Are you ready to scrapbook your Halloween before we dive into Thanksgiving and Christmas? In case you need a few ideas I thought I’d share sixty-five of my own for you to choose from!
Posts Tagged ‘Halloween’
Sixty-Five Ideas for Scrapbooking Halloween
Saturday, November 5th, 2011
How to get Good Halloween Pictures
Thursday, October 28th, 2010It’s dark. Everybody is high on Halloween adrenaline. Nobody wants to wait any longer to start the candy collecting around the neighborhood. How do you get great Halloween photos at a time like this? The conditions are not ideal, but you really can get good photos that will capture the excitement of this fun holiday.
Here are nine tips that will help you get pictures you love, and expand your ideas for fun shots!
Four Photo Ideas
1. Put your camera on a tripod and document the transformation of applying the makeup and putting on the costume. For the makeup portion, try to maintain the same position in each photo to get a slideshow effect.
2. Capture the little details. Consider taking close-up pictures of a child’s hand dipping a brush into Halloween makeup. Focus in on the crooked mouth of the jack-o-lantern. Take a still shot of the pile of candy on the table.
3. It’s sometimes better if you don’t shoot from head to toe, since shoes are often the weakest part of a costume.
4. To maximize the photo and costume, identify the best part of the costume. Is it just the mask? Or is it the mask and the torso? Get in close – the closer the better — and fill the frame with the parts you’ve decided are best. A generally good ratio to strive for is 90% person and 10% background in your picture.
Five Halloween Photography Tips
1. You’ll get your best Halloween photos at dusk. For that hour or so while the sun is setting, you’ll have enough natural light to easily forgo your flash while still capturing the glow of your jack-o-lanterns and the bright colors of your costumes.
After dusk, use a high ISO setting (400 or more) and hold your camera as steady as you can (or use a tripod) to capture action without a flash. The rich, dark colors of Halloween will illustrate the spooky holiday mood, so make sure your flash doesn’t overpower them. Remember, Halloween is not a bright holiday. Dark and creepy shots can work in your favor.
2. The more light your jack-o-lanterns emit, the more bewitching they’ll appear in your pictures. It’s important that you turn off your camera’s flash so it doesn’t overwhelm your candlelight. Since jack-o-lanterns don’t move, you can use a long shutter speed (a low number) and set your camera on a steady surface or a tripod.
If you’re photographing outdoors and you find that your shots only capture the light of the carved facial features, but none of the pumpkin’s outer shape, try adding some low lighting with a flashlight shining on the shell of the pumpkin.
Put 2-3 candles in each jack-o-lantern to get a good glow
3. Take pictures as soon as your subjects are in costume. Makeup likes to rub off, and costumes get disheveled.
4. If you’re shooting a child or a group of children, get down at eye level to show the real effect of the costumes.
5. With groups of monsters–young or old–pack them together and have them touch. Do your best to fill the frame with them. But keep it casual! Don’t line them up. If you’re photographing three, group them in a triangle–this arrangement usually looks best. In a larger group, have some kneel or crouch down in front of the others so you get an up-and-down arrangement.
Weekly Roundup
- Paperclipping Video Tutorial – Contrast and Embellishments in Scrapbooking
We released this tutorial as an extra for the Paperclipping Members as we celebrate our birthday this month. Get this episode, plus 155 tutorials in the archives and two more every month, by becoming a member! Click here to see how it works.
- The Paperclipping Roundtable – A Look at Different Scrapbooking Styles
- The Paperclipping Digi Show – You Say Opacity, I’ll Say Opacity
Heads Up!
- Paperclipping Live! – This live scrapbooking show is every Tuesday at 6:30pm PST. Are you free?
- Paperclipping October Challenge! There are only a few days left to submit your layout or project for a chance to be highlighted on the Paperclipping blog! Hurry quick, before Halloween sucks up all your time! This will probably be the last monthly challenge of 2010.
