Write. Click. Scrapbook.

Sunday Photo + Words

 

 

In Review

Hard to believe, but it is the fourth Saturday already. Which means we get to look back at the month and all that we have seen. 

Erin began the month with an honest assessment of Project Life and some terrific suggestions for how to make our 2013 efforts more successful. Amy wrote our journaling column this month, listing three resolutions that she made to improve her journaling this year. (And if Amy needs to improve, the rest of use are in trouble!! heehee!)

Sarah's week kept us all in stitches and helped remind us to let our funny bones show in our albums. Lisa finished the week with her photography article, and several good ideas for improving our self portraits--hopefully inspiring us to get out from behind the lens to be in our own photos.

Next, Diane offered us ideas for getting the men in our lives into our photos and onto our photos. Diane also provided the sketch from our gallery this month, with Marnie adding in a color scheme and a trendalert.

Lastly, Valerie built upon Lisa's suggestions for taking more self portraits by inspiring us to create self-pages. (That's a good term, no? Self pages? I suppose it doesn't matter what we call them as long as we make them, right?)

 

Before the calender turns its page, let's look one more time back at our gallery. The sneaks for next month's gallery are on the Facebook page, which means we are close to a new theme! Speaking of Facebook, if you haven't added us as an interest, please remember to do so. Without it, you won't see all our lovely posts! As a reminder, click open the "like button" so that it opens the drop down menu. From there, you have to choose "add to interests list." If you haven't a particular interest group yet defined, you can do so now (we might suggest "awesome scrapbooking sites"). Remember, once you do this, our posts will show up on your wall. Otherwise, the powers that be at Facebook want us to pay for you to receive our content. And well, that's just silly now.

 

As we walk together through the gallery, let's look for successful and inspirational elements. Things we can use to help make our pages better.

Look how Francine combines a font oft used in sports for a layout filled with soft hues and flowery elements. The juxtaposition is fantastic!

The little elephant in Aliza's title is the perfect example of how her pages are layered with details that need to be discovered by looking at them again and again.

Celeste is the master of shading. No one would ever believe this layout was digital. Never.

Marnie's layout celebrates the happiness of the moment with color, and cheerful elements. All working together to tell the story.

Francine's layout talks about making making the most of the mundane moments, which is brought to life by her use of the bright yellow. Such a little thing to help tell her story so well.

Did you notice all the little bits tucked under the middle of Celeste's layout? Helping to tell the story of her needing notes? Again, using tiny elements to help tell the story.

The new small size of Lisa's layout is awesome! The grey is the perfect backdrop for the red of the flowers, too, helping them pop off the page.

How many of you took photos on 10.10.10 or 11.11.11 or 12.12.12? Let Katie's layout inspire you to get them scrapbooked! And perhaps string up a few sequins like she did. They are so pretty. Clever embellishment idea.

Jenny's layout is a splendid journaling example. Such a tremendous idea! Emily's has a similar theme, listing advice for a former self. Christa focused hers on her 18 year old self. All of them are equally amazing. These are the kind of layouts that you will treasure for years to come. 

Kathy's layout has such a fantastic pairing of stark black and vellum elements. Each makes the other stand out more.

Do you see the same date stamp on Deb's layout as Katie's? While you are looking, notice all the arrows. They are so subtle, yet so effective en masse.

Valerie's layout is so tender. Perhaps made all the moreso by her not having used a photo. It just goes to show that you really don't have to have a photo to create a heartfelt, meaningful layout.

Did you read that Jennie used a photo that sits on her dresser? What terrific inspiration for us to do the same.

All the little wooden elements on Amy's pages help provide a warm coziness to her otherwise bright layout. It brings in the perfect bit of homeyness, especially when paired with the little houses. (And did you see that cute little face on her baby? Mmm!)

The bits of cloud, sky, and butterflies are so perfect for Diane's photo. Have you ever had a photo that so helped to guide your layout??

Christine's layout is filled with loveliness. The airmail edge helps give it the feel of a letter. The backwards staple and the hand drawn arrows give it a personal sense. Which goes well with the personal journaling! Unified layouts have such peaceful balance.

Paula's layout has a funny funny story. If you haven't read it yet, go now. We'll wait... Sweet, no? Have you had something old pop into your head lately? Perhaps the next time you do, you can hurry and make a page like Paula did.

Erin's layout is a reminder to take a moment and write about motherhood. Or something else equally important to you right now. Written with real heartfelt journaling. The kind Amy would be proud of.

