More Scrapbooking Gifts

I hope you found the idea of a calendar scrapbook helpful! As the holiday season is quickly approaching, I am sure you have started thinking about gifts for your friends and families! There are many scrapbooking gift ideas out there! I've written about a few of them below.

1. Creative Holiday Cards
Don't settle for the typical holiday cards that you can find in the store! Personalize them with a picture of your family or children. This is an especially good idea for friends and families who live far away and you don't see very often. Children especially grow up so fast and getting a yearly picture of them will allow for your friends and family to watch them grow.

2. Adventure Books
Shutterfly.com (http://www.shutterfly.com/shop/product_c18360/Adventure_Books)

offers a gift for younger children. They are called "adventure books" and feature characters from popular children shows such as "Sesame Street." You can then add your child's picture into the books so that they will read about themselves having an adventure with their favorite characters. This is a great way to get kids excited about reading!

3. Mugs
You can have mugs made with pictures on it too. This helps to make for a good start to your monring coffee when you think of the happy memory of the picture

4. Playing Cards
You can also make a deck of playing cards with your various pictures. This can also make a great gift. It's a great way of incorporating fun games with memories.

5. Puzzles
You can also enlarge one photo to make a puzzle out of it. Buy a design it yourself puzzle, have your favorite picture blown up at a copy store, glue the picture to the puzzle and then cut the pieces apart.

6. Magnets
Make your favorite pictures into magnets! This is a great alternative to needed to buy frames. These magnets can also help to liven up your refrigerator.

7. Photoshow
This idea is great for a milestone birthday or wedding. Pull together the same pictures you would put in a photo album or scrapbook and make them into a slideshow. You can do this by using powerpoint, a movie like imovie, or have it professionally made. Try to pick a theme for your slideshow. Show the show at the party and it is sure to be a crowd pleaser!

Calendar Scrapbooks

Once you've mastered scrapbooking, or if you're looking for a variation on scrapbooking, consider making your pictures into a Calendar. I did this for my uncle for Christmas one year and it brought him to tears. There are many ways to go about making your Calendar. First choose 12 or 13 pictures (1 for each month and 1 for the cover) that you would like to use. From here, you have several options.

One option is to create your calendar online and have it mailed to you when it is complete. Shutterfly (http://www.shutterfly.com/ ) is a great site to make all kinds of gifts with your pictures. At Shutterfly you can upload your pictures to an album and share them with friends. You can also make items such as a calendar through the site. Simply upload each picture you would like for each month and click submit. You can also do this at Walgreens (http://www.walgreens.com). Walgreens lets you choose to either have your finished project mailed to your house or you can pick it up in the store if you would rather. Kinkos is another store that makes calendars that are available for pick-up.

If you would like to make a more elaborate calendar, try going to a craft or scrapbooking store. I discussed earlier that my new favorite scrapbooking store is Archivers. At archivers you can design calendar with much more flair. You can make your calendar on glittered papers, cardstock, and chipboard accents. You can then embellish the pages with items such as rhinestones or ribbons.

Creating a personalized calendar allows for you to enjoy your memories throughout the year. Each new month will bring about a new memory for you to enjoy. Designing your own calendar also lets you put important dates on your family's calendar such as first days of schools or birthdays.

Personalized calendars also make great gifts. This is an item that people typically do not make for themselves but are very thoughtful and heartfelt. It also can be enjoyed again and again throughout the year. When the year is over, reuse the pages and frame the blown up pictures!

If you are a little older it's a great idea to make a calendar of pictures from when you were younger. Reminiscing about the old times also brings families together. You will remember the happy days of your youth every time you look at the calendar!

I hope you found this idea helpful! Happy Scrapbooking!

Archivers': The Photo Memory Store

I've recently learned about a scrapbooking store called Archivers'. There are many of them all across the United States. They have so many different items in the store there is something there for every event you could ever imagine. Although I recommend improvising and not spending too much on scrapbooking, if there is a specific material you are looking for or a specific event you are scrapbooking, I would definitely look at this store for the details. If there is not a store in your area, be sure to go to archiversonline.com to look for ideas. The site has a lot of information to offer and can be useful even if you are not in the store. Unfortunately you cannot order online, but you will most likely be able to find the same materials and another store near you.

