Blast From the Past #1

I will be doing a brand new article here on the Stamping 411 Blog on the third Thursday of all odd numbered months. This article will be a blast from the past which means I will be taking an older sketch of ours and showing you how to turn the card sketch into a scrapbook layout.

This is the first sketch I have chosen from December 11th, 2009, SSC #129. Seems like so long ago!! Well I guess it is, over 2 years ago. Make sure to check out the original post to see all the projects that the Operators made using this sketch but right now check out how I turned this card sketch into a scrapbook layout.

So what do you think? Like how it turned out?? I LOVE how it turned out!!! I used the Big Top Birthday DSP, Real Red, Tempting Turquoise, Daffodil Delight & Whisper White Card Stock, Whisper White Bakers, Real Red & Daffodil Delight Brads, Petite Pennants Builder, 1/2" Circle & 3/4" Circle Punches and Sweet Shoppe Alphabet Lower Stamp Set.

I just love doing banners!!! They are so much fun and easy to make!!

I hope you enjoyed my first installment of "Blast From the Past" article!! Watch for this new article in the months of January, March, May, July, September and November.

Have a great day!!
Tiffany

Scrapbooking 101-411 Style!

Scrappers New Years Resolutions

If you are like me you have quit making serious New Year's resolutions. Well here are some easy resolutions that I am making this year! Maybe they will inspire you to make some scrappers New Year's resolutions too! Pick out a few or maybe resolve to do them all! I am printing these out and putting them on my refrigerator so that I am reminded of them daily!

Scrapper's New Year's Resolution No 1:
I will journal or blog every day. This is a great way to record my thoughts and have journaling for future layouts.

Scrapper's New Year's Resolution No 2:
I'll set aside at least 30 minutes a day to do something creative or inspiring: working on a layout, planning a new layout, paging through a scrapbook magazine, reading the latest articles...

Scrapper's New Year's Resolution No 3:
I'll try something new in my scrapbooking. More digital scrapbooking?

Scrapper's New Year's Resolution No 4:
I'll do at least one mini album.

Scrappers New Year's Resolution No 5:
I'll gather my supplies and go to a crop with other scrappers!

Scrapper's New Year's Resolution No 6:
On my birthday, I will treat myself to something I've always considered an extravagant luxury, such as a scrapbooking retreat with far away friends.

Scrapper's New Year's Resolution No 7:
Instead of just thinking about it, I'll post comments on other blogs.

Scrapper's New Year's Resolution No 8:
I'll submit a layout to a scrapbook magazine.

Scrapper's New Year's Resolution No 9:
I will participate more on a fun online scrapbooking community like Stampin' Connection.

Scrapper's New Year's Resolution No 10:
I'll scrapbook more!

I wish you a very happy New Year and I hope that you are able to accomplish all that you resolve to do this year!

Happy Scrapping!!
Tiffany

Scrapbooking 101-411 Style!

Simple Steps to a Good Layout

Here's a few things to consider when doing a scrapbooking layout:

1) Let a Theme Rule

Build your scrapbook page around a theme like your family's Christmas or your son's first basketball game. If more than one photo are used on the page, each photo should relate to the theme or to each other. So that the page could tie together meaningfully as a neat scrapbooking layout design idea.

Three to six photos can generally fit into a page. For more photos, a two-page spread would work great. From each occasion or for each theme, select the best photos for your scrapbook page.

Tip 1: You don't have to use all your photos for your scrapbooks. I usually pick the best pictures for the theme of my layout and put the rest of the pictures in a photo album.

Tip 2: If you still need more help in doing effective layouts, a recommended help would be to use sketches. This tip is one that I use all the time!! There are alot of different sites out there that offer scrapbooking sketches. I mainly use Page Maps but there are many more. After a while you will get to the point that you are comfortable using sketches that you can then take card sketches and turn them into scrapbooking layouts too.

