Write. Click. Scrapbook.

Ages, Stages and Firsts

Thank you all for the lovely comments yesterday! I'm pretty excited about this week too, especially as I can now see the totality of what I've scrapped about Kieran in the last year. Today we'll talk about recording those important baby milestones.

Now, not only did I not buy a bunch of baby themed papers and embellishments, I didn't get a baby book either. I have to confess I'm not even sure what a baby book looks like. I'm pretty sure we didn't have those in the Caribbean back when I was a babe, so it wasn't at all natural for me to think of doing one. Plus I know myself well enough to know that I wouldn't keep up with something like that. The number of journals and diaries that I have started in January but never finished the month out on, are testament to that fact!

So how am I keeping track of all the baby milestones? Well when Kieran was around two weeks old I started posting little updates about him on my blog. My family lives far away and they read my blog to keep up, so this was a good way to let them know how he was doing. As the months went by I realised that what I was posting would be perfect for a minibook capturing his growth and development.

My blog posts were pretty simple: a photo of him at the age in question, and a list of what he was up to at the current moment. You can see an example of one of the posts here. My minibook is a hybrid creation. I used this free template by Cathy Zielske and adapted it to my needs. I used the photo and journaling from my blog posts, added digital patterned papers by Karla Dudley, then printed the pages out on photo paper.

I used the letter sized template, but in order to get smaller pages I set up my print options to print two images to a page thus saving paper and printer ink! Once I cut out the images, I stuck them to the kraft pages and added the titles using Thickers. I then made covers for the book out of chipboard, and bound it all together using my Bind-it-All. The book measures approximately 6"x7"

With some forethought, you could actually bind the cover and pages of a book like this upfront, then simply add the printed image when completed. I documented Kieran at 1, 2, 4, 12, and 20 weeks and months 4 through 12.

Some of the collective also captured a year in one minibook.

Mini album by Rebecca

Minialbum by Aly. She used a 4x6 slip-in photo album, and there is room to add more photos as Faith grows!

I have also done regular scrapbook pages about some of Kieran's milestones.

At 16 Weeks - when he started being interested in his toys

At 4 months - when he started holding his head up

At 5 Months - when he was working hard on sitting up

At 8 Months - when he started to crawl

Aly had a similar idea and captured Faith at one month old in this adorable page

I also wanted to record some important first events:

First Playdate

First Foods

First Christmas

First Birthday

Erin took this idea and ran with it making a minibook of Emma's Firsts. I am totally gonna steal this idea!

She also documented the entire week of Mackenzie's first birthday. Another idea worth stealing, as I am currently taking a photo of Kieran every day this month.

Now I don't want to give the wrong idea here, I am no way done with recording all the milestones and firsts from the last year. I still have a list of other pages and minis to create including

First Bath
First Tooth
First Tricycle
Rolling Over
Pulling up to stand
First steps

Plus I will do at least one more page for his birthday and Christmas, as well as minialbums for both events.

I do hope that we've given you some ideas on how to get started documenting some important milestones. Please do ask questions if you have any!

I'll be back tomorrow to talk about what's probably my favourite part of scrapping about Kieran so far: the everyday stories!

Welcome to the World Baby Boy or Girl!

Hello everyone! I am so happy to be here hosting the blog again this week. My baby boy just turned one, so this week will be dedicated to Baby's First Year! I actually feel quite unqualified to be posting about scrapping babies, since I've only been doing it for a year, unlike many of you I'm sure! This week I'll show you how I approached scrapping for Kieran in his first year of life, from the perspective of a former non-kid scrapper, not to mention very harried and sleep deprived new Mummy.

There is no question that Kieran was a very photographed baby from day one, possibly the most photographed on the maternity ward that week. Once home I couldn't wait to get started on his pages, little did I know that it would be almost a month before that happened! I didn't have a real plan for his album, as I mentioned last year I didn't do a typical baby book. I also didn't run out and buy a bunch of baby themed papers (although I have my eye on this and this), I knew that I would make what I already had in my stash work for me. 

