Write. Click. Scrapbook.

Social Media Week - Wrap Up

So Many Projects, So Little Time!

I'm happy to say that we've received a wonderful response to this week of Social Media in Scrapbooking. I want to feature as many projects today as possible--- so let's cut the chit-chat and go straight to the eye candy!

Twitter

WCS member Diane Payne did a layout on the connections made through Twitter and Facebook:

Michelle Bazelay put together this clever layout, using tweets from the day Osama Bin Laden was killed:

Blogging:

WCS Team member Emily Spahn journals about blogging below:

More Facebook

First let me say that I discovered yesterday that the app I used to collect all my statuses is now defunct. I have not been able to find an alternative-- as Facebook keeps changing, a lot of possibilities I found on line no longer function. I guess we're stuck with doing it the old fashioned way for now. So sit back, put on Grey's Anatomy, and copy and paste!

Back to the eye candy....

Reader Mary Jo used a little hidden journaling card with a screenshot of status updates. This layout makes me think of daiquiris and toes in the sand...

Project Lifer, Stephanie Sheperd , added a screenshot of her Facebook status to highlight the birth of a new baby in the family:

Monica did something similar, taking a screen shot of FB conversations and formatting them onto a 4X6 card. So clever!

Reader Lisa P. gathered all of her Facebook statuses for an awesome Year in Review page:

And Lorimay Barba made this adorable mini with status updates. A very impressive copy of the logo, I'd say!

Thanks to everyone who contributed projects to my very social Social Media Week! We love it when you comment on what we're doing, and share your take on our weekly theme. Keep it up! You never know when you might see your project featured on WCS!

and the giveaways go to . . .

The one year subscription for Scrapbook and Cards Today belongs to

and Katherine's book goes to

Thank you for your comments. They truly made me cry. I love this hobby and can't imagine my life without it. Knowing you feel the same way is magic. And makes me feel so very connected to you! Thank you!

Lisa will be back in a moment with more Social Media Scrapbooking!

give.away.day. featuring SCRAPBOOK & CARDS TODAY

We are excited to have not one, but two giveaways today!! What a

this is going to be!

First, our favorite scrapbooking magazine

is offering one of you a free one year subscription! With an amazing design team (including our own Emily Pitts and Lisa Kisch!), a heart of gold, and the most amazing editors ever, it stands to reason that every edition will delight and inspire you! Scrapbook and Cards Today is available by subscription, or you can read and download every issue for FREE! With beautiful layouts, gorgeous cards, and clever techniques,  you'll definitely be inspired!

 

Next up, a free copy of the new book, Any Day a Beautiful Change, a book by Katherine Willis Pershey.

Marie used this book to inspire us with our write. Saturday workshop prompt last week. There's a lovely  back story you can read on the post. Here's a little description of the book:

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the minister with the baby carriage. In this collection of interrelated personal essays, Katherine Willis Pershey chronicles the story of her life as a young pastor, mother, and wife. At turns hilarious and harrowing, deeply moving and gently instructive, Pershey's reflections will strike a chord with anyone who has ever rocked a newborn, loved an alcoholic, prayed for the redemption of a troubled relationship, or groped in the dark for the living God.

While this may not be a book all about scrapbooking, it is a great inspiration for journaling about the beautiful changes in your life-the big moments and the small.

If you would like to be considered for one of these giveaways, please leave us a comment telling us a change that scrapbooking has brought to your life. Comments will remain open through this evening. And because this is Social Media week, let's put it to good use! If you head on over to Scrapbook and Cards Today's Facebook Page and "like" them, then leave us a message here telling us that you did, you will have a second opportunity to take the subscription home with you!

Two lucky numbers will be drawn at random and posted tomorrow. Please remember it is your responsibility to claim your lucky number before the clock strikes the midnight hour on Saturday!

 

Social Media Week - Day Three

More Facebook

We're not done with Facebook yet! I had so much to share, I needed to split Facebook into two posts!

