us - I’m just about finished with the final details of this album and I’m excited to start the 2nd This is Us! These highlight the personality of our family relationships.
This is Trinity - This highlights Trinity’s personality. I finished a This is Aiden album a while back and I haven’t been as active doing layouts on him recently. His and Blake’s This Is albums are in the living room cabinet.
Celebrations - Right now this holds a big mix of things we celebrate, like holidays, birthdays, and accomplishments, including business accomplishments. I’ll eventually separate some of these into different albums.
Everyday Life #1 - This one’s just about done. It’s time for me to go through it the same way I showed in this month’s episode! Fun, fun!
Nancy Holt Hyman - This is a heritage Album of Izzy’s deceased mom. I’m not really working on this much right now so I need to move it out and replace it with something else that is more active.
Dancer - Trinity’s dance album. This one in particular tells the story of her transition from a once-per-week ballet dancer to a 20+ hour/week company dancer.
Yesterday & Today - I started this album with Ali Edwards’ class. It has stories from my childhood, and stories that compare my childhood to my current family life.

Active — Just LESS Active

One of these is actually complete. The rest are all in-progress. Since I add to these slightly less often than the others, they’re out in the living room cabinet.

At Home - This is all about our home, including our yard and neighborhood.
Extended Family - Pages with Grandma’s and Grandpa’s, extended families. As this gets fuller I’ll separate grandparents into their own album. For now I also have pages about our friends in here because I needed to buy another album.
Izzy and Noell - Pages about Izzy and me together and our personality as a couple.
This is Aiden #2 - Right now there are only 4 pages in this.
This is Noell - It’s all me!
This is Aiden #1 - This album is finished, except that I want to add an explanation inside the cover.
This is Blake - Another personality album, this time about Blake.

I love having these different topics I can add to. I love the focus of topic when I look through the scrapbooks, and stories that develop within them, too!

Another benefit of having themes is that it’s easy to tell what parts of the story I’m missing.

* * Remember * * With the method that I shared in video episodes 175-176, you don’t have to plan these out ahead of time. It’s about being spontaneous with the scrapbook layouts you feel like doing, and then pulling it together with a few easy steps at the end!

More Info on Scrapbook Albums

If you’re just landing here and haven’t seen my other posts on scrapbook albums, including an article and videos on the awesomeness of transforming your albums into complete unified, complete stories, please click here.

The video series is only available to our Paperclipping Members. If you’re not a member, you may not realize it’s like taking dozens and dozens of classes for the price of just one!

You’ll get 176 video tutorials when you sign up, plus two more every month. Click here for more info.

Tags: albums, scrapbook, scrapbook albums, scrapbook ideas
Posted in Scrapbook Albums, Scrapbooking Ideas | 5 Comments »

Transform Your Albums Into Unified Stories – Part 2 – Paperclipping 176

Wednesday, August 31st, 2011

I don’t remember when it happened — maybe it was when scrapbooking companies started making transparencies and die-cut shaped pages — but at some point in my scrapbooking evolution I realized that when my albums were full, I still didn’t feel like they were ready for viewing.

What do you do with the backs of all those odd pages?

Not only that, but sometimes there would be abrupt topic changes that just felt weird and out of place.

Two or three pages of vacation layouts after a nice run of pages about us all at home.

Or a big slew of pages about Aiden with just one of Blake.

Ummm, awkward…

And what about that memorabilia you find just two weeks after you did the scrapbook page, having forgotten about the cool stuff you originally wanted to go with the layout?

Album Solutions

All these things bothered me and over the years I’ve been playing around with solutions to make each album feel like it’s own cohesive story and to fix all those awkward dilemmas.

There were a few ideas I tried and tossed out.

I’m not sharing those. ;)

But the good stuff — the stuff that really works for me — is in this week’s video tutorial, along with last week’s.

Here’s one of the layouts in the episode. That layout at the top of this post is, too –

1+1 Isn’t Always Easy

I still need to add the journaling onto the left side.

