Just got my September 2005 issue of Creating Keepsakes in the mail and one of the articles caught my eye and my mind space. Rachel Thomae writes in her article Scrapbook Your Way about the five starting off points for creating scrapbook pages.

Creating Keepsakes - $ 24.97
From: MagazinesQuick.com

Basically she says that we start a page with one of the five elements in mind and then create from there. Her thought is that no one way is “right” or “wrong” but that we each have a natural tendency. The five starting off points she mentions are:

Photographs
Supplies
Design
Art
Words

Obviously the article goes into some great detail about how you can tell which is your natural style and gives some suggestions for getting started with each one. She evens passes out Permission Slips for going outside your usual style.

It is a great article and I highly advise grabbing your CK (Sept 2005 issue, page 113) and see what Rachel has to say.

As for me, I know my natural style is not to start with Supplies since I just went to ScrapYourTrip.com to see if could get some stuff for our upcoming Alaska cruise. But when I looked at all the great stuff I just couldn’t decide. Even though I know I’m going to Alaska and will undoubtedly do an album on the trip, I don’t know yet what the “tone” of the trip will be. I don’t know what the photos will be like. So how could I buy supplies yet?

Do you have a sense of what your natural style is?
How do you start an album or a layout?

Yesterday when the mail came my daughter asked (as she always does), “Is there anything for me?” Just as I was about to give her the standard reply “Unless you want some of these bills, no.” I saw a postcard peeking out.

Her uncle John always mails her a postcard when he travels. This time he had been to Ottawa and, again, took the time to drop her a quick postcard. She just loves it and has developed quite a collection of postcards.

It occurred to me that helping her to create a postcard album would be a fun project for us in the remaining few weeks of summer. (How fast the summer went is a whole different topic!)

Anyway, there is a great article Wish You Were Here: Postcard Albums by Ramona Greenspan posted at ScrapJazz that gave me some great ideas. She includes a couple of sites that sell pre-made postcard albums and also shows photos with a step by step list of how to make your own. It looks like a lot of fun.

Has anyone done an album like this? Other ideas for postcard albums?

This week I have been consumed by moving my office. It has taken over my thoughts from first thing in the morning to the last thing as my head hits the pillow at night.

So it occurred to me that since work is such a big part of our lives that we should scrapbook it. At the very least take a picture of your office, cubicle or work space and just get it in your albums about your daily life.

If you think this is odd, think about your great grandfather. Wouldn’t it be awesome to see a photo of where HE worked?

OK, wish me luck with the big move today =:)

This is a great article I found by Rachel Paxton of CreativeHomemaking.com. Her website is chock-full of awesome information.

By the time your teen is in high school, you probably aren’t taking as many pictures of them as you used to. I have to keep reminding myself that I only have a couple of years left and no time to waste trying to capture fleeing teenage memories.

You might be thinking that I’m really organized to be already working on scrapbooking my daughter’s high school memories. To be honest, I have a shoe box full of pictures of my daughter waiting for me to get to someday.

But if I wait until “someday” to continue taking pictures because I already have so many pictures I haven’t done anything with, then my daughter’s teenage years will come and go while I try to catch up.

I don’t want to chronicle every detail of my daughter’s life (nor would she want me to!), but I was trying to think of some memories that she might want to laugh about and maybe even treasure someday. So how do you do that without ending up with pages and pages of memories?

I decided to do two large (12×12) pages (facing each other in the album) for each year of high school. I will challenge myself to use this space creatively to tell the story of each year. When I started thinking of all the the possibilities, it really inspired me to start getting organized and collecting some great memories. And don’t limit yourself to just photographs, your scrapbook pages can really be accentuated by other types of memories. Here are some ideas to get you started:

Photograph Ideas:

High School Dances
First Date/Boyfriend
School Building
Church Events/Retreats
Braces (the day they’re removed)
Hair Styles
Clothing Fads
Learning to Drive
First Job
First Car
Best Friends
School Plays/Concerts
Family Vacations
Favorite Family Pets
Babysitting
Sports/Band/Cheerleading
Musical Instrument Practice
Other:

CD Covers (scanned)
Favorite Song Lyrics
Drivers’ Permit
First Pay Stub
Programs from Play/Concerts
College Brochures
School Newspapers
ASB Card
Awards/Certificates
Ticket Stubs (concert, movie, sporting events)
Report Cards

You can be creative when you’re arranging your layouts. Don’t be afraid to cut pictures down or cut out portions of play programs or school newspapers. Just cut out enough to accentuate the other items on the page. You will create the overall effect from the entire page, not necessarily from an individual item.

Have fun and don’t worry if you don’t get it done all at one time. I figure if I can do one every summer for the previous school year, by the time she finishes high school (she’s a freshman this year), all of her high school memories will be recorded in the family archives.

About The Author

Rachel Paxton is a freelance writer and mom of four. For more inspirational articles and tips for everyday living, visit her web sites at http://www.creativehomemaking.com and http://www.crafty-moms.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

It is officially the countdown to 4th of July - 3…2…1…GO!

Here are some cool layouts for 4th of July:

Simple, great looking and lots of photos

A fun one using red, white and blue wire

A completely unusual one using chalk

WOW! I just cam across the Gallery at Scrapbook.com where real people share photos of their layouts.

It is just so easy to use this Gallery and see tons of layouts. Until later this week my computer is still on dial up and the pages load so quickly.

If you are looking for layout ideas - check this out. You will have plenty of IDEAS after visiting here.

I may even have to start my own gallery.

One of the projects I have on my Scrapbook Goal list is a Friends album. The picture in my head is an interactive book that I can add to over the years as new memories come up.

Just now, I found the book I’m going to get to help me create this album. The cover alone told me I had found the right design for this unique album.

So far on this project I have created the list of friends who I plan to include. When I did this I sent a huge thank you to the Universe for having so many wonderful friends. And I’ve started thinking up the kinds of things I want to include on each friend’s page.

How we met
Favorite activity to do with this friend
Photos of us
A list of their best qualities
Struggles we’ve shared

I also plan to ask each friend to write a note to me that I can include in the book. Using The Decorated Journal I am so excited I can create an album that equals the quality of my friends.

Do you have any other ideas on what would be fun to include?