WCS member, Emily Pitts, did this super-cool teen layout using her daughter's Facebook profile page. I love the idea of documenting someone using their own words!

WCS member Paula Gilarde reminded me of this great layout from our June 2011 gallery. I love that she fit all of this on one page! Can you imagine an album with a layout just like this from every year?

WCS member, Marie Taylor, sent me this sniff-worthy layout using all of the comments people made after she announced her pregnancy on Facebook. Another great journaling resource!

Instagram, Insta-love!

Never thought of Instagram as social media? Well, Mark Zuckerberg recently paid ONE BILLION dollars for this company that has no revenue stream, and less than a dozen employees! My guess is he wouldn't have done that if he didn't see Instagram-- and photo memory sharing-- as a major source of social media. Let's look at how we can use these little square gems!

WCS member Emily Spahn did the colourful layout using Instagram photos. Aren't the expressions they capture so expressive? I love how Instagram filters can correct exposure, smooth skin, and intensify colours:

 

These graduation cards by Michelle Wooderson are a creative use of Instagram-- and I am a sucker for that colour combo!

On my hubby's birthday last year I took a photo of us using Instagram. It's a reflection of us in a mirrored store window. It's also now my Timeline photo on Facebook.

Mark Zuckerberg will no doubt be pleased.

Don't forget to come back tomorrow for my giveaway-- hint: expect a year's worth of fabulous scrap inspiration!

 

Social Media Week - Day Two

Are you on Facebook?

Did you resist joining Facebook at first? I know I did. I wasn't going to follow the crowd. I wasn't going to give in.

Then I did.

Just like most things in life, you can find positives and negatives with Facebook. However, as an actor who meets a new group of fabulous colleagues with every show I start-- it's become a great way to keep up on what everyone is doing. On top of that, it allows me to remember what I was doing in February 2009, or April 2010--- when I would otherwise have no clue what I was up to. (I have a terrible memory. It's why I scrapbook.) I have found Facebook to be so useful in memory keeping-- and here is how some others have used it, too:

WCS member, Celeste Smith, created a grid of profile pictures to document all her Facebook friends:  Celeste says: "You can easily create a grid of all of your facebook friends profile photos by installing the application called Gridview. Unfortunately, the mosaic maker wasn’t working for me so I created a PDF of the screen the mosaic was on and then reworked it in Photoshop. In Photoshop, I lowered the opacity of the layer with the photos on it so that it dulled it a bit and my title, journaling and embellishments would pop more. You could also just lay a piece of vellum over the top. I found a font similar to the facebook font to create my title and use for my journaling as well. I only adhered the top of my journal block so I can lift it up and look at the photos underneath."

 

WCS member, Lisa Ottoson, did a layout about all the Facebook birthday greetings she received. I can relate. My birthday was last week, and I got teary at all the people who came out of the woodwork to wish me a happy birthday. Here is Lisa's take:

I love this colourful Facebook layout that Danielle Flanders created using her status updates. Her use of polaroid frames reminds us of what status updates are-- "snapshots":

 

If you are a Project Lifer then you have to check out Christine Newman's blog! Great tutorials and details of how to stylishly put things together. It makes me want to start a project life album right now! Below is an example of how she worked Facebook statuses into her album:

 

Lastly, I have two gift ideas using Facebook. I made a card for friends of mine who had a new baby. They hadn't sent out photos yet, but I was able to download some from Facebook and turn them into a photostrip for the card:

Similarly, I made a wedding gift for dear friends of mine who didn't yet have their photos back from the photographer. I downloaded photos from Facebook, edited them a bit, then used them for this canvas:

I know that wedding photographers hate having people taking photos on the side-- but in this case it really worked in my favour! Thanks to Facebook, I was able to make this gift a surprise, rather than asking the bride and groom for wedding photos.

I'll be back tomorrow with more social media fun!

Since we are being so SOCIAL, why don't you join in? Link me up to your favourite projects using social media, and I will feature some this friday!

