A reader, Angie, emailed me to suggest I check out some “really thin pens imported from Japan” which would be good for fine detailing on scrapbooks. Here’s what I found:

Introducing the world’s thinnest ball point pen…this pen is so hot it’s been flying off the shelves in Japan! The Signo Bit is the latest contender in Japan’s race to make the thinnest pen. The tip is so small you can write words on a grain of rice. This set comes with 8 colors (orange, light blue, violet, pink, red, black, emerald, and blue) in a sturdy and stylish opaque case decorated with the UniBall Signo logo that will keep you writing happily for hours.

Hhhhhmmmmm, I am really curious. How fine the writing would be to fit on a grain of rice. But I digress.

I’m not sure these pens are archival quality, but it just seemed like fun to point out a new tool for fine writing.

My dad and stepmom keep voice messages that my daughter (and their other grandkids) leave for them on their voice mail. They want to be able to hear the small voices from the past once these kids are all grown up. I’ve always loved that idea but haven’t figured out a way to integrate those tiny voices into my scrapbooks. I just discovered something though that sounds (pun intended) pretty cool.

Sound Stripes Kit - $ 39.00
From: Scrapbook.com

Sound Stripes – An innovative way to give your scrapbook pages a voice. It allows you to easily add sounds to your scrapbook page without bulk! Use your kit to record and automatically retrieve up to 30 messages each 20 seconds long. All that goes into your scrapbook are the ultra thin, archival, acid fee Sound Stripes labels. There is no added bulk to your album no matter how many sounds you use. Think of the possibilities! Each Sound Stripes kit contains:

# A palm size digital recorder and reader (Necessary for sound retrieval)
# 30 specially coded labels.

Sound Stripes makes the perfect holiday or end of the year teacher’s gift. Have each of the children in the classroom record a Sound Stripes message that begins: “My favorite thing about Mrs. Smith is…”. Using a mini-scrapbook, adhere a Sound Stripes label on each scrapbook page along with a photo of each child and you have an unforgettable gift for that special teacher!

Do you know a graduating high school senior? Give them the gift that makes their high school yearbook come alive – Sound Stripes! Imagine collecting the memories and stories of your high school years in the voices of those special friends! Once you have collected your memories, the thin Sound Stripes labels can be placed right into your yearbook next to the pictures of your friends. Let Sound Stripes help that special graduate you know create an unforgettable treasure.

I was thinking this would be so fun to do a Friends album and have them record their voices on their pages for me. Or my daughter could do a small album and record her favorite memories of each photo right on the page. It could be done on the First Day of School too. The possibilities are endless!

What would you use Sound Stripes for?

Nancy over at Inside Scrapbooking is living her worst nightmare - the trend of handwriting coming back into style in scrapbooking. She much prefers to use her computer to journal, but because Heidi Swapp has a new book out about loving your handwriting she is feeling pressured to go back to handwriting.

I say that trends causing peer pressure in scrapbooking should be banished from the kingdom. Do we not have enough places in our life to keep up with society? I mean low-rider jeans alone have caused me to have to eliminate almost all of my pants. Pants that go all the way to my waist all of sudden now make me feel like a combination of my grandpa and Pee Wee Herman.

What about podcasting? I am desperately working to figure out how to get my MP3 player to automatically grab a list of audio files that I will not have time to listen to and thus will cause the same pressure as magazines I get and don’t have time to read.

Working out? I have a few friends who actually LIKE working out. While I really admire them for their zest for life and all that jazz, I am worn out from the pressure of wishing I liked to work out too (and actually did it).

So, Nancy, I hereby give you permission to stick with your computer journaling. This is YOUR hobby. This is your passion. Leave the pressure in life to jeans, the latest technology or workouts. Leave the pressure behind in scrapbooking and just enjoy what you like. Buck the trend - do it your way! =:)

Are you a cutting-edge designer scrapbooker? Someone who strives to do the latest/greatest designs, use the latest tools? Actually copies sketches from magazines? Maybe you even do your own sketches! Is scrapbooking about the ART of it for you?

Or do you scrapbook with the main purpose being to get your photos into albums so they are safe and attractively displayed? Are you happy if you use a few ready-made embellishments, paper and write down a few comments on the page?

My friend Angie Pedersen commented on a post done by chocoholic in a forum of designers about the difference between what designer scrapbookers want vs what regular scrapbookers want. It is a very interesting subject to me. Well worth thinking about. [Read Angie’s post here. And chocoholic’s here.]

I must confess. I am a “regular” scrapbooker. Here are some of the characteristics of what I believe make me a “regular” and not a designer.

I do not make my own embellishments.
If it is not already made why would I spend hours doing it? That will just slow me down and I won’t get as many pages done.

I put way more than one photo on a page.
Geez, I took at least 20-30 pictures of any particular event I am scrapping. Why would I put just one measly photo on the page? Where would the rest of them go?

Usually, I do not make my scrapbook pages lumpy.
How on earth do you close your scrapbook when it is 3D like that?

Never once in my life have I used walnut ink.
While the whole concept of the rugged look appeals to me, I cannot conceive that I would want something messy in my scrapbook for all eternity.

It has never once occured to me to sort my scrapbooking supplies by brand name.
What? The first time I saw this in a magazine I thought the person writing it was JOKING. I mean really, does that mean that your blue paper from XYZ company is not stored next to your blue paper by ABC company? So when I would look for blue paper I would need to remember that XYZ company makes the shade of blue I like? No way, Jose.

I may come back and post more on this subject. This could be why I am so disenchanted lately with my scrabooking magazines. They are simply not for us “regulars.”

What about you? Are you a regular or a designer? What makes you so?

If you are a digital scrapbooker, Amy Edwards from Scrapbook-Bytes.com is looking for more designers on her team. Even though I am not yet into digital scrapping I can tell that Amy has some great stuff. I just love looking at it!

Here is where to find the details of becoming a design team member of Scrapbook-Bytes.com.

I admit that now that I have a dozen or so Sizzix alphabets to choose from when I’m cropping over at my mom’s house (go Mom!) I find doing page titles a lot more fun. When I had to make sure I wouldn’t run out of a certain letter in the alphabet before I settled on a title I tended to skip that part of my layouts a lot.

But sometimes I have trouble thinking of what title to use, so I found a site that offers free lists of page titles. ThePerfectTitle.com has huge list of categories to choose from with a wide variety of suggested page titles within each category.

A couple of my favorites are:

Under the Royalty category (in honor of my daughter being a Princess for Halloween):
Princess in Training
Princesses on Parade

In the Picnic category (the randomly suggested title brought me here):
Who Brought the Watermelon?
No Ants Invited!!

The site is cool and has lots of resources. A bit heavy on the advertising, but, hey, the page titles are all free for the taking.