Write. Click. Scrapbook.

Sunday Photo + Words

In Review

This past month we all looked back to the prior year to find inspiration for our gallery layouts.  Isn't it interesting to see how one layout can inspire another, but not necessarily look like it in the end??

 

Here are the layouts and a little bit of inspiration for design, photos, or journaling.

That's it! We hope you enjoyed the look back and we will see you Monday for a brand new gallery!

Summer Mini-Album - the digital way!

When my kids were babies, I used to think that life would be much easier once they were older...no more diapers, less messes, and thus more time for fun things like scrapping.  Oh, how mistaken I was! Nowadays, we have less time than ever between our homeschooling and their extra-curricular activities. It is even more true for us in the summer because we try to squeeze in extra fun things with their friends who are out of school for the summer on top of our regular schedule (we homeschool year-round).

The good news is, I've still been able to keep some kind of memory keeping alive even in the midst of our insanely busy schedule. This has been possible thanks in large part to digital scrapbooking. While I don't create many individual layouts these days, I have adopted the use of 2-up and 5-up albums to store my pictures and stories. I often scrap in "batches" meaning that I create templates for 4x6 mini-pages to which I add pictures at a later time. Templates are often re-used in a modified form or even as-is.

For example, I wanted to create an album to document our first full season at our trailer (we bought it last August). I have decided to use a 2-up album for this purpose and created a number of template pages using the Cosmo Cricket Campy kit:

I am keeping each of the 4x6 templates as a .PSD file with all the layers intact. This way, I can easily insert my picture (via a clipping mask) and type my journaling before saving the end product as a .JPEG file. If I have the time and inclination, I may make some modifications to the template but typically I just put the picture and journaling in and call it good enough! 

The album will be a mixture of plain pictures and the mini-layouts. Once the summer is over, I will send all the files to Costco for printing and insert them into the album. Some day, I will be able to spend more time to create my beloved 12x12 layouts again but until then, I am quite happy with this simpler approach to memory keeping. The best part of it is that I'll be able to make multiple books to give to the grandparents!

This approach can also easily be adapted for hybrid or traditional paper scrapping. In fact, I am doing a hybrid album this way to document our trip to Asia. You may even see that album on WCS sometime in the future ;)

Have a happy summer everyone! We are off to spend the Canada Day weekend at the trailer!

Rainy days

Ok, let me set the scene here...It is late-June in Sweden, we have had a few really nice warm days. Great, right? Yes...until you pull up your weather app and this is what you see...

Yep, rain, rain and oh yes there will be more rain :(

Well, I thought, why not think as an everyday life kinda scrapbooker and make a layout about the things we like to do on rainy days. Said and done! I got up the next day (to a flooded driveway!), ran some errands and then snapped a photo right outside my window. 

For a fun title, I decided to trace inside of an old sheet of chipboard alphas to get a template for the title. Then I poked holes and handstitched it. 

I took the stitchingwork with me to the couch and watched The Notebook. :) It didn't take all that long, but you can't just watch half of the movie now, can you?! 

I then designed my other elements around the stitched title. Here is the journaling:

Summer in Sweden will always have rainy days, so why not enjoy them. Rainy days are perfect for crafting, reading, TV watching, a few movies and a nap with one of the cats. See, rainy days can be all ok!

Do you experience rainy days where you live during summer? What do you like to do on those days? Have you scrapbooked about it? No? Well, do! 

Lisa O

Confetti Fun!

Happy Summer Everyone! Katie Ehmann here with you today with a fun, simple technique to jazz up your projects and celebrate summer--confetti!

Making confetti is easy, but time consuming. I usually make a bunch while watching one of my favorite, mindless shows on tv using a swiss cheese style paper punch. I grab all my recent scraps, a big bowl, my punch and go to town. I've used confetti in project life, my December Daily album, and in little shakers or "windows" on layouts, but recently I discovered a super easy way to make a big impact with confetti on my projects using only a tape runner. I simply run a big healthy dose of tape runner where I'd like my confetti to be placed, sprinkle confetti generously over the tape, press it down firmly to adhere, and shake off the excess. Easy peasy. Here are two layouts that I've made recently using this technique. The first I created for a guest designer layout for Citrus Twist. I ran a strip of confetti down the side for some extra pizazz:

For this layout, I filled two star cut outs with tape runner and added confetti to the entire shapes:

I hope you'll try this fun and easy way to add some confetti to your projects!

SUMMER CHALLENGE #1

This summer we are going to work together on some summer challenges. Then when summer is drawing to a close we will work together to make something special. Are you in?

 

take an outdoor water photo

And because we prefer to inspire rather than inhibit, remember water can come in a glass or a pool. Fall from the sky or spray from a hose. It can be lemonade or popsicles. Or perhaps even water... wait for it... melon. Yes, indeedee, it is up to you. But let's keep in in the water family and outdoors. Once you have your photo, can you print it? or save it to a special folder? Just somewhere that you can access quickly at the end of August. And we will be cropping our photos to a square--just something to keep in mind for composition.

 

Before we go, we wanted to remind you that July 1st is just days away, which means our new gallery is also just days away! We have a few sneak peeks ready to wet your whistle:

AmyS
Katie
AmyC
Marnie
Christine

Thanks for stopping by! Don't forget to take your photo!