If you celebrate Halloween, I hope you have a festive holiday! And thank you for celebrating four years of Paperclipping with Izzy and me all month! We hope you enjoyed the promotions and special extra goodies. We’re looking forward to another great year to come!
Contrast and Embellishments in Scrapbooking – Paperclipping 156
Monday, October 25th, 2010In this week’s scrapbooking video tutorial, I share the principles of design related to contrast and show how you can use contrast to help you choose, make, and cluster embellishments into groupings. There are times when you want high contrast, low contrast, or contrast plus repetition. This episodes gives examples of when you use each one when scrapbooking with embellishments.
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This episode is an extra bonus video for the Paperclipping Members as we celebrate our birthday. Thank you, Paperclipping Members, for allowing this show to exist!
If you are not a Paperclipping Member you can watch the video trailer above or download it. But if what you really want is to watch the entire video, plus the other 115 videos in our archives, please visit the Membership Information Page to learn more!
Below is the mini-book I featured in the tutorial . . .
All Hallow’s Eve 2009
You can watch me design this cover in Paperclipping 154 – Advanced Design with L-Frames.
I loved working with this minibook cover made by Teresa Collins! She created it for Thanksgiving but I wanted it for my Halloween book. The price for this is so low, you may want to consider the entire kit for Thanksgiving, plus a second cover for Halloween! I altered my cover by spraying it with Glimmer Mist in Tiger Lilly and Pumpkin Pie. Since Tiger Lilly isn’t available, you might try Jack O Lantern or Sugar Maple as a second mist color.
Some of the items on my cover: Prima Flowers, Venice * The Girl’s Paperie Toil & Trouble Charm.
I made the foundation of my title from an old piece of sheet music that had belonged to my husband’s mother decades ago. I distressed it with Tim Holtz’s Old Paper Distress Ink his Ink Blending Tool, some water spritzing, hand-wrinkling, and edge fraying.
Supplies available for purchase: Girl’s Paperie Skull Charm
Journaling reads: Aiden – You were so excited about 2 features of yoru costume this year.
1) You loved being able to peek through the eye-holes of the sheet and then throw the sheet back, popping your head out.
2) You loved the thumb holes of that skater shirt you were wearing underneath the sheet. Just like your head, you thought it was the coolest to be able to pop those through!
Watching your excitement and energy is one of the joys of my life. Love. <3
Tim Holtz Type Charms * Tim Holtz Hinge Clip
Journaling reads: Blake – This wasn’t the easiest Haloween for you. You love good costumes, or at least good masks or makeup. Always have. This year the only costumes you were interested in were masks for $50 – $100!
Fiinally, we decided to have Dad paint makeup on your face, which you liked last year. But the makeup we got ended up being difficult. It dried on your face and cracked. You didn’t like that and could barely move your face.
On top of that, you had stayed up all night at David’s slumber party the evening before. CRANKY is an accurate word for you this Halloween. The contrast between you and Aiden was . . . hilarious.
Love you, dude!
Mom
Prima Black Butterfly Swirls * Tim Holtz Type Charms * Tim Holtz Metal Numerals
Teresa Collins Library Card and Pockets * Tim Holtz Hitch Fasteners
Journaling reads: Trinity – You wanted to be a devil. I wanted to make sure your costume was little-girl friendly. I decided to play with contrast: make you the cutest, sweetest, prettiest devil ever. We found a dressy red outfit you could also wear at Christmas time. I put your hair in ringlets.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
You were gorgeous. Innocent. Little girl. Even with that studded choker on. :)
Love it!
Bazzill Bling Button * Tim Holtz Type Charms
My Mind’s Eye black flocked paper * Girl’s Paperie Metal Charm * Prima black velvet flower with metal and bling
Ready to learn how to better use contrast for embellishing gatherings? Head over to the Member’s Area or get your own Paperclipping Membership today!
* All supplies link to my affiliate store.
