Write. Click. Scrapbook.

Inspiration Here... Inspiration There…

Did you guess WIlly Wonka - the original? We just love that movie around here. It is truly timeless!

Back to Day 2 of my process. I’m a planner. I’ve never been one of those scrappers that sit down and just start cutting paper. I just can’t bring myself to do it. I pretty much won’t cut until I’m absolutely sure I like my design and think it will work. I have to sketch out and plan my layouts before I get started. I usually do this before I even think about product unless I’m working on a product specific assignment or I’m using a kit.

 

I keep a sketch book handy on my desk. I also scribble on bits of paper through out the day. My sketch book is just a school notebook. You could easily make your own book. I found this great sketch book and the designer even included a free printable for the pages – little templates just ready for your sketches.

 

Source: kinseygirl 

Once I have my photos ready, I draw up sketches for them. I typically just add some blocks of patterned paper, maybe a border, consider title placement, and use large circles to designate embellishments or clusters of embellishments. I number the sketches to match the numbers I wrote on the backs of the photos.

 

As you can see it’s a little messy! I sketch and sketch using the photos in hand. As I sketch if product or story ideas come to me, I note them near the sketch. This makes it easy when I’m at the crop to match them up. If I’m completely stumped I pull out my arsenal of places to go for inspiration.

Sketch sites are a great place to start. Some of my favorites are

Page Maps by Becky Fleck

Scrap-Maps

Scrapbooks Etc. Sketches

Pencil Lines 

Scrapbook Bytes  

 

I don’t scrap a lot digitally, but I’ve found that digital templates are just like sketches!  Check out Designer Digitals, Hillary Heidelberg, and the Daily Digi for inspiration.

Online galleries are a great source of inspiration to me. I love to see the variety of ways different scrappers use product. Some of my favorite places are the Flickr gallery here at WCS, Scrapdeco, and Two Peas Peanut Gallery.

Scrapbooking publications are another source of inspiration. Currently, I don’t subscribe to any of the scrapbooking magazines, however I visit different scrapbooking magazine websites regularly. Some of the scrapbooking books I own are well worn – both of Cathy Zielske’s books, Becky Higgins Sketches books, my Simple Scrapbooks special issues, and others.

In the course of gathering entries for my blog, I run across all kinds of inspiring ways to use paper and other embellishments. Some of my favorite sites for paper crafting inspiration are Craftzine, Folding Trees, and One Pretty Thing.

Ads and magazines provide all kinds of graphic inspiration. I spend time at the library or Borders sketching while looking at magazines like Oprah, Real Simple, and a variety of design publications like HOW Magazine, print, and Communication Arts. You can also find ads online at Ads of the World, All Graphic Design Carbon Made and Creative Hotlist.  

This is my all time favorite ad that I’ve used as inspiration in the past…

 

 

I’d love to see what you can do with it. Post your layout in the Flickr gallery  so we can all see it! I'll highlight a few of your creations on Saturday in my wrap up post. Here’s what I came up with (it's an oldie but a goodie!)...

materials: cardstock (Bazzill) + brad (American Crafts) + fonts (Amaze, Century Gothic, AL Highlight)

Tomorrow we’ll talk about how to bring your journaling along to a crop!

 

So much time…

Hey there!  am so excited to be here this week blogging with you. We have “so much time and so little to do. Wait a minute. Strike that. Reverse it.” (Yes that’s a favorite quote from a favorite movie – do you know the movie?)

 

This week I’m going to talk about how I organize myself so I can maximize the time that I have allotted to scrapbooking. Life – ah life. Life is busy isn’t it?  I wend my way through my days with the help of lists. Recently, I downloaded this pretty little printable freebie and printed a bunch out to use as my daily to do list. I just stapled them together. Staying on task with my chore and errand list leaves me time at night to unwind– typically scrapbooking, reading, or watching TV.  So the first item in getting ready to scrapbook is really carving out the time.

Source: Erin Vale Design

  

I have found I work best if I organize myself and break my scrapbooking process down into little pieces. Hopefully, some nugget of my process will help you. As I go along please share how you organize yourself and any tips you might have that save time. Also please ask questions!

As an example of my scrapbooking process, I am going to walk you through how I prepare for a crop. I also use this method when I’m working on my monthly projects for design teams. It’s a great way to maximize the time I have and it makes for super productive crops.

Basically there are five steps to my process…

1. Stories and photos
2. Sketches and Inspiration
3. Journaling
4. Product
5. Putting it all together

DAY 1 - STORIES & PHOTOS

I keep a notepad by my desk with lists of funny things my kids have said and other stories that I’d like to preserve. This helps when I sit down to work with my photos. My photo process is a little chaotic – I should probably organize it a little better and use a tool. It works for me though.