2) How to Arrange Photos

Select a focal point - Choose a main photo that can arrest the eye for a start before leading it to the rest of the page. A good scrapbooking layout design idea would be a photo that represents the overall theme. Generally, such a photo will require minimum cropping.

The focal point doesn't have to land right smack in the center of the page. Highlight its importance by placing it slightly off-center, tilting it ever so slightly or even giving it a multi-layered mat.

Maintain a Flow and Balance - With the focal point settled, the placement of the other photos should contribute to the whole flow and balance of the page. A good photo placement is one that seamlessly leads your eye from one photo to the next.

After experimenting with different scapbooking layouts, I would usually take a step back and observe the layout for a few moments. Then I would ask myself, "Is there a good flow and balance?" If the answer is no, I'll continue to make some little adjustments here and there to get the right balance. If the answer is yes, I'll move on and mount them onto the page.

3) Crop It the Right Way

Cropping a photo could improve the look of it by taking off the unnecessary details. Cropping narrows down the focus on the subject of the photo. Cropping also allows you to fit more photos into a page.

Here is a layout I did awhile back using one of our sketches. As you can see my layout takes on the design of the sketch.

Happy Scrapping!!!
Tiffany

Scrapbooking 101-411 Style!

Isn't it frustrating always having to do repeated searches for photos, and can't find the exact ones you needed for a scrapbooking layout? Disorganized and unlabeled photos eat away your scrapping time as you spend time searching for the perfect photos for your layout. Sometimes you've even forgotten about a few fabulous snapshots in your unsorted pile of photos and missed out on using them.

Spend some time today to sort and file your photos in an organized system to make scrapbooking a joy, not a nightmare.

Firstly, gather all your photos together. Then go through a toss-give-keep session.

Toss
OK, you probably have to be a little more decisive here. Get rid of those bad photos you know you won't be scrapbooking as they are of poor quality, badly-lit or simply can't make the cut.

Give
What about those so so but aren't scrapworthy photos? Pull these out and get them into a pile. Then give these photos away to family members, use them as extras your kids can experiment with, or use them in creating gift albums.

Keep
These are your winners and keepers. They don't have be to perfect shots. They do have to make you feel, capture moments and evoke memories. These are photos that inspire you to scrap. Even if you choose not to scrapbook them, these are photos that have a place in your photo albums.

Photo Organization
Sorting Out Your Photos

What to do with your keepers? There's several methods you can use to sort out your photos. Sorting them out will keep your photos organized and your photo search an efficient process.

Find out which sorting style suits you best from the list below and get busy with your photo organization. All these sorting methods apply to photos spanning many seasons, events and years.

Date
This is great if you have hundreds of photos or a huge backlog of photos that will be put on hold for sometime. You can sort your photos by year and break it down further by month. And that's how I sorted mine.

It works very well if you scrapbook chronologically as you have all the photos sorted and figured out by dates.

Though I scrapbook randomly, this method still works for me. I find it quite easy to run through my two photo boxes and look at the photos sorted out by dates, and pull out the relevant photos I want to scrapbook about.

Theme
Date order not important? Want the freedom to scrap on specific subjects whenever the mood strikes and have the relevant photos close at hand? Consider sorting your photos by themes such as family reunions, vacations, anniversaries, birthdays, outings, sports, friends, children and such.

This method is also fabulous if you intend to create theme albums later on, as you'll already have all the photos sorted out by themes.

Family Member
Do you often create layouts focusing on different family members? Then you can consider sorting your photos into individual groups that feature each family member prominently. Each individual pile of photos will include everyday and event photos that involved that family member.

Album
This is quite similar to sorting by theme except you know exactly which album your photos go to. You can have individual albums covering different themes such as family, children, grandparents, vacations, holidays and such.

Sort your photos according to the album they will be appearing in. Make it even more organized by further breaking down the photo stacks into specific subjects for each album.

Photo Organization
Ways to Store Your Photos

Now that you have your photos sorted, what's next? You need to have them protected and stored away as you are unlikely to be scrapbooking all of them at once.

There's several ways to store your sorted photos, pick one and get your photo organization system on the roll.