Three Tips for Purchasing Halloween Scrapbooking Supplies
Friday, October 8th, 2010
Do you have Halloween projects you’re preparing for? About to make some Halloween purchases? I have a few tips that will help you save money. These apply to the other holidays as well, so if you’re already beyond me in your holiday preparations, you might benefit from these tips as you prepare for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Please read on for three money-saving tips for Halloween scrapbooking supplies . . .
1- Make A Conscious and Specific Style Choice
Some of us do Halloween shopping with too broad of an approach. We think the Halloween theme is specific enough, but it’s not.
Halloween is a theme; it isn’t a style.
Within the Halloween theme, it’s extremely helpful to pick a specific style or look. There are childlike, cute Halloween styles. There’s the gloomy, dark and scary Halloween. There’s Victorian Halloween. There is quirky Halloween.
You know me . . . I love to mix styles together. But remember, mixing styles should be deliberate so that you balance them in a way that creates unity among the styles.
A benefit of identifying a conscious and specific style choice is that you will be less likely to over-purchase because you’ll narrow your options.
My style is a mix of elegant Victorian Halloween with a quirky slant. I love adding the quirky spin to something elegant for this holiday, like the loopy spiral-shaped beads with black flowers sticking out of the wine bottle I altered (the wine bottle is in the top photo).
Shiny beads = elegant.
Loopy beads splayed in multiple directions = quirky
Sheet music = elegant.
Sheet music rolled up to extend the nose of the bottle with black flowers spraying out the top = quirky
2- Buy Scrapbooking Supplies That Complement Your Halloween Decorating Style
I have two reasons for this:
- Halloween is a great opportunity to display your Halloween-related scrapbook pages, albums, and minibooks. It’s better when they fit right into your decorating!
- You will be able to use your supplies for both handmade decorations and scrapbooking. This will save you lots of money.
3- Less Halloween-Specific Pieces + Lots of Non-Specific Pieces
I only buy a few favorite supplies that are specific to Halloween every year. I know “few” can be relative. Let me be specific:
This year I bought just one piece of Halloween patterned paper.
I chose it in part because it was designed to be versatile enough to use for non-Halloween projects, since I still had a two very specific papers from last year. You’ll see why this is enough as you continue reading.
I bought one package of Halloween-related charms. Of the six charms, three can be used for non-Halloween projects.
I also had a few charms left from last year and a couple of stickers.
With that small amount of stuff, I was able to make a good-sized mini-book (you’ll see it later in the month), alter my wine bottle, and I still have more than what I need for next year. How can that be?
Most of my supplies are general purpose. I used Victorian-styled papers with black flocking, for example. I used beads and black flowers. I used flourishes and painted them black, then added Rock Candy Distress Stickles . . .
You only need one or two Halloween-themed symbols within the framework of non-specific blacks or oranges to speak the holiday.
Hopefully this gave you a few money-saving ideas to help you with your own Halloween decorating, crafting, and scrapbooking this month!
* Some links are affiliate links.
Weekly Roundup
- Paperclipping Video Tutorial – Advanced Design with L-Frames
- The Paperclipping Roundtable – You Won’t Be Interested In This Topic
- The Paperclipping Digi Show – Katie the Profanity Lady
Heads Up!
- Paperclipping Live! – This live scrapbooking show is every Tuesday at 6:30pm PST. Izzy will be making his very first scrapbooking project! You’ll want to see this!
Advanced Design With L-Frames – Paperclipping 154
Tuesday, October 5th, 2010You may or may not know about the L-frame as a possible foundation for the design of your scrapbook pages. Today’s episode will take you beyond the basics of the L-frame — although you’ll learn it if it’s new to you — to show you more artistic and less obvious ways to use this as the foundational structure of your scrapbook design.
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You can also right-click to save the video.
Please click on the video trailer above to see how today’s tutorial goes beyond what you might already know with regard to the L-frame, and how to use it to your advantage and with whatever style of scrapbooking you prefer.
