Write. Click. Scrapbook.

May Flowers

Well, this week sure flew by in a flash! It was fun being your host for these two days, but I know you'll also love what the rest of the week has in store...

Today I want to share with you a fun spring flower tutorial. The idea was linked up on WCS member Celeste Smith's blog, and I could not resist immediately posting it to my Pinterest board so I'd never lose the link. Then, as soon as I had a spare moment, I had to try it myself. It was so fun I made a half dozen in one sitting, and added two of them to layouts that very day.

So, your first step is to check out the step-by-step tutorial you'll find here, and then pull out some double-sided patterned paper and give it a go!

All you need to make these yourself is a piece of double-sided patterned paper, a circle punch, adhesive, and a button for the center. Couldn't be easier!

The other beautiful thing I discovered? If you use a 1.5-inch circle punch, you can punch all eight circles from a 12 x 3.5 inch strip of paper. And a 12 x 3.5 inch strip is exactly what you have left over when you cut down a 12 x 12 sheet into an 8.5 x 11 sheet. So, pick any paper you choose, cut it down to 8.5 x 11 to save for a future project, and punch your circles out of that leftover strip.

Even better, use that 8.5 x 11 paper as the background for a page featuring one of your flowers, which is exactly what I did. Twice. Talk about economical! You can get your page background and your primary embellishment out of just one piece of paper. Behold:

This paper (from October Afternoon) was floral on one side and had multi-colored stripes on the other.

 

And here's the page. Additional supplies: office tag, Basic Grey chipboard letters, Cosmo Cricket patterned paper, and Glossy Accents (used to add a bit of shine to the centers of all the printed flowers).

 

This Pink Paislee paper was a distressed pink on one side and featured a vintage-collage look on the other side.

 

And here's the page! Additional supplies: chipboard letters (K&Company), dark pink patterned paper (We R Memory Keepers).

It really doesn't get simpler than this. Give it a try!

Thanks for joining me. Plant a flower or two on your next layout—it's your last chance to celebrate the spring.

Ciao!

Happy Memorial Day

Hi! It's Angie Lucas here, happy to be your host for the remainder of May—what's left of it, that is. On Wednesday, June 1, you'll find out what's in store for you the rest of this week and the rest of the summer, and you're going to love it!

Today, Americans everywhere celebrate Memorial Day. Originally called Decoration Day, this holiday was first observed by formerly enslaved African Americans in honor of Union soldiers killed in the Civil War. After World War I, it was broadened to include Americans killed in all wars. (Thanks Wikipedia!)

And while we do pay special attention to our lost soldiers on this day, most of us also honor all of our loved ones who have passed away—by visiting cemeteries, decorating graves, retelling family stories, and remembering ancestors. This makes it a great day to pull out the scrapbook supplies and preserve a few of the memories and stories that come to mind as you mingle with family and remember your lost loved ones. Here are just a couple of ideas to try.

Scrapbook Your Last Photo

After a loved one has passed, every picture becomes infinitely more precious. And when you consider scrapbooking about that person, it's so difficult to know where to begin or what to say. One approach (that will at least give you a place to start) is to scrapbook the very last photo taken with the two of you together. I did just that on this page about my grandmother.

 

It actually took me a while to figure out what title to use on this page. I went through several options before finally settling on a very direct title. "Last Photo taken of me and my grandma Mona Hymas Hill"

 

I included a pocket behind the photo that includes lengthy journaling about my last visit with my grandma and the details of how she was able to prepare us all for her passing—an incredible blessing.

 

And on the back side of the journaling card, I included the very last photo I took of my grandma period (whereas the main photo is the last photo of us together), plus a quote that brought me comfort after she died. She had lived a long, lovely life, and I believe she was ready to go. She had had her day.

"Our fear of death is like our fear that summer will be too short. But when we have had our fill of fruit, our swing of pleasure, we will say we have had our day."
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Scrapbook One Favorite Photo

Do you have one stand-out favorite photo of your loved one? That one photo that captures the essence of who he or she was? That's what this photo is to me. I don't have very many photos of my grandfather that I took myself. He passed away when I was 23—a few years before I had a digital camera, which also means it was long before I was taking nearly as many photos as I do now.

 

My cute grandpa loved his baseball caps and his coveralls—he had them in all colors, including hunter's orange. He was into comfort, practicality, and simplicity. This picture of him, which was actually taken at my other grandpa's house, brings back his memory so strongly that I can almost smell him and hear his voice. It's not terriffically composed or artisticly great, but that's not the point here. I just chose a photo that gives me the strongest emotional reaction and made a page. Try it yourself.