Photo Albums
The best part about putting your photos into photo albums is that others can view them right away. It's a viewing-friendly format. Avoid the magnetic albums though as they might break down your photos over time

With photo albums, your family don't have to wait till you turn the photos into layouts. It also reduces the pressure to be caught up with your scrapbooking. You know that even if you don't scrapbook these photos, you still get to see the photos as often as you like.

Photo Boxes
I have two photo boxes where I slot all my photos in. Within the photo box, you can use index cards, envelopes or divider tabs to keep your photos categorized by date or subjects, depending on your earlier sorting method.

If you want photo boxes designed with scrapbooking in mind, you might want to take a look at Cropper Hopper photo organizer. This is the one I use and love it.

Page Protectors and Big Envelopes
Store your photos in individual acid-free page protectors or envelopes. Along with the photos, you can include any journaling notes or memorabilia in each page protector or envelope.

The advantage? You can bring along the protector or envelope to the scrapbook store to shop for papers and embellishments. It's a fantastic way to ensure well-coordinated layouts.

It's also great if you attend a lot of crops and can just fill up the protector or envelope with all the elements you planned to create the layout with. Then you just grab the protectors or envelopes you'll be needing and off you go.

To keep your filled protectors or envelopes organized, put them into an inexpensive three-ring binder where you can flip through and find the pack you want to scrapbook about.

With your new photo organization system now set in place, you need to maintain and keep it up-to-date! As soon as you print more new photos or bring back another batch from your developer, set aside some minutes to quickly sort and file them accordingly.

You'll be pleased with how your small, consistent efforts pay off in more productive time for scrapping.

Happy scrapping with your newly set up photo organization system!

Tiffany

Scrapbooking 101-411 Style!

Here we are in our second month of our weekly features!! I hope you are all enjoying these, getting lots of awesome ideas and learning new things. I know we are excited about doing these and hopefully someone out there is getting something from at least one of our weekly features. I am back this month to offer up some Scrapbooking talk. This month I thought I would touch base with all of you about Getting Organized.

Getting Organized should be a priority on your list as you begin to scrapbook and your scrapbook supplies expand and grow. Save yourself lots of agony by starting early with your scrapbooking organization rather than when the clutter amountss to scary proporations.

Organizing your zillions of supplies is a necessity, not a want. Can you imagine how frustrating it can be when you intend to spend time working on your scrapbooking pages, but spend all your time looking for the supplies you want to use? This is why it is very important to pay some attention to your scrapbooking organization right now so you will not lose time later on.

Here are some steps to making scrabooking organization successful:

1. Sorting: Spread all your supplies out and start sorting them into categories like papers, embellishments, tools and so on. You can also sort within your categories by sorting your paper into different families of colors. Sort according to what you think will work best for you.


2. Recycling: Be a little tough and get rid of those supplies that you will not need. Sometimes it is kinda tough for you to look at older supplies and convince yourself that you will use it someday. The thing is, you probably will not need it and it is taking up precious space.


3. Allocating: Set up a space for your scrapbooking activity. It may be a closet, a corner at your house or if you are lucky enough, a whole room to yourself. Whatever the space, designate it as your scrapbooking area.


4. Containerizing: After sorting through all your supplies, now it is time to consider where to house them. You will want to store frequently used items close to where you work, and put aside those seldom used items to another part of your room. After finding homes for your supplies don't you feel your sense of satisfaction growing?


5. Labeling: Print or neatly handwrite labels for your containers, drawers, shelves, ect. With your supplies in their homes and labels pointing out their exact locations to you, searching for your supplies is now a breeze.


6. Maintaining: Give yourself a pat on your shoulder for completing such an important and big task of scrapbooking organization! Now that you're done, that last thing you want to do is mess it all up again. To avoid this, spend 5-10 minuetes after each scrapbooking session and put back each item to its place. This habit will help you maintain a neat and tidy scrapbooking haven.