Today’s episode is for Paperclipping Members. Does it sound helpful? We have more than 150 other tutorials that could help you with your scrapbook design and scrapbooking ideas. Please visit the Membership Information Page to learn more!
Below are the layouts I featured in today’s episode. You’ll need to watch the video for the specific design tips and techniques, but in the meantime, I hope you get some inspiration and ideas . . .
All Hallow’s Eve
7×10 mini-book
I loved working with this minibook cover made by Teresa Collins! She created it for Thanksgiving but I wanted it for my Halloween book. The price for this is so low, you may want to consider the entire kit for Thanksgiving, plus a second cover for Halloween! I altered my cover by spraying it with Glimmer Mist in Tiger Lilly and Pumpkin Pie. Since Tiger Lilly isn’t available, you might try Jack O Lantern or Sugar Maple as a second mist color.
Some of the items on my cover: Prima Flowers, Venice * The Girl’s Paperie Toil & Trouble Charm.
I made the foundation of my title from an old piece of sheet music that had belonged to my husband’s mother decades ago. I distressed it with Tim Holtz’s Old Paper Distress Ink his Ink Blending Tool, some water spritzing, hand-wrinkling, and edge fraying.
The 3-Wheeler
2-page 12×12 scrapbook page
I wanted to chronicle the life of this bike, which began with my first born (top photos) and ended when my last child outgrew it. I used list-journaling to recall our memories.
The journaling reads: This bike went a long way. And I don’t mean on one literal trip . . .
- 3 toddlers who turned into big kids seeking thrills on steep hills
- 2 apartments + 2 homes
- an early Izzy production “commercial” starring Trinity and the bike
- a little dying cricket being treated to a ride by Aiden in the square indentation between the handles
- the removal of handle bars
- being flipped upside-down for the sharpening of fingernails with the turning of the wheel and pedals
Supplies:
Around the outside of basic white cardstock I sprayed Lemon Grass Glimmer Mist, then inked the edges with Old Paper Distress Ink and Ink Blending Tool.
The letter B is a chipboard letter from the Pocket Watch Glimmer Chip chipboard letters. I inked it with Fired Brick Distress Ink.
Amazed . . .
12×12 scrapbook page
Life Explorer
12×12 scrapbook page
Today: 2-28-08
2 pages from a mini-book
Are you ready to get creative with L-frames? Watch the episode (or get your membership first), choose your story, then start Paperclipping!
Sale Today On Tree Of Life
Thursday, December 10th, 2009Remember that great tree I decorated for Halloween? (Advantus makes it and the designer sent me one to try). You can get it on sale today only for a great price. Normally it’s $29.99 but today it’s only $17.77 as long as it’s available.
You can get it in Vanilla or Bronze (which is what I have–it looks black). I thought I’d let you all know since many of you liked it after I did a four-part series on decorating this tree for Halloween. I saw that someone used it as an event calendar for Christmas and I cannot wait to use it for Valentine’s Day!
Disclaimer: The links to the products will take you to my affiliate store with Scrapbook.com. If you purchase it through my links I will make a commission.
Paperclipping 127 – Asymmetry
Monday, November 2nd, 2009Get the Flash Player to see this video.
This week’s episode for the Paperclipping Members demonstrates tips and principles for turning a boring and symmetrical multi-photo layout into a much more interesting page with asymmetry. Watch the page come together and see the difference design know-how can make!
If you’re not a Paperclipping Member you can click on the player above for the trailer to this tutorial, or click here to watch the Quicktime version. You can also watch the free videos we have in the column to the left (you’ll probably need to scroll down a little to see those). If you like what you see, you may want to head over to this page to learn how you can watch the rest of our tutorials.
Below is the scrapbook page I featured in this episode…
Actors
2-pg. 12×12 layout
Making Memories was definitely my manufacture of choice for Halloween products this year. They made the witch boots paper and the charms you see in the layout above. The gorgeous laser cut paper at the bottom (Basic Grey) and the black-on-black flocked damask design that stretches across the page toward the top (Doodle Bug) are not Halloween-specific but definitely contribute the style I was going for.