Summer Silhouette #1: Welded Text Frame

This summer, perhaps because it feels like my family is about to change abruptly (my oldest daughter is leaving for college soon), I've found myself looking backward at summers past—when all my kids were small. I still have plenty of not-yet-scrapped photos from those years and I've loved revisiting those moments. I think that's part of scrapbooking's appeal: not just that the memory is preserved, but the remembering that happens during the scrapbooking process.

I like to bring new techniques to older photos, and one of my recent favorites is creating a text frame with my Silhouette. It took me a little while to figure out how to do this, so I thought I'd share the steps.

1.  Choose the shape of your frame. You can draw a shape, or you can use one that you've purchased. If you're using a purchased shape that is already a frame, ungroup it and then delete the outer edge of the frame (so you just have one solid shape).

2. Select the shape, then right click and choose Offset. This creates a larger copy around the shape. Use the slider to change the distance between the two shapes—this will be the width of the text frame. Choose Round if you want to round the outside edges of your frame, or leave Corner selected if you want it offset exactly.

3. Once the shape's frame is the way you want it, select both the inner and outer shapes by dragging to select them.

4. Click on Object, Modify, Subtract. This makes the inner part of the frame empty so that when you add the text, it will weld properly.

5. Size the frame to the height and width you want.

6. Type your text. It's easiest to type each word as its own shape, especially if you want different text sizes or fonts for each one. Once the text is typed, weld each piece (THIS POST explains how to weld—just scroll down to the last section).

7.  Weld the text and frame together. Make sure some part of each word overlaps something else, either the frame or another word (or both). If the lines only barely touch, they won’t weld, but the overlap doesn’t have to be huge, either. Just enough—you want to still be able to recognize the letters. You want at least one part of the text to overlap the frame. Once you're happy with the position of the text within frame, select it all. Then right click and chose Weld.

Here are two examples of layouts with text frames:

For this one, I made the text frames with several tag and label shapes I’d purchased from the Silhouette store online.

I spent some time after cutting everything out, drawing grey lines around the words because I wanted to add a bit more definition to the letters.

For this layout (you know, the one on which I didn't get the quote exactly correct, because I decided to add it after I'd printed the photo with the first part, and really, I'm mostly OK with it not being exactly correct...)

I drew the big rounded-corner frame by using the "Draw a Round Rectangle" button in the Silhouette software. Mixing letters printed on my photo with letters cut from the Silhouette is another new technique I’m loving right now—check back in July for another how-to!

But until then, seriously: whatever phase your life is at—married, single, little kids, big kids, empty-nester—enjoy every single day of your summer because really...it’ll be over before we know it. Happy summer!

Sunday Photo + Words

scrapbook!

Hi all, and a happy Scrapbook Saturday to you. 

This month's gallery was all about looking back at layouts and posts from this past year and finding inspiration to create something new. I love all the layotus created, and I loved reading about all the ways we drew inspitation from each other; For some it was the design of the layout; For others it was a technique to try; And still others found new events and moments to photograph. To help your creative process along,  we have a sketch, a color combo, and a cut file, to help spark your next project. I hope you join in the fun, and if  you do, be sureshare a link to some of your work!

 

The Sketch

This months sketch is based on my layout (*blush*):

 

Here's the sketch created by Diane:

You can download a layered template of the sketch here. 

 

Marnie stayed pretty true to the sketch, as we all did. By converting all the photos to  black and white, she unified the six photos visually, and they provide a lovely contrast to the bright embellishments.

 

LisaO kept the design pretty similar, but swapped some photos for patterned paper. The yellows on this page are so appealing-they just pop right out at ya! (Completely random fact: I used to dislike the color yellow, until I started scrapbooking. Now, I am one of yellow's biggest fans.)

 

It was an interesting exercise for my brain to make a layout based on my own layout. It felt a little like cheating to use the same design twice, but I cannot come up with any logical reason why it's not okay to reuse a design. Can you? 

 

 

ROYGBIV

Here is this months color palette:

It is based on Celeste's layout:

 

Marnie used big doses of each color to create this sweet and joyous layout. Seriously, that puppy is so cute it hurts my heart a little bit.

 

Lisa O. used little bits of color on her white background. It's clean. It's simple. It's pretty.

 

I also used a white background, some bits of color, and pictures of my love, to document the fact that we need more pictures together. (Spoiler: I discovered this fact while working on my July gallery layout.) Since we just celebrated our 17th anniversary, this will be a goal for the coming year.

 

Cut File

Using her own layout as inspiration,

 

Christine created this cut file for you!

You can download it here.

Neither Lisa nor I own a silhouette, but that did not deter us from using her file as inspiration. Lisa cut out white triangles the old fashioned way, and  placed them on a white background, which was perfect for this wedding layout.

I simply printed out the image onto vellum, colored in some of the shapes, and used it as patterned paper in this layout.

There you have it, ladies and...well, probably more ladies. I hope this helps get you started on some summer scrapping. If so, we'd love to see what you create!

Happy Saturday, and Happy Summer! 

Free Summer Fun Photo Checklist!

Hello again, write.click.scrapbookers! Today is the first official day of summer!! I'm back this week, because after posting my ideas for summer photos last Friday, I kept thinking of more and more things I want to take photos of this summer. So I went ahead and compiled them into a list, and made a free printable to share

 

 

I plan to hang my copy of the list where I can see it, so that it can jog my memory throughout the summer. You can use this list as a jumping off point to brainstorm even more ideas specific to your summer activities. I also made a blank sheet so you can jot down your own ideas.

Have fun summer clickin'!