 

If you need journaling tips, try a freewriting exercise. I just sat and brainstormed a quick list of memories about my grandfather, all written in short sentences, randomly strung together. I love the effect. I've varied short sentences with longer sentences, physical descriptions with lists of his hobbies and talents, general statements with very specific details. This paragraph doesn't say everything about him, but it paints a picture of things I remember:

He was a man of few words.
He loved to garden.
He used to call me "doll."
He owned a small-town cafe and, before that, drove a Coca=Cola truck.
He grew beautiful roses.
He had a lemon tree.
He served pancakes at the Caribou County Fair Lion's Club Breakfast for years running.
He loved my grandmother deeply.

While you have your lost loved ones on your mind today, I hope you'll follow the inspiration to either write about them or scrapbook about them. And if you have the privilege of spending time with aunts or great-aunts that you don't see very often, listen to the stories they relate, ask questions, and write down the new things you learn.

May you have a peaceful, memory-filled day. See you tomorrow.

That We May Remember

Birthday Week - Scrapping Even More Memories

Welcome back to the last installment of birthday week! Today I'll just touch on a few more ideas for scrapbooking birthdays. All kinds of birthdays, not just kids! We grown ups do celebrate too right? We might not be too willing to share the number involved but we do mark it in some way.

But first, a bit about mini albums. I think they definitely lend themselves to capturing lots of event photos. I love this one that Alexandra sent along.

 

This would be a great way to share the celebration with friends and family who couldn't be there. I think my Mum would love a couple minis like this!

What about us grown ups? Even though I no longer have birthday parties (why is that exactly?) I still try to document my special day. A few years ago my friend Lucy made me a lovely cake and I needed to scrap about it. I told her I didn't need those numbers on there, but she couldn't help herself....

 I also included a photo of the flowers my husband got me on the big day.

This year I did a page about my philosophy regarding birthdays

I only got around to taking this photo two days after my birthday. Did you notice the cupcake topper? I made it with cardstock cut using my Slice, chalkboard stickers and American Crafts Thicker numbers.

Paula shared this page from her 40th birthday. She actually had a party! I'm jealous!

I love this page she did for her Mom's celebration which took place after her actual birthday.

I love the photo she got of that gorgeous cake and her mom's reaction. Proving beyond a doubt that everyone loves birthdays!

So there you go. A bunch of ideas that will hopefully help you for any upcoming birthday celebrations. Thank you so much for joining me this week, I had a blast. And now I really must go finish off my cupcakes from last week!

Birthday Week - Scrapping the Memories

We've held the celebrations and taken the photos. All that's left to do now is to scrap them! Birthday scrapbooking pages are probably one of the most popular or common themes, but they also tend to cause us to freak out a bit. Why? So many photos, and we want to scrap them all. I had that exact reaction too and it paralysed me for a moment. I still haven't done justice to Kieran's birthday from last year. One approach that I've taken both years is to do a quick page using some favourite photos, so that the memory is documented and the pressure is off.

I didn't even journal on this page, which is quite unlike me, but I just wanted to get it done. This year I did the same thing.

Once the dust settled, I was then able to go back, take my time going through the photos and do some more documenting.

On these pages I made sure to include journaling! I plan to make more pages to cover things like the invited guests, party activities and special little stories from the events. And I will most likely make a mini-album for each party.

Donna shared a great idea on what to do if you have lots of photos and want to showcase them all. For her son's first birthday she made a 12x12 page using her favourite photos, then used photo protector album pages to showcase the other photos.

I love how she added journaling to the photo pages! What a fantastic idea.

 Monika sent along this page of her daughter Isabella's birthday. I really like the embellishments she used on this page, those candles are genius!

Donna also shared this page she did of her son Gabe wth his favourite gift. She took these photos the day after his birthday. Recreations are always possible!

I'm not sure if you can read her journaling, but Gabe actually asked Donna to take these photos. What a sweet boy!

Hopefully these pages have given you a spark for scrapping those birthday memories. Stop back in tomorrow when I share even more ideas.

and the giveaway goes to . . .

We love love love color and we love love love Tracey and we are seeing a little green right now wishing we could be our own lucky numbers! Thank you Tracey, for your generosity in offering three seats in your class. You have these three ladies very happy today!

Ladies, please send us an email to writeclickscrapbook at gmail dot com as soon as you can. If you have a Big Picture profile, please include your profile name so we can appropriately credit your account!