If you are a beginning scrapbooker I would not recommend starting your shopping here as you may get too overwhelmed. However, if you are new to scrapbooking they do offer FREE classes on various topics in the store. For the beginner scrapbooker there are intro to scrapbooking classes. If you are a veteran scrapbooker you can find ways to expand your talent through these classes. They are currently offering a paper-crafting basics workshop were you can learn about the unlimited possibilities of how to embellish your pages. There is also a rubber stamping basics workshop where you can learn how to use different types of stamps and inks. You can also learn about heat embossing as well as how to care for you stamps and inks.

Archivers also has various events for you to continue to hone your skills. Many of these workshops are seasonal for example there is one for making holiday cards or Valentine's day cards. Their biggest event of the year is called Scrapfest. This event is help only at the Mall of the Americas in Minnesota. They invite scrapbookers of all ages and skill levels to this event to make their scrapbooks right there so they have access to all of the tools they may need.

Cutting Costs While Scrapbooking

Although scrapbooking is a great way to save pictures as a unique form of art, it can be an expensive hobby. If you have never scrapbooked because you were afraid of the costs, or if you would just like to save some money while scrapbooking, you may find some of the tips below to be helpful. The following tips are from the Ezine Article, "Scrapbook Cutting Cost Methods."

1. Be Organized
If you have been scrapbooking for a while, be sure to organize all of your materials. Knowing what you have will help you to use your materials most efficiently. For new and veteran scrapbookers, being organized will also help you to know what you have and what you need to buy. This will also help you to begin to form a budget as you will know what your expenses will be.

2. Practice bulk-buying
Buying items in bulk can also help to save money. If you plan on making multiple scrapbooks in the future, having extra materials will also be helpful. If you and a friend want to make scrapbooks together you can buy materials in bulk and then split them.

3. Plan in advance
Think about how you want your pages to look before you go shopping. Only buy the accents and borders that fit the themes and looks of your pages. This will help to prevent impulse buying and buying items that look cute but don't fit your pages.

4. Improvise
You can use materials you have laying around the house for your scrapbook, you don't have buy everything at a scrapbooking store. You can you circular and square items you have laying around the house as templates. Be creative and you will be surprised how much you find laying around the house.

5. Embellish with everyday objects
Use objects you have laying around the house for embellishments on your pages. Make use of ribbons, stickers, stamps, or buttons you may already have. You can make your pages look great with these items without spending extra money.

I hope you find these tips helpful! Happy scrapbooking!

How to Recover Photos after a Disaster

For those of you who have been watching the news, you may be following the story of the fires in California. This got me to thinking about how much a person loses in such disasters. Whether it is a fire, flood, or some other disaster, often times pictures from some of our favorite memories can be destroyed. I have searched many sources to try to find some of the best ways to recover these photos. Below are the steps for cleaning photos provided by the scrapbooking company "Creative Memories".

Cleaning Photos

Step 1: With gloves on, place photos in cold water in small groups of one to five. Handle the photos by the edges only.

Step 2: Soak or rinse the photos with cold water. A gentle stream of water may be sprayed on the photo to help loosen debris. Change the water frequently to keep your work environment clean. Repeat this process if necessary.

Step 3: Conduct a final rinse using cold, distilled water. This will wash away any residue remaining from the cleaning process.

Air Drying Photos: Lay photos flat to dry on either a paper towel or on plastic or aluminum screening material fastened to a frame. You may also hang the photos by one corner using small clothespins. Drying should be done in a shaded part of your home.

Flattening Photos: If the photos are curled after they are dry, place individual photographs between two sheets of blotting paper. Place flat, heavy books on top of the sheets for 24hours in a humid environment.

Additional Tips
1. If possible, try making reprints of photographs or digital images from any negatives or files that may be available before attempting to restore damaged photos.
2. If you are unable to clean your photographs immediately, place them in plastic bags in a freezer until they can be cared for further. A freezer will slow fungal growth and ensure that your photographs are in a secure location.


Hopefully you will never need these tips, but if you do, I hope they help!