 

I take all the photos off my camera and put them in a folder on my hard drive that is labeled with the month and year. I don’t really scrapbook chronologically, but I do seem to be able to remember what month and year we were doing something so this helps me find photos if I want to go back to them later. At the end of the month, I back up the photos to another hard drive and burn all of the photos to DVD.  After that process is complete, I go through that month’s worth photos and copy anything that I think I might scrap into a folder on my desktop for future editing. This way I always have a pile of photos set aside to work with.

When I am getting ready for a crop, I simply open this folder and start editing them. I usually shoot for around 20-30 layouts worth of photos. My quick process for editing color photos in Photoshop Elements is not glamorous, but it works for me. I usually defog (run an unsharp mask at 60,20, 0), then I use levels to adjust the brightness and contrast, sometimes I run a soft light layer at around 30%, and at the end I sharpen with unsharp mask at 85, 4,1.

I don’t convert to black and white often, mostly laziness on my part! When I had Photoshop CS, I relied heavily on a black and white action and the Pioneer Woman Action sets. I use some of the actions at Coffee Shop for Elements. I haven’t found a black and white action I love for Elements for free (if you have one please share!) Sometimes I convert to black and white using Jessica Sprague’s method.

After I’ve edited my photos, I make photo collages with some of them and others I print in a variety of sizes from 3x5 to 5x7. I’ve found that digital frame templates are a great way to get a grouping of photos quickly. For example, Photo Cluster No. 15 by Katie Pertiet which I used on the layout below.

 

materials:  patterned paper (Cosmo Cricket) + tickets (SEI) + felt (Freehand Scraps) +  digital element (Photo Cluster No. 15, Katie Pertiet, Designer Digitals) + journal spots (Heidi Swapp) + fabric

 

Then I print the photos out on my home printer or upload them to mpix.com for processing. Once the photos are ready, I write a number on the back of each photo or set of photos. This helps keep me organized at the crop.

That’s the beginning of my process. Tomorrow we’ll talk about sketching and I’ll give you some ideas of places to go to find inspiration for making your own sketches. I’ll also post an inspiring ad as a challenge!  Stay tuned.

Color

photo and quote selection by Kim Morgan

WOW! (part 2, and thanks!)

On today's agenda: more loveliness, more eye candy!

Before I leave you to oooh and aaah over the great projects, I want to thank you for a great week. Thanks for the compliments, suggestions, ideas, layouts, cards, and for dropping by. Also, we read every single comment, and take every suggestion into consideration. So keep those coming.

Now, the goodies!

From Scrappin-Barb:

From Scrapmel:

From Stacy Milford:

From Aud R:

From Scoobie (Hilde):

From Candy Sorensen:

From HeatherCI:

From Alexandra S.M.:

From Kim Kesti:

And from the Collective...

Ann Costen:

Aly Dosdall, version 1:

Aly, take 2:

Tina Cockburn:

Cheryl Overton:

Again, thanks for the fun! Hope you are having a wonderful weekend. Your next host will be the lovely and very talented Celeste Smith. She has an awesome week planned! So plan to be here. XOXO!

WOW!

Y'all are AMAZING! Seriously! It was so much fun seeing what each one of you did with that simple sketch. Thank you for playing along. This was really fun!

Because we have so many layouts to share, I'm going to split them and post half today, half tomorrow. So do come back mañana for more eye candy!

And before I forget, reader Kristin suggested that I do a double page spread version of the sketch. I must confess that I'm not a huge double page scrapper. I think I've done maybe 10. Evah. But hey, I do like a good challenge. So here is what I came up with. Again, really similar to its mother.

The concerns are the same as with any other layout. Make sure it's balanced. Individually on each side, and as an unit. Make sure the proportions are not out of whack. I think a border around both pages is helpful in uniting them, as well as an element that runs through both pages. I like to use a long strip of patterned paper or cardstock. Since I'm not good at making long strips of paper match across both pages, I like to run the strips on both sides, but not at the same height. I think it would be fun to do one large photo on the left page, and small ones on the right. Thanks for the suggestion, Kristin!

Onto to eye candy du jour. These are not in any order. Just randomly collected from either our Flickr gallery or links you left me in the comments. Prepare to be amazed! (By the way, if I misspelled your name, please forgive me, and don't send any deer over to eat my last surviving tomato plant. I beg you.)

From CathyS2:

From 2HDesign:

From Moorewood:

From Tessah Angel:

From Julie Olivieri:

From Megan Klauer:

From Theadora10:

From Maya Lime:

From Lauren Teather:

From Jennifer Larson:

Wasn't it totally cool to see so many different, original, creative, and amazing projects? YEAH!

Come back tomorrow for more, ok? ;)

edited to add: if you have a layout you'd like to share, there is still time! Link me in the comments, and I will add it to my post tomorrow.

and the giveaway goes to...