Francine is back soon with more birthday delights!

give.away.day. featuring TRACEY CLARK & BPC

Color. For some of us, it is a tremendous influence on how we scrapbook. Have you taken a minute lately to get in touch with your sense of color? Just for fun, take a minute and take a color test. There are quick ones here and here, but this is our favorite. Go, we'll wait. It's a fun exercise.

Did you learn anything new about yourself? Are you surprised to see your colors represented by foods, textures, words? Were you surprised to realize how some of the photographs moved you more than others? Did they accurately assess your color? Would you love to be able to translate this to your own photographs? to capture more of yourself and your life through a better understanding of color and how it affects you?

We want these things, too. Not just for ourselves, for you, too. So for

we are offering three of you a chance to have a free seat in a brand new class at Big Picture Classes, Picture Color.

Taught by Tracey Clarke, founder of Shutter Sisters, photographer extraordinaire, and teacher divine, you are in for a treat. Not only can Tracey take amazing photographs, she also has the gift of sharing her knowledge and vitality, creating a community of learning and sisterhood that will inspire you to grow and stretch. Next week, Tracey begins teaching her sixth class in her Picture Series at Big Picture Classes. Just listen to the class description:

Through this 30-day photo centric celebration, Picture Color will encourage you to turn your lens toward the colors that delight you most. With daily email prompts delivered right to your inbox, you will be greeted and inspired by myriad colorful shades to awaken your senses and your inner-artist as your camera clicks color after vibrant color!

Doesn't that sound wonderful? We wish we could get you all in!!! Color us all happy!!

If you would like a chance to be considered for this fabulous giveaway, please leave us a comment telling us a color that moves you and how it does. Comments will remain open until 8:00 PST. Three lucky numbers will be selected at random and posted tomorrow. Please remember it is your responsibility to check back and claim your lucky numbers before midnight Saturday!!

And while you are waiting to get in on the new class, be sure to check out Tracey's ongoing workshop, Picture Inspiration. Even though this workshop began earlier this year, it is open for us to join in anytime. Tracey wanted us to pass along to you that there are many prompts remaining and that the class community is, in her words, awesome. Sounds like another wonderful class to help develop and nurture our creativity.

Thanks for stopping by today. Please take a minute to leave a comment and hopefully yours will be one of the lucky numbers!

Birthday Week - Photos and Traditions

Welcome back! I'm so excited that you are all enjoying all my chatter about birthdays, and finding useful ideas! For those who have asked, I have sent invitations to Pinterest your way. Be warned: it is addictive, but also very very useful (well, that's what I tell myself anyway).

Let's talk about photos today shall we? After all we're scrapbookers right? We need photos, lots of photos! And what better things to take photos of than your family traditions on birthdays? We've started two main traditions with Kieran so far: birthday pancakes and his birthday crown.

When he turned one, I wanted to celebrate his birthday from the moment he woke up. Since he was already a big breakfast eater by that time (the boy loves his oatmeal!) I figured a special breakfast treat would start the day right. I even persuaded my husband to move our small dining table out of the kitchen and into a corner of the living room so that I would have better lighting and backdrop to get the photos of him.

(The fact that his PJs match his birthday crown was almost completely coincidental)

And of course a shot of him digging in.

This year I decided to use sparklers on his pancakes. Um, PSA: don't put sparklers on a toddler's pancakes and expect him just to sit there!

Luckily his dad was there to prevent any major mishaps. Then we could all breathe easily and enjoy the show.

You might notice that this year he wasn't as willing to wear his crown. Sigh. I first saw the idea about birthday crowns on Amanda Soule's blog. I later bought her book, The Creative Family, in which she talks about the tradition and includes instructions on making them. It's pretty simple, I used craft felt from my stash and added felt scrapbooking embellishments.

Both last year and this, Kieran's party was on a different day to his actual birthday so we essentially had two celebrations. Lucky kid. I made sure to capture both days, including opening presents, the birthday cake, activities we did and shots of his guests.

Other things I made sure to capture at the parties are the decor and food, as well as little details that probably no one else but me noticed.

Of course we need photos of the cake and blowing out the candles!

Not forgetting the quintessential photo of baby getting his first taste of frosting.