But let's take a step back for a moment. I was doing layouts about this baby before he was even born! Way before.

 

Of course I had to do a page using the ultrasound photos

Make that two pages.......

...(I wanted to record the story of how we came up with his name).

I'm happy to say I'm not the only one. Melissa agrees with me, ultrasound images are photos too!

And once baby arrives we need to let the world know! This is Kieran's birth announcement in French (I'm ashamed to admit I never got around to doing the English version . Thank goodness for Facebook and blogs so that all my friends and family could get the news!)

Candice designed this sweet announcement for a friend

This is Melissa's take on the big announcement

These announcements are digitally designed which is a great time saver in these early days. Once you have your digital card designed, you can then upload to a photo developing site to have them printed.

Finally we get a chance to do those first precious pages

Yes, as a die hard paper scrapper (although that is now changing) my first page about Kieran was digital! It was simply the quickest way to scratch the scrapbooking itch at the time. In retrospect I could have used this as the English announcements. But remember: I was harried and sleep deprived and it simply didn't occur to me!

Melissa wanted to record that very first day

Rebecca captured Miss Addie beautifully in her very first layout

Jody shows us an important first event!

But you don't have to do the first layouts immediately. Once the cloud clears, go back through your photos and make that page or pages of the early days!

I scrapped these photos of Kieran at two weeks old when he was around three months old. Going back though my photos in preparation for this week I can see that I have enough fodder to make an entire album of welcome layouts. And I might do just that. One advantage to going back to scrap older photos, especially of special moments, is that you have an added perspective as time passes. You might even remember details you didn't the first time around.

Tomorrow we'll take a look at how I captured some of the important milestones in this first year, as well as ways to quickly get an album done showcasing those first precious twelve months.

Until then!

 

Imagine

photo and quote selection by Jody Dent-Pruks

simply spring, part 5 (to be continued)

Hello everyone! It's Marnie. I am hijacking Jody's post for today.

You thought you were stopping by to see her new scrapspace. But you are going to have to wait. The Typepad demons have reared their ugly head.

But it is okay.

Because (and keep this just between us...) starting April 19th, we are having spring cleaning around here and we will be showcasing some of our team's scrapspaces. So won't it be great to have a day with Jody then? It will be like getting a second date sooner than you had anticipated.

(Maybe if you are lucky she will kiss you on the doorstep! Teasing!) 

Poor Jody. First, the Great Flood. Now, the Not So Great Typepad Freeze. I am certain she is starting to feel jinxed. Please take a minute today and leave her a kind word. Heaven knows she could use it right about now!

And Jody, if you are reading this, GO TO BED! (How's that for a bossy boss??!!)

Simply Spring: Day 4

Hello there! Welcome back to day 4 of Simply Spring inspirations! I hope you all had an enjoyable Thursday. Again we had lovely Spring weather here in the East coast. Thanks for all the great comments this week, we always love the hear feedback from our blog readers! I've got another great post filled with wonderful Spring-filled eye-candy for you...

I want to start off today showing you a great layout from our very own Candice Palmer. She was inspired by Monday's Easter blog entry and she uploaded it to our Flickr gallery. Thanks Candice for sharing your adorable page :) 

As you know, Spring is a very fickle season. One day it is 70 degrees and sunny and the next day it's raining or even snowing! On that note, todays inspiration:

Simply: April Showers Bring May Flowers

Last April, I had my oldest daughter, Ryan pose with her umbrella outdoors after a rain-filled day. This layout symbolized that even after the rain, the sun will come out, but also my daughter getting a clean bill of health after battling cancer the year before. A very special page indeed.:

One fun aspect of rainy Spring days is the adorable rain gear that is out there, especially for children. Tell me this page by our incredibly clever Marnie Flores isn't the cutest?:

And sometimes, after a rain shower, there is a rainbow to be found. This one happens to be in the form of my sweet 9 year old daughter, Erin:

What happens next after all of that rain...is many fabulous flower layouts are created :)