Now that we are all organized how about some scrapbooking inspiration? Here is a stepped up version of the layout I showed you last month that you can see HERE. All I did was take the exact layout, change the theme, colors, added some embellishments and now I have a whole different layout.

Here are the measurements:

• Old Olive is 12" x 12"
• Basic Black is 8 1/2" x 6 1/2"
• Pictures are 4" x 3"
• Wicked Fun DSP is 4"x 3"

Here is what I used on my layout:

• Wicked Fun DSP
• Wicked Cool Stamp Set
• Bitty Bat, Mini Oval, 1/2" Circle & Fancy Label Punches
• Brights & Neutrals Designer Buttons
• Natural Hemp Twine
• Big Shot with the Spider Web Embossing Folder

Until next time!!
Happy Scrapping!!!
Tiffany Bauer

Scrapbooking 101-411 Style!

Welcome to a new installment that you will be seeing every Wednesday. I am first up, the first Wednesday of each month, and will be showing you the basics on scrapbooking. My first love is scrapbooking and scrapbooking can be a creative and thoughtful way to preserve your family memories. But as a beginning scrapbooker, the hobby can be overwhelming if you don't know where to start or where to get ideas. Here are some basic steps to help you get started in scrapbooking.

1. Organize your photos that you want to use.
2. Gather your supplies. You can draw color ideas from your photos.
3. Arrange photos in various placements to see which one works best or appeals to you most visually. At this stage it is not surprising if you feel lost. When this happens I find myself pulling out my scrapbooking magazines or Stampin' Up! Catalog to get inspired.
4. Once you have your photos where you want them, adhere them to your layout.
5. Add embellishments as you like.
6. Design your page title and adhere it to your page.
7. Think or your journaling and write it out in draft. I normally use a piece of scrap paper when I write out my journaling to see if it is what I wanted and to make any necessary changes.
8. Write your journaling as you have planned on the journaling box or in the area you have reserved for the journaling.
9. Now you are done!!

After viewing your completed layout and you still feel that something is missing go back to the layout and mess with it further until you know that you are done. Ultimately it is your page and you gotta have that "completed" feeling within you. Completion does not mean filling up the whole page with stuff but more of a balanced look. For my scrapbooking layout I did the "less is more" approach. By keeping my layout very simple I am showing you that you can scrapbook too.

Measurements:

More Mustard Card Stock, 12" x 12"

Old Olive Card Stock, 8 1/2" x 6 1/2"

Pictures, 4" x 3"

Autumn Spice Specialty DSP, 4" x 3"

Supplies:

Big Shot

Leaves #2 Originals Die

Square Lattice Embossing Folder

Timeless Type Junior Alphabet Medium Sizzlits Dies

Jewelry Tag Punch

Natural Twine

Vintage Trinkets

Happy Scrapping!!
Tiffany Bauer

Try A Scrapbook Page With your next Sketch Challenge!

When I saw Tiffany Bauer's post today on her blog, I knew that the readers of Stamping 411 would want to see this. Tiffany made a fabulous scrapbook page with the sketch from this week. You have 12 hours!!!

Your mission if you choose to accept is to make a scrapbook page with this weeks sketch and link it back here so we can all oooh and ahhhh

Tiffany Wrote on her blog:

"This layout is one I did for the Stamping 411 Blog using this weeks sketch!! Gotta love sketches!! As you can see I took this simple sketch and did a great layout with it.

For my layout I used the Night & Day Specialty DSP, Whisper White, Basic Black & Brocade Blue Cardstock, Brocade Blue 5/8" Grosgrain Ribbon, Paper-Piercing Tool, Mat Pack, Scallop Border Punch, the stamp sets called Baroque Motifs & Things I Love, Basic Black Stampin' Write Marker and the Big Shot using the Stampin' Up! Timeless Type Alphabet Medium Sizzlits Die.

I just love how my DSP turned out stamping some color onto it. And my faux stitching looks so real!!! I hope some of you will join in on our fun over at Stamping 411!!

Have a great day!!"