Think about the unique traditions that your family has. What are the things that you always do for birthday celebrations? Do you capture it in a photo? Amy sent along this photo of her daughter with her grandparents at their traditional "Grandparents Party"

Amy explains

"The year I turned 12, my mom snapped a photo of my and my grandparents sitting together on the couch. Later that year, my grandpa died, and my grandma began to have dementia. I love that photo because they were both still healthy and really THERE with me. Plus it is the only one of me and them together. When I started having kids, I made the tradition that for every birthday, we have the "Grandparents Party," which is just dinner on the Sunday closest to the birthday. I always make sure to snap a photo of the birthday boy or girl with her grandparents. As the years have passed, first my dad stopped being able to come to the parties (Alzheimer's), and then last year we lost Kendell's dad to cancer. Now it's just the Grandmas Party! I cannot express how grateful I am to have an entire series of photos of each child with his/her grandparents throughout the years! The photos aren't always technically perfect—but I still cherish them. This one is the last Grandparents Party photo we took before it changed to just grandmas"

What a wonderful, meaningful tradition! I just might adopt it myself, as Kieran only has his grandmothers left and I want to make sure I take lots of photos of him with them.

I'll finish off with some tips for making sure that you capture the photos you will want to look back on later.

1. To really capture the decor and details try to have the party set-up ready wwell before the guests arrive, so that you can have time to take as many photos as you want before it becomes total havoc. I'm telling you this from experience, as for both Kieran's parties I was shooing people away from the tables screaming that I needed to take photos first!

2. If you're the main family photo taker (and which of us isn't?) make sure to hand the camera off to your spouse or a friend to ensure that there are photos of you too! You can also ask a photo savvy adult guest to walk with their camera to have an additional perspective. My default is my dear friend Lucy.

3. Take lots and lots of photos. But I don't have to tell you that right? You're a scrapbooker, that's par for the course.

4. Make a list of the things you want to capture and refer to it so you don't miss anything. Yeah, I should have done that. Maybe next year!

Tomorrow is give.away.day. Yay! On Friday I'll share a bunch of examples of birthday layouts from myself and the team.

Birthday Week - Invites, Decor and More!

Welcome back! Did anyone have a chance to check out Pinterest yesterday? Joining is by invitation only, and I do have invites available, so if you're too impatient to wait until they send you one, let me know!

Who else uses their scrapbooking supplies for stuff other than scrapbooking? There are so many general paper crafts that scrapbooking supplies can be used for, that it's easy for us to expand to other kinds of crafting. I never buy birthday cards anymore, and now my husband uses me as his greeting card store! There is so much more we can do with our supplies too, and party related stuff is one of them.

 

 Invitations

So far Kieran has only had small parties and we've invited by word of mouth (though I did have a few ideas bookmarked this year), so I asked the rest of the team to share some of their ideas.

Celeste used digital supplies to make this invitation for her son's camp out party.

 

Donna also used digital supplies but mixed hers with paper for a hybrid invite.

Supplies: A-Z Alphabet Stickers and Rub-Ons and the Alphabet Flashcards from Crystal Wilkerson; font: Nasalization which can be downloaded for free at dafont.com

Monika went paper only for her daughter's Luau themed party 

and I loved this idea of using a photo for her son's 18th birthday invite.

Here's another all digital idea from Marnie, made with Libby Weifenbach designs from Sweet Shoppe.

Gift Wrapping and Party Decor 

Last year I used pinwheels as the major theme for Kieran's birthday and party. I used double sided patterned paper to make pinwheel accents for his gifts.

I found a simple tutorial online for making the pinwheels.

A couple years ago I used my stamps and upcycled some paper to wrap this gift for a friend's son

 You can also get really creative with gifts for grownups.

As far as decor goes the sky's the limit! You can make toppers for cakes and cupcakes like Paula did.

She used her die cutting machine to make the stars and butterflies for her daughter's 7th birthday last year. And this year she used hybrid techniques to make her a rock star cake!

You can see a tutorial showing how she did it here.

Last year I used my Slice machine to cut out the letters spelling Happy Birthday to decorate not the cupcakes, but the cupcake stand.

Marnie made personalised decor for her daughter Poppy.

Marnie says : "I cut out some circles with my circle cutter from Imaginisce princess paper. then stamped on Poppy's name with my Pebbles foam letter stamps".

This year to go with the theme Up I painted a wooden house and used dimensional letter stickers to spell out  Kieran's name and add the number 2.

I designed the Paradise Falls sign in Photoshop and printed it out onto photo paper.

Here are some links to other cute decor ideas I found. I didn't have time for everything this year but I am keeping them in mind for the future!