First up is W.C.S.'s own Celeste Smith, who consistantly rocks the kraft paper like nobody's business. This time she includes some beautiful photos she took of flowers:

Next in line is Kathy Thompson-Laffoley's love letter to flowers in an absolutely striking layout:

Look who's back, it's Aly Dosdall again, this time using colorful pop-dotted flowers and photos of her (then) 4 children to illustrate the beauty in the everyday:

So happy to have last week's W.C.S. hostess with the mostest Melissa Kaiserman show us this darling stamped flower card, I just love the hand-drawn frame:

Another favorite flower layout of my own and I didn't use much more than a flower punch, white cardstock and a black marker, I do so enjoy the white space:

Here's another stunner from our Moon Ko.  Personally, I don't think there is a lovelier flower than a tulip:

And now we have another adorable digital page also from Candice Palmer using all Michelle Underwood supplies. It just *pops*, I love it!:

Now this I thought was awesome when I saw it on her blog about 2 weeks ago. you may know that our Lisa Dickinson is an amazing graphic designer/scrapbooker, but can we now add fashion designer? Look at this adorable floral shirt she made from her recycled t-shirt scraps! I'll be the first in line to buy one, Lisa!

We're almost done...you still with me? :)

Another Spring flower page is another oldie but goodie of mine. It happened to be the very first photo I had ever taken with my brand new D-SLR. I could not believe the difference from my compact digital camera. While technically not a flower, dandelions are for sure the main signs that Spring has sprung! (I was so proud of myself when I made the title and the "d" extended all the way up to look like the stem of the dandelion.)

And here is the final Spring inspiration layout. I bought a new Martha Stewart tulip edge punch, which I love. I paired it with a whole bunch of Erin photos and a "Dear Lizzy" American Crafts 3D sticker and voila, it doesn't get much more Simply Spring than this:

So join me tomorrow in the first "real" look inside my scrap studio. Since "The Great Flood of 2009" I have completely reorganized my space. I hope to have some organizational tips for you as well. Until tomorrow...have a great Friday!

and the giveaway goes to . . .

Oh, Spring, we love you so. For your daffodils, rain, puddles, birds. For the extra space in our closets, and the sunshine in our souls. Thank you, beloved readers, for the reminders of the little things that need to be noticed before they are gone.

Thank you, too, to Basic Grey, for their generosity. We were thrilled to let our readers have a chance to try out the new basic grey digi products! Especially our lucky number

Laura, please send your contact information to writeclickscrapbook at gmail dot com before midnight Saturday! Thank you everyone! Stay tuned for more Spring goodness with Jody!

give.away.day. featuring BASIC GREY DIGITAL

What's that, you ask? Basic Grey DIGITAL? Oh, yeah, baby. You heard it right.

has added a digital shop. You can pick between some favorite collections, or shop by the kit. Or, find your favorites in the a la carte shop. Truly ingenious, you can buy just one paper, or a single flourish. Your shopping fix made easy with just $0.75. (It's like shopping at a brick and mortar, buying one piece of paper at a time! Did I mention ingenious?)

With just a few clicks to your cart, you can have all you need to create any of these pages:

by Ann Costen

by Ann Costen

by Autumn Baldwin

by Autumn Baldwin

by Marnie Flores

by Marnie Flores

by Marnie Flores

If you would like to be considered to receive a $25 gift certificate to the Basic Grey digital shop, please leave us a comment with a spring favorite. Activity, recipe, flower, we want to be inspired by what moves you this season. And for our down-under readers, feel free to share an autumnal favorite instead!

Comments will remain open until 8:00 pm PST. One lucky number will be drawn at random and posted tomorrow. Don't forget is it your responsibility to check back before midnight Saturday to see if you are the lucky number! Happy digi shopping!

