I share a summer birthday with my dad and grandfather, so there was no shortage of greeting cards around our home during the month of August. Given our collective ages, it’s no surprise that we still treasure receiving traditional birthday cards rather than the digital ones that are sent via email. I am a tactile person. I love wrapping my fingers around handwritten well wishes, and then cutting up said well wishes and placing them in a scrapbook. I’ve been doing it for years. Why waste a perfectly good greeting card when you can add it to a scrapbook layout? … Continue reading →

Summer is primetime for moving. What’s more, with the record-low interest rates currently being offered on home loans, an increasing amount of renters are taking the leap into home ownership. Purchasing a home for the first time is a major milestone in a person’s life and warrants thorough documentation. If you are a scrapbooker, then this new chapter in your life is especially momentous as you can use it to create a memory book you will treasure forever. Crafting a new home-themed scrapbook is not as challenging as it may sound. Actually, if you document the process from start to … Continue reading →

Lions, and tigers, and bears! Oh my! Nothing says summer scrapbooking quite like a spread that showcases a family trip to the zoo. It’s memory book-making at its finest… and easiest. Think about it; unlike some summer adventures, the zoo is loaded with photo opportunities, from snaps of your kids getting up close and personal with penguins to images of Junior taking his first camel ride. An afternoon at the zoo can yield an entire scrapbook of funny and exotic layouts, especially when you pair your favorite pictures with mementos, including maps, ticket stubs, brochures and receipts. Fortunately, there is … Continue reading →

Your album may be top-notch, your embellishments as fancy as they come, but at the heart of every scrapbook are treasured photos of moments you want to preserve for future generations. Given the importance of scrapbook pictures, it pays to fine-tune your camera skills. What’s more, if you are planning to craft a memory album with a particular theme, it’s also beneficial to create a list of specific shots you want to capture. Doing so will allow you to piece together comprehensive layouts that are as attractive as they are easy to read. For example, if you are planning to … Continue reading →

There’s more than one way to spice up family or class reunion scrapbook layouts. Rather than stick with traditional page designs which embrace standard techniques, consider branching out with whimsical approaches. For example, a fun way to document family history is to do so by displaying photos from different decades. Collect pictures of your family members from the 1940s, 50s, 60s and 70s to create a comical timeline that captures how they looked and acted through the years. While a picture may speak a thousand words, it may be even funnier to add personal anecdotes from loved ones featured in … Continue reading →

Summer is primetime for reunions. Whether you are attending an annual family get-together or that all-important 20th high school reunion, the special moments shared at the events can be treasured for years to come by crafting a scrapbook. If you are just getting started with scrapbooking and are looking to create an album to store all the precious memories made and shared at your summer reunion, my best tip: Keep it simple. Avoid trying to bite off more than you can chew, otherwise your memory album will end up looking like a mish mash of odds and ends. The trick … Continue reading →

Family reunion season is right around the corner. I’m reminded of this on a near daily basis, as my clan is responsible for helping host the upcoming summer shindig. Due to distance issues, I have been relegated to designing a scrapbook of the event. Basically, I will be the official photographer for the three-day extravaganza, and then my aunt and I will go through the images and figure out a way to craft organized layouts. In addition to documenting the actual party and subsequent activities, my mom wants the reunion scrapbook to also include family tree-type features. Her vision is … Continue reading →

My daughter’s second grade teacher has been out on sick leave for the past 11 weeks. She went in for “routine” surgery and ended up spending nearly three weeks in the hospital and another two months on bed rest. It’s been a trying time for everyone involved, including the twenty-something confused seven and eight year olds who thought they were only going to be stuck with a sub for two weeks. Mrs. J has been leading the charge for nearly three months, but now she’s moving on, and the kids are bracing for a new substitute, but that’s fodder for … Continue reading →

Thanks to a good behavior reward system designed by her second grade teacher, my daughter has accumulated a fairly impressive collection of decorative pins. Some feature ribbons and beads while others include fabric and gems. They are all beautifully constructed, and I’ve been wondering how I could help my daughter display them. Enter our neighbor. Yes, that one. The scrapbook queen of northern Wisconsin suggested we design a layout using the pretty pins. So, this weekend we found some patterned paper and used the decorative pins to embellish a double page layout. We used the bulk of the pins as … Continue reading →

How could you not want to place this photo front and center on a Halloween-themed scrapbook layout? I don’t even have a dog and I would seriously consider sneaking that photo on a trick-or-treat page design. My friend does not have any two-legged children, but she is a mom to four fur babies. All five of them hit the streets on Halloween night dressed up in various costumes. It was a sight to see. I snapped a photo of the entire clan and told her to use it next to a journaling block recalling the hilarious holiday moment. I also … Continue reading →