 

Social Media Week - Day One

Welcome to

Social Media Week!

Hi all! I'm Lisa Kisch, and I'm so excited to be hosting this week on the topic that has truly changed the way I keep memories-- Social Media. Have you found a shift in your scrapping since Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram have taken over the planet? I know that I document more and scrap faster because these tools are instantly at hand in my day to day life. (My camera would probably not agree that this is a good thing. She's been rather neglected since Instagram came to town!)

Today I'm going to show you some of the ways I use these tools in my scrapping-- and then over the next few days I will feature some of your favourite social media sites, and how we are scrapping with them. Not only that, how we are scrapping ABOUT them! Social media has become such a part of our lives that they themselves have become the topic of many layouts and minis in galleries all over the web. (Don't forget about our Thursday giveaway! I won't ruin the surprise, but suffice to say that there will be a whole lotta scrap inspiration up for grabs!)

 

First There Was Facebook

For me, it all began with Facebook. I don't twitter...tweet...whatever...but I do update my status all the time! I quickly began to think of this as a form of "slice of life" journaling. Whereas we often get caught up in scrapping the big events in our lives, Facebook statuses allowed me to quickly journal the minutiae of the day to day. What is important to me right this second? That's what I write on my status. Collect all of these together, and you have an amazing overview of your week, or month, or year. The first time I collected all of my status updates on one page was 2008:

(Remember to click on any of these to make them a bit bigger and clearer!)

A favourite photo from every month, paired with all of my status updates:

What makes me laugh here is that all of my status updates fit on one page! The next year, 2009, It took two pages, plus the back of the layout to fit them all:

Although it took some time to go back and assemble all of my status updates-- it really was worth it! There are even some Facebook apps that will do it for you.

 

Last summer, you may remember that I did a summer version of this as a mini book for our "Summertime Dailies." I paired favourite photos with my June/July/August status updates:

...and then this past winter I put a similar book together on-line at blurb.com, this time featuring status updates that were specifically kid related. I printed off 5 of these and -- voila-- Christmas presents done!

You may notice in this last example that the photos are square, slightly fuzzy with an ever-so-cool texture-- which brings me to my next topic...

 

Then Came Instagram...

When Instagram came along, I was able to document the teeny little moments visually-- just like status updates did it in written form. I always have my phone on me, and it's (almost) always charged. Although the quality isn't spectacular, there is an immediacy that is so intoxicating. I'm not saying this is a good thing-- but probably more than half of my layouts these days are using Instagram photos. There is less pressure on being a good photographer. They are bonus photos! I say use 'em!

Here are a few examples:

Print them big or small, in groups or alone, those little squares of goodness are a pleasure to scrap!

I think that's a good start for today! There are so many more ways to use social media in memory keeping, though. Come back tomorrow for more some pinning/tweeting/updating fun!

photo + words

(Photo: Lisa Ottosson)

“No one realizes how beautiful it is to
travel until
he comes home and rests
his head on his old,
familiar pillow.”
– Lin Yutang

write.

Welcome to write. Saturday on this beautiful (Inter) National Scrapbooking Day! Today's journaling prompt is quite near and dear to my heart. Why? Because my self proclaimed non-scrapbooking sister, Katherine Willis Pershey, wrote a book. A beautiful memoir about her life as a wife, pastor, and mother; and really, what is a memoir but a very large scrapbook? Her book is called Any Day a Beautiful Change.

I am also very excited about the cover, as my sister used a photo I took of her sweet family, not knowing one day it would be on the cover of a famous author's book!

Katherine borrowed (giving credit where credit is due) her title for her book from an Innocence Mission song. The song begins: “Oh I’m going to find some peace of mind. At any time I could change, any day, a beautiful change.” I see how she was so heavily inspired by those words.

So this Saturday's prompt is to write about a beautiful change in your life. Some of these beautiful changes can be monumental, like the birth of a child and the life chosen as a stay at home mom.
  (by Erin Sweeney)

Or believing in something greater that can bring such beautiful inner change like in Emily's layout here.