Simply Spring: Day 3

Welcome to day 3 of Simply Spring inspiration. I hurt my brain thinking about what I was going to write about this week, I know our blog readers love learning new techniques, getting tutorials on ways you can photograph your subjects better, etc....The real truth of the matter is that I am "a jack of all trades and a master of none." I can take a decent photograph, but in no way am I qualified to give pointers. I can scrap a simple page, possibly even think of a clever title, but would you trust me to show you how to glimmer mist a page? I think not. Hence the "inspiration" week. I hope that you are enjoying seeing all the wonderful talent in this group, as well as the couple of friends I asked to join me this week. So let's get to today's Spring inspiration!

Simply: Spring Activities 

(a.k.a. "Mom...I'm Bored. There's Nothing To Do!")

Ok kids, put your seatbelts on because here comes a whole lotta inspiration! Another thing that good ole Easter Bunny always puts in the girls' Easter baskets is bubbles! I cannot count the actual number of photos I have taken of my girls blowing bubbles. This was one of the first pages I had ever made (and loved) of my middlest. Single photo, no journaling...sometimes a page speaks for itself:

Another Easter basket goodie is a kite. There are some good, blustery days in the Spring made just for kite flying. Just look at this eye-catching, color-happy kite page by our own talented Celeste Smith

And just how sweet is this page by our own creative Elizabeth Dillow . Any reference to Charlie Brown, and I'm sold! I love that the page itself is the entire photo:

And here is my kite-inspired layout. The one thing I try to do with a lot of my pages is create something different with the titles. This American Crafts patterned paper had kites all over it, and I loved how the kite's tail mimicked the "e" in the word kite:

Another Spring activity my girls enjoy is going to the park or just our hanging out on our backyard swing. Like the bubbles before, if I had a dime for every photo I had of one of my girls on a swing, I'd never have to work again :)

Swinging is not big just here in the states, my good friend and fellow simpler scrapper from Australia Diane Herman, made this darling page about her sweet little girls and their love of swinging:

And look here's one of Celeste Smith's boys also loving the time spent swinging, or at least hanging upside down :)

And Canada also gets into the Spring swings, here is another good friend and amazing photographer/scrapbooker Kathy Thompson-Laffoley, look at her gorgeous design:

And of course it wouldn't be Spring right here in the states without baseball and Spring training, as well as for my softball girl Megan:

But Kathy Thompson-Laffoley tells me that Rugby is huge in the Spring in Canada. Here's another awesome page by Kathy, she fit 9 photos on the page and still leaves enough white space for your eyes to rest:

Here's another older page from the vault...another activity all 3 girls of mine like to do is jumping on the trampoline. They love to make these smooshed faces all the time so I thought it was appropriate to scrap it. That's the chance you take when you have a mother who likes to record every moment possible:

And here is my littlest one having a blast all by herself on the trampoline. I love how the American Crafts patterned paper (again!) mimicked the bouncing action of being on a trampoline and of course I loved the play on words for the title of the page:

And lastly, one final Spring activity is bike riding. I took a cute photo and paired it with a lyric from the Queen song "Bicycle". I dare you to not sing the song in your head now that you have read it!:

And there you have it. I hope you enjoyed today's inspiration! Tomorrow check back for a great giveaway and I will see you back here on Friday with more Simply Spring inspiration!

Simply Spring: Day 2

Thank you for that warm welcome yesterday! I hope you will find today's post inspiring enough to make a page and then upload it to our Flickr gallery because today is chock full of inspiration.

Today's Simply Spring inspiration is...

Simply:Butterflies, Birds and Bees, Oh My!

When I think of Spring, one of the first things that pops into my head are butterflies. And with so many ways to showcase butterflies, in the form of punches, die-cuts or chipboard, inspiration can be found everywhere. First up is the butterfly stylings of Beth Proudfoot. Her work is always so visually stunning to look at. Don't these colors just scream "Spring!"?

Every Easter, the Easter Bunny brings my littlest a brand new butterfly net and it never fails to bring her hours of enjoyment trying to catch these beautiful creatures:

Next up, we have one of my favorite scrappers, Vivian Masket. I am in love with her style, so simple, but at the same time, so classy. Love the look of the die-cut butterflies sewn to the paper. Note to self: Learn to sew!