The rest of the pages in the video were basic and clear enough that I don’t think I need to post them here.

If you feel like you’re having to make explanations for people about awkward stuff they see in your albums, you’ll get a lot of this tutorial.

You’ll need a membership, though.

And when you sign up for your membership, you’ll not only get this episode, but 175 others, too! You’ll also get two more new videos every month!

Click here for Paperclipping Membership Information.

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Tags: albums, scrapbook, scrapbook albums
Posted in Scrapbook Albums | 2 Comments »

Storage Solution: In-Progress Scrapbook Albums

Tuesday, August 30th, 2011

The albums I’m most actively working on wait for their pages on this shelf in my scrap room.

It’s an old ugly TV stand and the perfect depth for 12×12 albums!

Completed albums move to the living room cabinet where dust is less likely to slip into the page protectors. Unfortunately, they’re also less likely to get viewing time in there, so I do bring one out and set it on top of a waist-high cabinet once in a while.

Our babysitter says she looks through the, so at least I know somebody’s looking!

I do have a few in-progress albums in that cabinet, as well, since my scrap room shelf isn’t big enough. But they’re the ones I add to the least often.

In the next couple days I’ll share the albums I’m most actively working on.

Where do you keep the scrapbooks you’re regularly adding pages to?

Note: This is part of a new series on scrapbook albums. Here’s what else we’ve got so far —
Transform Your Albums Into Unified Stories

Choosing an Album for a Dance Scrapbook

There are five video tutorials in this series, the fifth one will release by tomorrow!

You’ll need to have a current Paperclipping Membership to view the videos (but not the articles). Click here to learn more.

Members can return to these episodes in the membership for the five videos:

#175 – Transform Your Albums Into Unified Stories – Part 1
#176 – Transform Your Albums Into Unified Stories – Part 2
#29 – Inside the Album
#18 – Solving Your Two-Page Layout Problem
#13 – See-through Layouts

Tags: albums, scrapbook, scrapbook albums, themes
Posted in Scrapbook Albums | 10 Comments »

Transform Your Albums Into Unified Stories – Part 1 – Paperclipping 175

Monday, August 22nd, 2011

I’m all for scrapbooking however and whatever makes you happy.

That includes how we organize our scrapbook pages into albums. So I understand this comment on a recent Paperclipping blog post:

At one point I tried to put my layouts into albums chronologically. Now it’s a free for all. When I fill up one album, I just buy another and put the layouts in. I just don’t want to spend the time putting things in categories. I’m just not sure anyone is really going to care in the long run.

Whatever keeps you scrapbooking is priority number one for me, so if all you’re interested in doing is slipping the next page you made into the next empty page protector, I say go for it.

But before you say, “No one is going to care” or “It doesn’t make a difference,” just ask yourself whether that’s really true.

What if you could tell a larger story by the way you organize your pages into albums?

Scrapbook Albums: How You Can Tell Bigger Story

My albums have topics, which make them like memoirs!

There’s a topic connection between all of the layouts so that when an album is full there is a complete story. You see how the home has changed over time, and how it fits the personality of the family in an album about home. You see how a child’s personality develops over time — how parts of it seem to change in some ways while other parts remain unchanged and immovable — in an album about that child’s personality.

A mix of topics such as vacation, sports, personalities, weekend activities, everyday moments, and holidays crowd out the bigger story that is hiding for each of those topics.

In an album about things we love to do as a family you see over a number of years how our activities have changed with our maturing ages. Or I might be reminded of something we once loved but have forgotten.

(I mostly follow Stacy Julian’s Library of Memories system for album topics).

You don’t get these broader revealing stories when you put all the pages into strict chronological albums that mix topics. And not when you place layouts in the order of your scrapbooking either.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that! ;)

There is just more story you can be telling! And discovering!

Turning Your Scrapbook Albums Into Visual Memoirs

As an album gets close to its full point, I spend some time with it to flesh it out and turn it into a viewable finished story. In the process I deal with all the tricky pages — the backs of the odd-shaped pages, for example.

