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.