On to our own talented Aly Dosdall. Did you know that Aly has 5 children? Where does she find the time to scrap so beautifully?? Look at all the gorgeous detail on this page:

And look who is back with another page, Lisa Dickinson. Just look at the incredible rich colors of the butterflies and that sweet girlie of hers, perfection!

And the last one for butterflies is probably the most inspiring project yet. It is by our own Emily Pitts . If I saw this in a store, I would instantly buy it. So absolutely lovely!

Now another trend having to do with Spring would be birds! And first up is our Moon Ko. This layout is magical, even without Moon's usual fabulous photos. And just as always, Moon balances her adoration for her kids with her sharp wit.

Next up, yours truly, with one of my favorite pages. I love the photo so much but it's the pop-dotted bird in the lower right corner that makes me love it so. Love his little brad eye :)

How about an adorable birdhouse by Aly Dosdall? Again such inviting Spring colors!

And for the final Spring inspiration, I don't know where you live, but one sure sign of Spring around here are the ever-annoying bees. As soon as the warm weather hits, they show up like clockwork. But this page has the cutest bee that I have ever seen, my littlest, Erin.

So with that, I leave you...until tomorrow with many more fabulous pages from our very own collective and some very talented scrappy friends of my own! I'll be outside enjoying the gorgeous Spring weather....hope it's nice where you are too!

Simply Spring: Day 1

Hello!

Please allow me to introduce myself…
My name is Jody Wenke and I will be your hostess this week.

Most importantly, I am the mother of 3 girls, who provide daily fodder for almost every page I scrap.

I should have met your acquaintance a couple of months ago, some of you might remember, I had a little misfortune when my scraproom had a fight with water…and lost. Can anyone say "burst pipe"? The carpet had so much water damage (not including all the tears I cried) that the room basically had to be torn apart and put back together, but all is well now and it is as good as new! And maybe, just maybe, if you tune in later this week, I just might show you the room in all its newly organized glory.  

 So let us begin my hosting week, shall we? Here at Write. Click. Scrapbook,, the collective has many diverse styles of scrapping. My style happens to be on the simpler side. So with that, my week will focus more on getting your scrap on, the simpler way, hence the theme of this week is:

Simply: Spring!

where you will find inspiration for Spring, done simply. Cards, projects, scrap pages and more… Hopefully a virtual plethora of eye-candy to satisfy anyone who loves to scrap. 

Today's inspiration:

Simply: Easter!

I hope you all had an enjoyable Easter Sunday. I sadly had to work and missed spending the day with my family, but luckily was able to snap a couple of photos of my 2 youngest daughters in their Easter regalia.

Taking a couple of pictures, in itself helps me get inspired to make a page. Last year, I created a page all about my youngest's Easter outfit, just seeing the photo of her cute little Mary Janes was all it took to make me want to scrap this:  

Who knows, maybe this year I will want to tell the story of how my middlest monopolized the bathroom mirror getting ready this morning making all of us cranky (ok, maybe just me!). Or maybe I will just focus on the fact that my little girls are not so little anymore :(  Either story will work, just as long as I tell the story!

 

Another way to be inspired is to tell a story about where you spent your Easter. Every year, we visit my parents who hide plastic eggs for my girls to find. The race is on for who will find the “holy grail” of Easter eggs, the one with the $5 bill inside! Three years ago, my littlest found it and the moment she discovered she had it in her hot little hands was classic!:  

Our very own  Lisa Dickinson made a page about one Easter, where her family went and what they did. It’s that simple. Sometimes less can be more and you can tell a story in a couple of lines of journaling. Just mix it with adorable photos of children, vibrant colors, cool title placement and you have the ingredients of a great page:   

So my dear friends…go forth and scrap those Easter photos you shot yesterday, and be sure to post them in our Flickr gallery!

See you tomorrow with more ideas for scrapping Spring, simply!