In this week’s episode of Paperclipping we go inside one of my albums to see…

the story that has developed naturally by having a purpose (such as the personality of the album).
what’s missing from my story
the problems in the album, like die cut shaped and transparent pages

I then share some solutions for dealing with those tricky pages where we don’t want the stuff to show through.

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If you’re a member, you’ll find this video in the Member’s Area.

Think you want to jump on board to get your membership and watch the tutorial? You’ll get the video immediately, along with access to all 175 videos in the membership!

Click here for membership information or to sign up!

Tags: scrapbook albums, scrapbooks
Posted in Scrapbook Albums | 5 Comments »

Big on Photos, Short on Time: A Summer Mini-album with 44 Photos

Friday, July 8th, 2011

Forty-four photos for a mini-album? Plus lots ‘o journaling and some ephemera too? That’s a lot!

But this was one of my easier projects of all time.

I made it last year, then pulled it out yesterday. After we got the kids down to bed, Izzy and I sat with a glass of wine (each) and read through the entire album. It’s interesting in a strange sort of way to read about so many of life’s mundane details just a year later and remember things you already forgot you used to do.

What I’d Do Differently Next Time

It did not take me long at all to make this mini-album, which I’ll get to in a minute.

But there is still one thing I would do differently if I were to do a similar modern-style clean mini-album again.

What would I do?

I would go even more digital.

I’d ditch the traditional paper and do digital paper instead.

But I would keep the metal pieces.

And I would print them on 6×6 prints from Persnickity rather than put four 6×6 pages onto 12×12 canvas prints. When you have to cut the prints down you don’t get exact uniform sizes.

Which is no big deal to some of you.

But those extra millimeters of white from the back pages that peek through on the side or top really bug the types of people who also need to feel like their bodies are laying perfectly symmetrical on the bed before they can relax and fall asleep.

…but we’re not here to talk about my issues. Just my scrapbooking.

My Guest Spot in the Paper vs. Digi Discussion on The Digi Show

When I want my photos to be the bulk of the canvas, if not the canvas itself, it makes sense to me to go digi.

I got to have a fun discussion about this with the girls on the Digi Show this week. We also chatted about the differences and the similarities between product designing, shopping, and starting a page in paper vs. digital scrapbooking.

You can head over and listen if you haven’t already to The Craft Closet of Broken Dreams at The Digi Show.

Why Digital is Great for Summer Albums

There are so many reasons I gravitate toward digital for these bigger summer time projects.

You can keep things a lot more simple with digital, especially when your project is mostly daily, as mine was.
If you have a lap top you can travel with your “supplies” and work in the car or on the plane, at the hotel or in a family member’s home.
You can have different projects going on at the same time to meet your creative mood. When I made this album I was also working on a paper mini-book and I liked being able to choose which I felt like working on at any moment.

I have a tutorial that shows how I task-batch to simplify big projects like these.

I show how my process makes it quick and easy to make intricate-looking paper mini-books.
I also show how I made the digital summer album you see in this post using the task-batching approach.
I explain how, with this process, you can simplify the project at the last moment if you’re getting sick of it, without having a book that looks intricate at the front but simple and plain at the back. You’ll get a consistent look and nobody will know that you have A.D.D!

If you’re ready to become a Paperclipping Member you’ll get instant access to this tutorial along with the other 171 videos!

Click here to get your Paperclipping Membership

Then look for Paperclipping episode 150 in the Member’s Area!

Tags: Digital, hybrid, mini album, mini-book, scrapbook, summer
Posted in Scrapbook Albums | 22 Comments »

Choosing an Album for a Dance Scrapbook

Friday, June 24th, 2011

For me it’s been easy to choose albums for my four basic themes of scrapbooking (based on Stacy Julian’s Library of Memories). They’re general themes and don’t require any specific look:

This is Us
People We Love
Places We Go
Things We Do

I’ve found it much harder to pick just the right album when it comes to more specialized themes, like my daughter’s dance scrapbook. I wanted an album that goes with her dance company look. The albums available are a bit more traditional than her company’s on-trend white and black zebra stripe pattern.