Speaking of Amy, her layout begins as a letter to her daughter, but really is a chance for her to express herself. A nice way to let your feelings show.

Kelly's layout is a simple acknowledgment of a lovely characteristic of her daughter. Sometimes pages really can just be so sweet and simple.

Marnie's layout uses a font that is reminiscent of a Sharpie. What a perfect thing for a note one leaves one's self. Sometimes there really is a perfect font for a layout.

Lisa repurposed some old jewelry for her flower embellishment. What a terrific way to maintain a budget and be good to Mother Earth!

Thank you to the collective for some wonderful inspiration this month! And thank you, dear readers, for your loyal visits!

Proud Moments

 There are little moments every day when I am proud of my son and make a mental note to document it in some way or just celebrate with a high five. Our own accomplishments might not be worthy of the Nobel Prize, but they are deserving enough to be scrapbooked. When's the last time you gave yourself a pat on the back for a job well done? Yep, my challenge to you today is to document one of your own proud moments. It could be a recent moment, or a non-recent moment.

Here's mine:

 

Lisa shares a simple accomplishment—how she succesfully folded a paper crane. Origami is so much fun. This is totally off topic, but sometimes it is a lot of fun to fold origami and use it as an embellishment on your page.

 

We've got a few runners here in the collective. Erin writes about how she never thought she'd be a runner. I love the clean lines on this—and look at all that journaling. Way to go Erin!

 

And Christine ran a marathon. A whole marathon. Twenty-six point two miles. Oh my, that is a lot of running. Isn't it amazing what our bodies can do!?

A Few More Journaling Prompts for Today

• Scrap a proud moment you remember from high school.
• Scrap a proud moment you remember from college.
• Scrap a proud moment you remember as a friend, sister, daughter, or wife.
• Scrap a proud moment in parenting.

Digging Deeper

I've been taking it easy on you, but now it's time to explore ways to dig deeper on those layouts about us. I challenge you to really try and stretch yourself with your journaling. It's so easy to write a sentence and call it good. I know because I do it all. the. time. But it's something I'm trying to get better at, especially when the topic calls for it. When digging deeper, also think about how your color palette may affect and enhance the mood of your page. 

Today I have a series of journaling prompts and layout ideas to hopefully get those journaling juices flowing. 

1. What's going on in your life right now, this very moment?

Take a minute to jot down what's going on in your life right now. When you think you're done journaling, push yourself to write a little more. You might be surprised with you have in front of you...in a good way.

Here's my version of "Right Now..."

 

2. Finish this phrase: "I am..."

Jennie describes herself with some basic adjectives.

 

3. Discuss a character trait that makes you who you are.

Christa shares about being optimistic. I love that great smile and girly, sophisticated color palette.

 

4. What are some things life has taught you?

Diane shares her "two cents" in this gorgeous layout.

 

5. Room for Improvement

In what area of your life can you improve on something? Lisa shares a layout about how she used to say she had low self-confidence, but then realized she really didn't

 

6. Talk about the tough stuff

Life isn't always unicorns and rainbows, so your scrapbooking does not have to be either. Celebrate some of life's struggles or maybe even some silly little wrinkles like Christine.

A Few More Prompts

• What do you like best about yourself?
• What matters most?
• What makes you sad?
• What's your 5-year plan? or your 10-year plan?
• What are you thankful for?
• Write a letter to your younger self.

 

Playing Favorites

Favorites! We all have them: favorite activities, favorite foods, favorite music, favorite books, favorite movies, favorite places, favorite people—the list is nearly never-ending. Favorites are totally painless and so easy to scrap. They are even easy to sing about. Cue music..... Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens. Brown paper packages tied up with strings. These are a few of my favorite things.

(You can thank me later if you find yourself randomly singing that song from The Sound of Music later today.) And without further adieu, here's some inspiration from the collective for scrapping your favorites:

Make A List

I challenge you to sit down right now, get a piece of paper and a pen, and write down five to ten of your very favorite things. Take a cute self portrait and make a fun layout. I did just that exact thing yesterday. Here's my result:

And one from Diane

Another from Jennie. I love all the little bits and pieces on this one.

I'm always impressed and inspired by Jennifer's talent in fitting so many photos on a page.

One Favorite Per Page

Lisa shares a favorite place.

And Amy has one too.
 

Celeste shares her love for coffee.

Jennifer made a layout about her favorite television show.

And Christine shares a favorite activity.