And another beautiful layout by Emily, recapping the last four years of change-because change can be more than just one moment; it can span time.

Beautiful changes also occur in relationships, like with Amy and her now teen-aged daughter.

Here is Amy's beautiful journaling:

I remember the first time Haley and I had a teenage-esque argument. She was about seven, and she wanted me to buy her a belly shirt. "Britney Spears wears shirts like these!" she insisted (not ever guessing she was ruining her case). Looked at from this distance, it seems cute, but it wasn't cute then. I was stunned. Floored. Utterly taken aback: where had my Haley gone and when had she been replaced with this girl who was actually mad at me?

That day our relationship began to change. And really: don't get me wrong. When I remember the relationship I had as a teenager with my mom, I am more than grateful for mine with Haley. But no mother-daughter relationship is ever perfect. In fact, I have a theory: the closer you are when your daughter is young, the bumpier the relationship will be during adolescence. This is because it has to happen—the severing. A daughter cannot be young forever. She has to become her own person and to do so has to cut some of the ties.

 

Of course, having that theory doesn't really make things a whole lot easier. I confess:  I've shed many tears, out of frustration and hurt and disappointment. I have wished for things to be less antagonistic between us. I've known deep in my soul the many ways I've failed her. I've made mistakes & apologized & shouted when I shouldn't. I've learned some truths about myself and how (hopefully) to be a better parent. And I think it's all been fairly average. Painful, but ultimately OK.

 

Despite all the storminess I had with my own mom, something strange started to happen when I was 17: my animosity began to fade. She could say something like "did you do your homework?" and I wouldn't immediately spike with annoyance. I started talking to her about stuff I'd previously only talked about with friends. I started realizing that she was a person, and that I was a person, too, not a child.

 

And now here Haley is: 17. And while I've learned to assume nothing and to just see what happens, I'm also letting myself think about how things will change during the next year or so. Some of the changes will be tough because they will put distance between us. But I also believe that good changes will happen, too, as she continues to grow. The rocky parts will perhaps be less frequent and we will start to have a more grown-up-people relationship.

 

Not all the changes may be as powerful and tear inducing, some changes can be ever so slightly silly, like my excitement about getting an iPhone. Finally.

I have been so inspired by this prompt, that I plan on creating an entire album of my beautiful changes. It will include the moments of great significance, like this layout I made years ago which informed my husband that baby #2 was on it's way.
Yes, I took the test, gasped, and immediately ran to my scrap room to modify a layout I recently completed. I believe that is what we call a slightly neurotic scrapbooker ;)

 

I did this layout about the day my camera died. On National (Inter)national Scrapbooking Day. In the middle of my 365. It didn't seem like a beautiful change at the time, but ended up being the catalyst for learning even more about photography. Loving photography even more. It certainly turned into a beautiful change.


All of these layouts didn't necessarily have a perfect place in my albums, but now will have a permanent home in my Beautiful Changes album. Now I am finally going to take the time scrap the stories of my wedding, the birth of each of my children, and all the little changes in between. MY beautiful changes in my own words. I just keep thinking, wouldn't it be wonderful to know about the birth of my mother, in my grandmother's own words. Or how my grandfather proposed. I would love to know that. Isn't that what this day, this site, this hobby is all about? Recording life's beautiful changes. Scrapbooking has become my beautiful change indeed.

Be sure to come back on Thursday for a giveaway of Any Day a Beautiful Change. You definitely need your own copy. If you can't wait, you can purchase the book or ebook edition at Amazon or Chalice Press. Now start writing about the beautiful changes in your life! Enjoy yourself this (Inter) National Scrapbooking Day!

Your Teacher-Appreciation Homework

I had the most amazing first grade teacher. Mr. Averett was a brand-new teacher that year, so he made an incredible effort to teach us all. He took my shy little self and introduced me to the magical escape portal that is books. He taught me how to carry the one and how to borrow from the tens. He let me see that school was a good (not terrifying, as kindergarten had seemed to indicate) place and that learning was worth the work.