Congratulations to Patricia Miller! We look forward to hearing from you. Please email us at writeclickscrapbook at gmail dot com so that you may get claim your shopping spree! So very happy for you! Thank you all for stopping by! Have fun using your 20% off! Thank you, Scrap Diner!

give.away.day. with SCRAP-DINER

Sketches here, sketches there. Sketches sketches everywhere. And with a great design (thank you, Linda!), a sweet story, and a handful of cropped photos ready to go, what else could a girl need? Why, nothing but some FANTASTIC PRODUCT! And where would one go for new paper, trinkets, and other scrapping goodies? Why, Scrap Diner, of course,because today (not only do we have a special giveaway), but everyone is a winner!

If you haven't been to Scrap-Diner before, you are going to love it. Not only is their site filled with fifties fonts, sparkle, and a whole lot of pink, but they also have a fabulous product filled store, the Gallery (their inspiration point), and a famously friendly forum that offers support to fellow scrapbookers. Their store believes in super fast shipping and fantastic prices. And for all our write.click.scrapbook. readers (that's you!) you get even greater prices as Scrap-Diner makes each of us winner with a limited time offer:

Use coupon code: WCS20 and receive 20% off your order (expires July 31)!

While you are saving 20%, be sure to check out their summer concert series. They are celebrating summer with Guest Designers, Manufacturers Spotlights, bi-monthly kits and fun retro challenges. Notice their “you can do it” atmosphere, be inspired, and share your talents with them.

In June, Celeste Smith and Dina Wakley shared their styles with inspiring challenges and how to’s:

By (our very own!) Celeste Smith!

By Dina Wakley

And currently, Lisa M. Pace is providing instruction for making your own flowers and embellishing chipboard. They have a fabulous Maya Road Giveaway too! Fun!

By Lisa Pace

Don’t miss the Summer Celebration featuring three more Designers lined up in July and August and many ways to win free product. Stop by Scrap Diner, pull up a seat at the counter and enjoy the company!

Thank you, Scrap Diner for letting us each feel like winners with our discount code, but also for providing our prize for today's

In addition to the 20% off, one of you will receive a $25 gift certificate to Scrap-Diner! To be considered, please leave us a comment and let us know what topics you are looking forward to reading here at write.click.scrapbook. As always, comments end at 8:00 PST, one lucky recipient will be selected in a random drawing, and the giveaway needs to be claimed by sending an email to writeclickscrapbook at gmail dot com before midnight Saturday!Thanks for stopping! Enjoy your shopping!

All Originals

Happy Wednesday!

Today we have more layouts! Yeah! (To view anything bigger, click on each image. Alas, that won't work on anything else in life.)

First, a digital layout done by my dear friend Jenn Olson. She is awesome with both digi and paper. I love how she put that upper left scalloped circle behind the foreground paper. Nice touch. (Can you tell she also knits and sews? Yeah.)

materials: blue dot background paper & cream paper (Gina Cabrera, Digital Design Essentials) + title alpha (C.D. Muckowsky, Little Dreamer Designs) + flowers, buttons, and scalloped circles (Zoe Pearn, Sweet Shoppe Designs) + doodle heart and cross stitches (Fee Jardine, Sweet Shoppe Designs) + acrylic type heart (Melissa Bennett, Sweet Shoppe Designs) + journaling tag and hug brush (Katie Pertiet, Designer Digitals) + fonts (Prestige Elite Std & Apple Garamond) + software (Adobe Photoshop CS4)

And an 8.5” x 11” layout by the lovely Melanie Louette.  Note how Mel placed her title in between the squares. The primary color patterned papers reflect the colors of the photos, and create a nice visual triangle. I really like the star at the bottom. It draws your eyes to that adorable photo of Mel, her dad, and her uncle, the most important people in this layout.

materials: stickers, chipboard, cardstock, and pen (American Crafts) + patterned papers (Bo Bunny, American Crafts)

Last, but definitely not least, Lisa Dickinson’s cute and whimsical layout. She created a colorful background by stitching the squares of patterned paper down, then added her trademark tippy photos. The title is at the bottom, making a nice counterpoint to the clusters of embellishments.

materials: patterned paper (Basic Grey, Making Memories, Tinkering Ink) + journal tags and felt accents (Jenni Bowlin Studios) + chipboard letters (Lil Davis) + brads (Imaginisce) + rhinestones (My Mind's Eye) + font (Helvetica Neue) + buttons + machine stitching

I’m going to leave you today with a card, and a thought. My sketch is obviously nothing original. You saw that I lifted it from a website. And before that, thousands of other layouts and cards had been created using a grid of squares. On Monday, Ann Costen posted a lovely layout she created a while ago that fit the sketch perfectly. And while I was making this card today, I realized that I had at least two cards that fit this sketch too. I made those cards years ago. What I’m trying to say is what we already know: nothing is original. But you are! Anything you make is your original. So go forth and create an original, post it, and link me in the comments. We will take a look at those lovelies on Friday.

materials: butterfly and alpha stamps (Hero Arts) + ink (ColorBox) + letter stickers, brad, arrow, and patterned paper (American Crafts) + punch (EK Sucess)

We have started a weekly discussion on scrappy topics in our Flickr pool. Please go by for a chat?