 

I realized today, in challenging all you lovely blog readers to scrap more of yourself, that you're going get to know the collective over here a lot better this week.

Sunday photo+words

scrapbook!

Hello! Welcome to Scrapbook! Saturday. I am so happy to be here with you today. Didn't you think this month's gallery was amazing? I loved reading the little bits of advice, the life lessons, and the resolutions. As I made notes of pages I wanted to make, I found my journaling list was long. It's not that I wasn't inspired by the design or products on the pages, I was just so beguiled by the words, that I failed to note the rest. Does this happen to you sometimes, too?

Even though the stories were the first notice, going back through with an eye on design I was glad that I had taken the time, as there is much to love there, too! I run through life so quickly, that I often forget to truly pay attention. Similarly, it is easy  to click through the gallery without actually absorbing anything. But when I sit down and look, really look, I find all sorts of treasures that I might have missed. Let's get started and see what we can find.

SKETCH

First up is our sketch. Looking to Jennifer's January gallery layout,

Diane created this sketch for us:

 

And look at how well our team made use of it. 

 

Amy followed the sketch closely, and made great use of a beautiful photo as a background.

 

Jennie swapped the journaling block for some spotted vellum. A lovely part of sketches is their flexibility.

 

LisaO has all the elements but shuffled them around a bit.

 

Aliza's page is not for the faint of heart! I love how she shortened the lower strip, making it even with the title's edge. Don't you think it transforms the sketch into something new?

I stuck closely to the sketch, but deleted a couple of embellishments, and stretched my photos into rectangles as my photos weren't cropable. (Is that even a word??!!)

 

Lastly, we have Diane's lovely layout. Do you see the sketch in it? She told me that she began with the sketch, but once the photos came into play it took on a life of its own. Don't you love when that happens? The sketch gets you started and then creative lightning strikes and suddenly you have a wonderful layout sitting in front of you. Just like that!

 You may download the layered template here. Enjoy!

 

ROYGBIV

Take a moment and pop on over to the gallery and see if there is a color scheme that appeals to you. There are five kraft layouts, ten with white backgrounds, and a handful with prominent patterned paper. Have you a preference?

Looking for an entire palette, I was drawn to Jennie's layout from our Note to Self gallery.

With its soft muted hues, I just knew it would make a lovely color scheme for us this month.

I used it on a layout celebrating an exhibit I saw this past week featuring Aurora Robson. (Be sure to stop by her site. Her work is amazing!) Her work was all in white with a white window behind it, so the light papers were the perfect backdrop.

I hope that you will find these shades as useful as I have!

 

TRENDING

This month we have three equally outstanding trends: arrows, tags and labels. I spotted 11 layouts with arrows, 12 with tags, and 10 with labels. How about you? have you been using them lately, too? Should we check? I'll wait if you want to go find the last layout you made so you can see...

Did you find some? I did...

Alright, maybe I just made it...  I had fun adding in all three elements. I hope you will have fun, too!

 

Thank you, for joining me today! What a great week. With Christa's ideas for getting our men into our scrapbooks and with all the CHA sneak peaks, this week couldn't have been better. Thank you for letting me highlight some inspiration from our gallery, and thank you Diane, for putting our sketch together! Can't wait to see you all back tomorrow!

Click.

Welcome to the first Click. Saturday in 2013! I wanted to talk a little about taking photos of ourselves. 
Self portraits can be a little intimidating and I know I try to hide from the camera alot. But I have found that with my iPhone capturing selfies are a bit easier than with my DSLR. What about you?

In our latest gallery Note to self I counted to 9 layouts featuring a selfportrait! That is awesome! I asked the other team members if they had any tips and tricks for taking selfportraits and here is what they said:

Christine:  "I think if you have an iphone or ipad, you can easily turn the camera to the front camera and take a selfie! Also, timers and tripods are great for self portraits.  Oh and it doesn't even have to be just your head shot.  My husband and I take jumping photos a lot, with just a tripod and self timer."

Francine: "My tip is to get a shutter remote. It's a huge help and they are very affordable (e.g. on Amazon). Also take lots and lots of shots!"

Christa: " I have my resident (nearly) 8 year old take photos for me because she's actually quite good and knows to "look for the red dots on the inside" before she takes it!!
If no one is around I normally set up a lamp or something to focus on then plant myself where the lamp was so I'm not out of focus. It normally takes 100 photos to get one mediocre one!"