I went back-and forth between this gorgeous pin stripe album , and the black with embroidered frame that I ultimately bought, and which you see above.

I went with my gut. Of these two options, the framed album felt the most similar to Trinity’s dance experience. And that’s how I most often choose any products I use — the products that feel most like the stories or experiences I’m scrapbooking.

(affiliate links above)

Tags: albums, dance, scrapbook
Posted in Scrapbook Albums | 5 Comments »

Scrapbook Albums: Putting Layouts Away

Friday, March 11th, 2011

I was putting layouts into albums and thought I’d snap a little shot of the process.

Pages
I spread my pages into loose piles according to which album I want to put them in. Then I pull out the albums I need — a couple at a time — and get to work.

Albums
Right now I’m using a combination of American Crafts Corduroy and American Crafts Cloth albums. The blue is for the Things We Do category (I use Stacy Julian’s Library of Memories system) and this particular one is our Celebrations album. The red is for the People We Love category.

You can see to the right that I also use green for my This is Us Category. And I use a light tan corduroy for Places but I don’t have any showing in this picture.

Spines on the Titles
On the Paperclipping Roundtable I described my spine, patterned after Stacy. The only difference between mine and hers is that I type my titles onto a label and she hand-writes hers. I’ll have to snap a picture of the closeup. That will be a picture for another day, though. I’ve already put away my camera!

(affiliate links wherever possible)

Tags: albums, Organization, scrapbook
Posted in Scrapbook Albums | 6 Comments »

CHA 2011 – American Crafts Has New Scrapbook Albums

Friday, February 4th, 2011

My favorite AC Cloth Album – Robin’s Egg with Embroidered Flowers

Here are a few other albums I love that are similar to the new ones that are getting ready to launch –

Chestnut with White Flowers
Taffy Flourishes
Leaf with Embroidered Roses
Black with Embroidered Frame

(Links lead to my affiliate store. I make a small commission if you purchase something after clicking on a link. Thank you!)

Tags: albums, american crafts, Scrapbooking
Posted in Scrapbook Albums | 6 Comments »

Scrapbook Albums – Introductory Pages

Wednesday, January 26th, 2011

Intro Page to Yesterday & Today Album

This is me!

I’m taking Ali Edwards’s class — Yesterday & Today. I’ve always wanted to tell the stories from my past but for some reason I’ve also always imagined barriers that kept me from getting around to it. Ali’s class is inspiring and her assignments are so motivating that I’m finally doing it and I’m so happy!

This is the introductory page to the album we’re starting in the class. It’s a very close lift to her original — only a few tweaks. It’s funny because I’ve also always wanted to put introductory pages on most of my albums, but I’ve only bothered with it for two so far. This will now be my third.

Do you do introductory pages?

If so, what kind of information do you put on them?

This one only has pictures and the name of the album, but I’ve also always wanted to include an explanation. I imagine my album ending up in the home of a grandchild or great grandchild and I wonder if they’ll even know for sure who the creator was. Most of us refer to ourselves as, “I” when journaling. How many pages will a person have to flip through before they figure out who “I” is?

Sometimes I feel like I want to explain that the stories are from my own perspective. These are my stories, as I see them. They’re not really my kids’ stories or my husband’s stories, since they could have a completely different perspective.

In fact, Izzy and I had a laugh tonight as he flipped through my newest mini-book about a trip together. There is a little story about a funny light-hearted debate we were having. Guess who won that debate — at least according to my mini-book?

There are benefits to being the scrapbooker of the family. ;)

So I’m curious — what information do you (or would you) put on your album introductory pages? Please leave a comment and let us know. I have a hunch a majority of us don’t get around to making introductory pages very often!

Tags: introductory page, scrapbook, Scrapbooking
Posted in Scrapbook Albums | 10 Comments »

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Archive for the ‘Scrapbook Albums’ Category

Project Life 2012: My Intro Page