More on the History of Scrapbooking

Today's post has more information about the history and evolution of scrapbooking. This information was also gleaned from the scrapbooking organization "Pages of the Heart."

Scrapbooking continued to gain popularity when John Poole published "Manuscript Gleanings and Literary Scrapbook in 1826 and other publications such as 'The Scrapbook' which defined a scrapbook as a blank book which held newspaper articles and pictures for preservation. The term "scrapbook" came about when people started using scrap pieces of paper left over from printing jobs to decorate their articles and other clippings.

Mark Twain was actually one of the biggest supporters of scrapbooking in the late 1800s. Twain loved scrapbooking so much that he actually patented a series of scrapbooks in 1872 to be sold by Brentano's Literary Emporium in NYC as well as through the Montgomery Ward catalog. Scrapbooking proved to be quite lucrative for Twain as an article from the St. Louis Dispatch in June 1885 states that Twain made about $50,000 on his scrapbooks compared to the sales of all his novels combined that had netted him about $200,000.

Louis-Jacques Daguerre invented the daguerreotype in 1837 but the process was not made public until 1839. With the invention of photography, people were then able to capture actual moments from their lives to include in the scrapbooks which has led scrapbooking to what it is today. Scrapbook popularity decline in the 1940's when photography became more of a hobby for people. However, Alex Haley then published "Roots" in mid the mid 1970's which is a story that tells Haley's family's history and autobiography back to eighteenth century Africa, which gave rise to genealogical research and a renewed interest in scrapbooking and preserving family history in such a fashion. This helped to keep scrapbooking alive and make it what it is today!

Power Scrapbooking

Over the next week, I am going to be taking a break from the history of scrapbooking and give some tips for getting started. Have you ever wanted to make a scrapbook but were afraid that you did not have the time to create one? Although it is nice to have time to enjoy the process of scrapbooking and looking at your pictures, it is still possible to create a great piece of art in a much shorter amount of time. This is where the idea of "power scrapbooking" comes in.

There are several elements to "power scrapbooking." First, you need to decide whether you want to make pages for particular pictures you have in mind or else just generic pages for future scrapbooking. If you have particular pictures in mind, it will be helpful to have them near you so you can use pages that match.

After you have decided on the pictures, you are ready for the first step. Choose two matching pieces of paper. The paper can be solid or patterned. Lay these two papers side by side on a table. Then select two more matching pieces of paper and lay them above the previous two. Do this again with a third set of paper. Continue this process until you have the desired number of pages layed out.

Next, it is time to go through all of your stickers and other embellishments. Find the accents you would like to use for the first layout and set them in the way you like on the paper. Continue to do this for the other sets of paper. Don't complicate this process by bringing out more accents than you think you will really use in the project. You may have to go back into your collection for a few extra accents but this shouldn't be a problem.

If you have already chosen which pictures you would like to use, bring them to the table for the next step. Decide how many pictures you want on each layout and cut them into the shapes you think look good. This is the longest and most tedious step so don't be discouraged and be sure to finish this step.

After completing the pictures, add the embellishments and titles to the pages. Don't spend too much time deciding where to put embellishments, go with your gut feeling! Just be sure to not glue anything to the page until you are sure you like it. When you do decide to glue, be sure to use an adhesive that will not damage you pictures. If you have already selected your pictures, go ahead and glue everything down! You have completed 3 pages in almost the same time as it would have taken you to complete one! If you have not yet decided on pictures, be sure to keep the embellishments together with their pages and stack the pages on top of each other. When you are ready to add pictures you will already have these beautiful pictures to return to!

Good luck with your scrapbooks!

The Early History of Scrapbooking

Scrapbooking has a very interesting history. It is a part of literary history and dates back all the way to 1598. This posting will explain the earliest history of scrapbooking. The information provided below was gathered from the scrapbooking organization “Pages of the Heart”.

The earliest forms of scrapbooks dates back to the philosophical, religious, and rhetorical discussions of Aristotle and Cicero and their pupils. Scrapbooks then became popular during the Renaissance period. During this time, there was an overflow of culture and information that needed a place to be stored. As libraries and philosophical schools became more popular, many literary-minded people copied poems and other passages that had moved them into blank books.