These black flowers that hug the photo series (a tiny one layered on top of a larger one), plus the framed boots with small flower, are variations of two of the Halloween ornaments I designed for the tutorial here and here.
Journaling reads:
Trinity – You made up the “Freaky Doll” idea when Nana said you could borrow her purple wig (something she usually wears Halloween night) and that very bizarre mask. That pink girlie dress and the striped tights were perfect final additions to complete the look. Great idea, girlie.
Aiden – While most of the school doesn’t come in Halloween costumes (rules), the kindergarten was invited to dress up like a character from a book. You picked a skeleton book we own and I used it as a model to paint bones on some old black clothes. You didn’t want to paint your face (too uncomfortable) and I was cool with that decision.
Blake – You got some good 1-on-1 time with Dad while he painted Zombie makeup on you, You love being a monster and really getting into character. Usually you’re done that with masks but this year you were excited to finally get costume makeup on your monster face. Something you’ve wanted for a while.
Paperclipping 126 – Make a Subject Pop in Photoshop Elements
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009Get the Flash Player to see this video.
Download the Quicktime video here.
This week’s episode has been released for the Paperclipping Members. If you’re not a member, you can watch a trailer of the tutorial by clicking on the video above.
In this in-depth video I show you step-by-step in Photoshop Elements how to…
- Isolate a subject in your photo so you can give it/him/her special attention.
- Boost the color of your subject while making everything else black and white.
- Make your subject stand out more by darkening your background and boosting the highlights in your subject.
- Make your subject stand out by blurring the background.
- Smooth the edges of your isolated subject so it doesn’t have that yucky “cut-out” look.
You’ll be able to do the above with your own Halloween zombies, their bloody sores, or with cute little girls at tea parties (below)–whatever you think needs special attention above its background. Check out this Before/After example where I left Blake’s sores and tongue a subtle red and brought him forward from his background, then see the layouts below for two examples:
To see what it takes to become a Paperclipping Member so you can watch episodes like this one, please visit the Membership Information Page.
Below are the layouts I featured in the episode…
The Making Of A Zombie
Journaling to Blake reads: Your makeup is on and you have no problem getting your act together, getting into character. I love how you love playing the part.
Girly Tea Time
Journaling to Trinity reads: I had such a fun day with you at this tea party. We looked at art on the street, shopped a cute gift shop and tried hats and teas. Fun girly day.
Want to try it? Once you do it you’ll want to do it all the time. It’s fun. Enjoy!
Paperclipping 125 – Handmade Halloween Decorations Part 4
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009Get the Flash Player to see this video.
Today’s episode, for the Paperclipping Members, is a fun way to use up your extra three-dimensional flowers to make some really cool ornaments (or embellishments if you choose to scrap with them instead!).
This is part of a four-part series. Part 1 and Part 3 are free and don’t require membership to watch. If you’re not a member, you can click on the window above to get a preview of this tutorial. You could also watch the Quicktime version of the trailer here. And of course, there are several free videos which we have available in the left-hand column. If you like what you see and you want more, please click here to see how you can get access to 125 tutorials plus on-going members-only episodes as we continue to release them.
The rest of the posts in this series…
Note: Thanks to Nancy Horkey, designer of the Tree Of Life featured in this episode, who gave me my own tree. You can find these trees at www.my-treeoflife.com or in many local craft and scrapbook stores.
Paperclipping 122 – Handmade Halloween Decorations: Part 1
Monday, October 5th, 2009
Want some ideas? This is the first of a series of 4 tutorials on handmade Halloween decorations.
This video is available to members only.
For instructions on the other decorations you saw on my tree and garland, please click on the following links…
Part 2
Part 3 (this one is free; doesn’t require a membership)
Part 4