Amy: The turn feature is also on Android phones! (or...at least it is on mine.) My tip is to have a teenaged daughter who has taken approx. 2,281,972 self portraits. She will train you right!

I totally agree with all of the above and especially with Amy´s comment :) I have a teenaged daughter that has absolutely filled her Instagram feed with selfportraits! Ofcourse you should ask them for tips!

 

 I found this layout that I made a few years ago where she (my daughter) had used her DSLR to take hundreds of photos of herself! And that is one of the tips really, take lots and lots of photos, it is so easy since we have the technology for it now. Practise makes perfect!

 

Here are some hands on tips!

1. Practise holding your camera/phone at arms length. If you have a phone that allows you to switch to the camera infront (so that you can see yourself when you look at the display) you can more easily try different angles. Try not to use your flash, it creates such a harsh light. 

2. Take photos in a mirror. Practise holding your camera so that you don´t hide behind it. 

When you take a photo in a reflecting object remember to look into the lense of the camera, otherwise your eyes will be focused out in space. 

Also pratise on holding your camera steadily when you take mirror shots where you zoom in alot. 

3. A selfportrait doesn´t always have to show just your face. Perhaps you want to capture where you are or who you are with, like in this layout

But there is also more parts of you that represent you. It all depends on what you want to capture. Here are a few examples 

I have a passion for gardening. I love to get my hands dirty. That is what I wanted to capture in this photo. For this I simply layed my camera on the ground and prefocused on the plants and used my other hand to press the shutter.

Me and my dog Melvin were having a snuggle session in the grass and I wanted to try to get a few photos of it. As you can tell I layed my camera in the grass and zoomed in quite a bit, pushing the shutter with one hand.

Here I wanted the "feet-photo" effect, but didn´t want to just point my camera down. I wanted to capture where I was at the time. For these I used my timer.

Here are a few bonus ones that I found on my daughters memorycard :)

Is she the daughter of a photographer or what?! 

Before I end this post, I just want to clarify that although I am comfortable laying my camera on different surfaces like the ground or something else in nature you should be careful. If you feel like it would be a risk for your camera, don´t do it! Perhaps a tripod would be a great thing to put on your wishlist?! I am hoping for one for my iPhone! 

Have fun snapping picture of yourself!

Sunday photo+words

Melanie Moushigian Koulouris

And now, the fun stuff.

That’s right, the fun stuff as in the products we use (or plan to use) in Project Life.

Thanks to recommendations from Christine and Deb, I’ve started using Oh Life. It’s perfect for me! I have it set to email me every night at 8pm. My kids are in bed, the day’s pretty much over, and I can sit down and write about anything memorable that occurred that day.

I love my Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher! I bought it shortly after starting Project Life last year and have used it often, both for PL and regular scrapbooking pages.

I often use My Mind’s Eye label stickers like these. They come in many colors and themes. I love Jillibean Soup's Alphabeans. The small font is the perfect size for PL and I would love to get them in almost every color – five down, four to go! And I can’t forget Ormolu and Martha Stewart file folder labels.

My week 18:

 

Deb recommends the Uni-ball Signo 207 gel pen. She loves them so much I had to try them for myself. And she’s right. They’re great. I picked up the micro and bold and should’ve gotten the medium while I was at it.  I mentioned Deb’s template yesterday, and here is a direct link to the template for you to download.

Deb’s weekly spreads using Studio Calico's Project Life kit:

 

Lisa likes Marcy Penner's weekday printables, the For the love of: conversation digital kit, and Crystal Wilkerson's color combo #4 card set. You can read more of Lisa’s post on her favorite products here.

Lisa’s last pages for PL 2012:

 

Celeste likes these cards by Deena Rutter and these date stamp brushes. You can see more of her favorite products and other tips as well here on her blog.

Celeste’s PL 2013 title page:

 

Christine’s weekly go-to products are BIC Mark-Its,ATG Tape Glider, and Tombow Mono Multi glue.

Christine’s week 23:

 

So we’ve had confessions, to-do plans, great products and inspiration. What more could you want but…more inspiration! Write.click.scrapbook. is on Pinterest. And I’m always adding to my Project Life board, as well. I’ll also be posting my weekly spreads on my blog.

If you’re new to Project Life, you can go here to learn more straight from the creator, Becky Higgins. And you can read more of write.click.scrapbook.’s posts on Project Life here.

If you’re participating in Project Life, we’d love for you to leave a comment with a link to your blog/gallery so we can check them out. I’m excited for Project Life 2013 and I hope you are too!