Hot air balloon bunting

Balloon Cones

Hot air balloon mobile

Gift Wrap

Candy Bunting

Party hats and Goodie Bags

You can't have a birthday party without party hats right? No need to go buy them, one sheet of 12x12 paper can make two hats! Simply cut out a 12" circle from the sheet, cut the circle in two, and form each one into a cone. Decorate add a string to tie (or elastic) and there you go! You can see a full tutorial here on Martha Stewart

Here is last year's version (sitting on top the goodie buckets)

I added pinwheels and a fringed circle with a rub-on accent.

This year they were a tad more colourful.

Back to the goodie buckets: I used puffy stickers to put the initials of each of the little guests

Yesterday I gave you a peek of some other goodie bags from last year. These were actually the ones for the adults

I thought it would be fun for the grownups to have some goodies as well! I used a stack of lunch bags (which I had in my stash from making paper bag albums back in the day) and topped them with a pinwheel.

What about inside the goodie bags? This year our goodie bags were fabric totes, but inside I included these Adventure Books.

The covers are actually chipboard pages from a blank 7 Gypsies mini book, and the pages are cut from cardstock. I covered the front with map themed patterned paper, and the label was done in Photoshop using digital patterned paper.

Marnie used her stash of scrapbooking buttons to make these headbands to go in goodie bags.

I did a quick search on Pinterest and came up with these other ideas:

Monster goodie bags

More pinwheel bags

Disney bags

Butterfly bags

Lego bags

Phew! That should be enough to keep you busy!

Come back tomorrow when we'll talk about the heart and soul of scrapbooking birthdays: the traditions and photographs. Until then!

Birthday Week - Themes and Inspirations

Welcome to Birthday Week! Ahhh, birthdays. We all have one and when it comes to our kids some of us go a bit crazy celebrating them. Since both Kieran and I recently had birthdays, I thought it would be fun to spend a week talking about birthday celebrations as related to scrapbooking. Not just making scrapbook pages, but also all the ways we can use our scrapbooking supplies for birthday celebrations. Here is what this week will look like:

Monday: Inspirations and Ideas - where to find them and how to keep track of them and your party planning.

Tuesday: Using scrapbook supplies to create invitations, party decor, goodie bags and more.

Wednesday: Birthday Traditions and Photos

Thursday: give.away.day

Friday: Scrapbooking Birthdays

Saturday: More Scrapbooking Birthdays

So, on with the show!

I love parties and celebrations, and it's possible that I love dreaming up party ideas more than the parties themselves! I'd always had birthday parties growing up, and I of course want the same for Kieran. So starting last year I spent a lot of time coming up with ideas for his special days. Thanks to the numerous blogs I read I found a bunch of fun ideas that I wanted to incorporate in his celebrations.

Where did I find these ideas? Well imagine my delight when I came across a blog last year called Birthday Girl. Hello?? Not only does she post inspiration boards that she develops for her clients (or just because), but she also features images from birthday parties that her readers send in. I took a page from her book and made a little inspiration board for Kieran's 1st birthday.

At that time I'd decided that the theme would be kites and pinwheels. I also wanted to include a bunting, have cupcakes and make him a birthday crown. I went to Flickr and searched for all these terms, then used the images I liked to create the mosaic using the tool at Big Huge Labs.

Not being the most organised person in the world, I needed a way to keep track of it all. I used a combination of bookmarks in delicious and jotting things down in a notebook in order keep things accessible when I was ready to put the plan into action.

This year I upped the ante with Pinterest, my new obsession. If you're not familiar with Pinterest (and why on earth aren't you? you need to be!), it's a social bookmarking site where you can find and store ideas visually. It's the perfect medium for us creative types! What's great about it is that it can be used both to find inspiration and to keep track of it. I started off earlier in the year by pinning a bunch of ideas I loved to my Event Ideas board. Once it got closer to Kieran's birthday, I created a new board just for ideas specific to his birthday theme (this year the theme was the Pixar movie Up!)

 

I didn't use a paper based system at all this year, because I have a bad habit of noting things down on random bits of paper, or in numerous notebooks, and then losing them. So I tried out an another online application called WorkFlowy, which definitely kept me on track. Here's a screen shot of my lists in action.

I tell ya, I was amazed that I kept up with this system, but it is easy to use, with very few frills. Their tagline is "Organize Your Brain" and it's true! I created categories for everything, like Decor, Food, Activities, etc. then broke them down into smaller tasks which I crossed off as they were completed. Mind you, I was still up past midnight finishing things up on the two nights before the party, but that's a whole other story!

Ok, enough with the planning already! Tomorrow we'll talk about using scrapbooking supplies to create the ideas we bookmarked, and I'll share some of the details from items in these photos.

See you then!