In 1706, the philosopher John Locke focused much attention on the commonplace book in his 'New Method of Making Common-place Books' manual. His book taught the proper technique for the preservation of proverbs, quotations, ideas, speeches, and other forms of written or spoken word. This paved the way for the modern day idea of journaling.

In 1769, William Granger published a history of England with extra illustrations of his text as an appendix. Later, he expanded on his idea by including blank pages which readers could use to add in their own illustrations or prints as desired. This process, known as grangerizing, came to mean any book that was rebound into a different edition with new additional prints, letters, or other memorabilia. These types of books were also known as extra-illustrated books and were the most direct predecessors to the scrapbooks we are familiar with today.

Thomas Jefferson was one of the first well-known American scrappers. He saved newspaper clippings from and during his presidency and put them into a series of albums for future reference. Other people during this time period saved notes, news articles and other clippings, illustrations, craft instructions, and even diary entries into homemade albums with wallpaper and cardboard covers. Some folks who could afford to 'waste' books in their collections actually pasted their ephemera, printed paper memorabilia like tickets or playbills, onto old book or catalog pages.

The albums we are familiar with today came into existence in the early 1800s. Along with Granger books and commonplace books, people in the 1800s kept diaries, journals, and friendship albums. Friendship albums were almost exclusively owned by women and kept a lady's favorite quotes, poems, calling cards, and hair weavings in one place. Hair weavings, which started in Germany, were intricate weavings of pressed ribbons and flowers into a friend's cut strands of hair to display in an album along with a poem or remembrance of that friend.

This concludes this post about the history of scrapbooking. There will be more on the modern day history in later posts.

Getting Started

Creating Keepsakes magazine online (http://www.creatingkeepsakes.com/) has many great ideas for getting started on your first scrapbook. Below are a few of the ideas I found most helpful!

1. Sort your photos into themes or topics and select a set to work on.
2. Select 2-3 colors of acid-free paper or cardstock that will work well with your photos.
3. Pick one photo to be the main focus of your page.
4. If needed, crop your photos. This will allow you to cut out unnecessary backgrounds, fit more pictures on one page, and enhance the focal point of a photo.
5. Select photos to mat. Think about using a mat for the focal point photo to highlight it.
6. Add journaling so you can remember the who, what, and where of a photo. Also think about adding your feelings to help make a richer memory.
7. Add a few extras like stickers or other embellishments.
8. Arrange all items on your pages and use acid free adhesives to adhere.

Throughout your scrapbooking think about the type of album you wish to create. If you want to create a chronological album, be sure you have an album where you can add more pages to it. If it's a scrapbook for a specific event like a family vacation, a smaller scrapbook may be more apprpriate. If you have many photos and don't think you will scrapbook them all, think of a theme for your photos such as "places I've visited". This will give you a starting point and make the process less intimidating.

If you would like to learn more about some of the materials you will need, watch this video for the basics http://video.about.com/scrapbooking/Must-Have-Scrapbook-Supplies.htm

Why I Scrapbook

A few years ago, my aunt took me to a “scrapbooking party”. It’s very similar to a tupperware party only instead of buying plastic containers the party-goers buy colorful paper, stickers, and albums. I was a little unsure about the event but went to spend time with my family. During my time at the party I only made two pages of a book but ended up leaving with a scrapbooker’s starter kit complete with paper protectors, a tape-runner, special felt-tip pens, die-cuts, and a paper cutter. After only a few hours, I was completely hooked and armed with enough supplies to organize all of my “Kodak moments”.

Several years have passed since my first scrapbooking experience but I am still an avid scrapbooker. I have scrapbooks of my family, my high school days, and various vacations. Each book takes many hours to make but in the end it is a great piece of art. Scrapbooking is a great release. It’s a time to sit back and go through your pictures and reminisce about all of the memories. Designing each page can get your creative juices going and is an escape from every day life.Over the next few months, I will be making posts to this blog on various scrapbooking topics. If you have never scrapbooked before, you will be able to learn about how to get started. If you are an ardent scrabooking like me, I hope to teach you something new. I would also love to hear feedback if you have some tips for me!

Until then...happy scrapbooking!