And most definitely do come back tomorrow for a giveaway in the form of a very nice gift card to a very nice scrappy store.

Sketch Inspiration, Day 2

Thanks for all the love yesterday. Y'all are the best! (I can say y'all because I grew up in Texas.)

I had mentioned that I asked a few friends to take a stab at creating a layout using my sketch.

My first victim friend and fellow Collective Comrade Lain Ehmann did this adorable layout about her son Ben. Note that instead of printing the photo smaller, or using multiple little ones, Lain placed a large photo on top of patterned paper squares. Clever!

materials: Patterned paper (KaiserCraft, Pink Paislee) + vinyl letters (American Crafts) +  font (Berlin Sans FB) + rhinestones and flowers (unknown)

A totally different take by super talented Lisa Truesdell. She started with all the embellishments together on one side of the photo, but the page looked unbalanced. So she moved a column to the left, and added the cluster of goodies on the top right to finish off the visual triangle. Such a sweet, sweet page!

materials: patterned papers, felt flowers, chipboard accents, letter stickers, buttons, and brads (American Crafts) + stamps (Studio Calico) + ink (StazOn) + punches (Fiskars) + vintage sheet music

Thanks, Lain and Lisa. More layouts by more pals tomorrow!

Now onto converting a 12" x 12" sketch into an 8.5" x 11", as suggested by our lovely reader Bernice. Thanks for the idea!

I'm doing two variations, but really, there are endless possibilities. In the first version, I reduced the size of the squares just a little to keep the same proportions as the original.

What if you’d rather scrap an upright page? Here is take #2. I placed the squares in the middle to keep the focus on the photos. Then I moved the big circle to the top instead of keeping it on the side. The page feels more balanced that way.

The key to converting a sketch is to take the proportions and focal point of the original into consideration. What was the main focus of the sketch? What was the size of the photo(s), journaling box, title, etc. in relationship to the overall page dimensions? Does the finished page look balanced? Are you happy with it? Then it's a success!

Here is my 8.5" x 11", based on sketch #2.

materials: patterned papers (Sassafras Lass, American Crafts) + cardstock + letter stickers + flair (all American Crafts) + mushroom chipboard (Sassafras Lass) + punch (EK Success)

If you created a layout (or card) using these sketches, please post your work in our Flickr, or your blog, or some other gallery, and don't forget to link me in the comments. Friday, I will be sharing some of your work here on the blog.

See you tomorrow!

Starting From Sketch

I used to think I needed to come up with original layouts every time I scrapped. I thought that if I used a sketch, or lifted other people’s work, the scrapping police would come out and take my X-acto knife away. Kinda explains why each of my layouts take so long to create. But I'm ready to change.

The amazing movie director Jean-Luc Godard said:

“It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to.”

I totally agree with him. Why reinvent the wheel every time we sit down to scrap?

It’s what you do with the “borrowing” that counts. Point in case, the sketch. (Cue in heavenly voices.) If you use one, you are not copying or being uncreative. Check this out.

I really liked this webpage from the British online store Toast. (Awesome clothing, but uh, remember those are prices in the Queen’s currency. Ouch.)

From it, I created a sketch.

Here is my take on the sketch. I didn't change much.

materials: cardstock (Bo Bunny) + patterned papers (American Crafts, Scenic Route, Sassafras Lass, Making Memories) + stamps (Martha Stewart, My Sentiments Exactly, Ma Vinci) + letter stickers (American Crafts)

Then, I sent the sketch to some friends, asking them (ok, fine, begging them) to do a layout with it. You will be amazed at how different they all are (we'll see these Tuesday and Wednesday.) And that is what a sketch is all about. It’s a starting point. It gets the creative juices moving. It's open to your interpretation. By the time you are done, it might not even look like the sketch anymore. And that is just fine. So don't worry about the size of those circles or squares, or what they are for. It's up to you. You are the boss! You take it from scribbles to masterpiece.

Do play along, create a layout or a card using this sketch, and post it in our Flickr gallery. Or your blog. Or in some other gallery. Come back, and link me to your creation in the comments section. On Friday, I will pick some layouts and cards and feature them here on the blog.

Looking ahead:
Tuesday - a look at how to convert a 12” x 12” sketch into a 8.5” x 11”, and more layouts.
Wednesday - more layouts and the sketch converted into a card.
Thursday - an awesome giveaway (hint: gift card to a cool store.)
Friday - we’ll be marveling at the wonderful layouts created by y’all!

Thanks for stopping by!