Now that I am a grown up, I confess: I still have an affection in my soul for school. Mr. Averett's example is one reason I became a teacher, and his skill at getting his little students to love learning ignited a flame that's still bright for me. If someone would just pay for it, in fact, I'd be a student my entire life, getting degree after degree.

It was a lucky year for me, first grade!

I'm certain that every one of you reading this has a similar story you could tell, either about a teacher who inspired you or one who changed your child's life. And perhaps it's time to make a layout about just that! Here are a few examples from the WCS team to get you started.

Celeste starts us off with a layout about her son's kindergarten teacher.

I think kindergarten teachers are amazing people. You have to be full of patience and exuberance to manage a classful of five-year-olds! What unique things have your kids gained from their kindergarten teachers? Do you remember your kindergarten teacher?

Celeste also shares a layout about that moment of meeting a new teacher:

Remember how that felt—all that nervous anticipation? What about the experience of watching your child meet his or her new teacher—how did it make you feel to trust this person with your child?

Karen made a layout about the positive impact a great teacher can have and her hopes for her son's learning:

Part of her journaling reads "I always hoped that you'd get to be lucky enough to find one of those teachers. The one that you will remember forever. The one that instilled joy in your heart." I think that is exactly the type of teacher we are all grateful to have. Have any of your kids had teachers like this? Did you? Try journaling about the specific kind of joy they brought.

In this layout

(isn't that an awesome photo?) Karen writes about her son's preschool teachers, who shouldn't be forgotten. Preschool, after all, might just be the funnest school in the history of school! What positive experiences with preschool teachers have your kids had?

I also made a layout about a preschool teacher, Miss Cathie:

Three out of my four kids went to Miss Cathie's preschool, so she's had an enormous impact on our family. In the layout I included a photo of the quilt I made for her when my youngest graduated from her school, which I hoped was a good way of saying "thanks for giving my kids a great start on their education." Try documenting some of the teacher appreciation gifts you give.

Christa took an entirely different approach by scrapping about her appreciation for an entire school:

which really brings up a whole previously-unexplored topic! (At least for me.) How do you feel about your child's school? What do you love, what could be different, what is unique—what's the lunchroom like? You could scrap the same questions about any of the schools you attended, too.

Erin takes us to the last bell of the day with this layout:

Can I tell you how much I love and adore this concept? In the layout, Erin writes about different elementary school teachers, detailing some specific memories from each grade. (She couldn't find her second-grade photo so she left a blank space for when it turns up.) Once I dig out all of my grade school photos I am totally going to make a layout like this one!

The scope for layouts about appreciating all things scholarly is enormous. Ask yourself how you might show your appreciation for a teacher or two in your scrapbooks. Consider it a homework assignment, due as soon as possible. I'm certain you'll get an A!

Happy scrapping!

An Insufficient Effort

I am back with one last idea for you this week. I titled this post an insufficient effort as I feel like there is really no way to ever properly say thank you to a person who kindly watches over the growth, academic and otherwise, and hearts, and hopes of our children. I used to send in weekly thank you notes, and still felt it lacking. There is just no way to express how grateful I am.

But that aside, one must try. Today I put together a teacher favorite, my (in)famous fudge. Actually, it is Richard who makes it--I just eat it. Mmmm. I filled the bottom of the cup with the fudge (as the dirt) and then printed off a flower that Poppy can sign on the back. I used lollipop sticks as flower stems as they are food grade appropriate. I like how they turned out!

I will have Poppy sign them before delivery! And straighten that pennant leaf which has gone askew!

If you would like to make some, here is the page I used for the printing. I hope you will download it if it will help you celebrate a teacher in your life!

Thank you for stopping by and for helping us celebrate the teachers in our lives! Tomorrow is going to be filled with layouts! You won't want to miss it!

Until then,