Get It Scrapped Blog » Scrapbooking Organization

Take Control of Your Photo Volume

askings03 — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 08:16:01 +0000

You open your computer and scroll through your photos and like most people, your hard drive is bursting at the seams with images you’ve taken. They are all special, meaningful and scrap-worthy.

“Is it possible to manage the volume of your photos without missing out on memories?”

It takes some thought and practice but you can do it. Below are seven steps to help you along your way to taking control of your photos:

1. Shoot with intention

You’ve seen the mad snapping away at school events and soccer games. Before you click away, think about what you want to capture. Consider what it is in your frame. Is your subject obvious? Have you eliminated extras? Unless you are shooting a high speed, action sport that you’ll never witness again, consider adjusting the drive mode on your camera to take fewer photos per second. Change it when you have action you really want to grab.

2. Upload frequently

Get your photos off of your cards as fast as you can. Make it a habit to clear your card weekly or daily if you are a frequent shooter. The fewer photos you are handling with each upload, the easier managing them will be.

3. Delete with precision

When you upload, really look at your photos with a critical eye. If you have two that are virtually identical, delete one of them. Did you snap something that doesn’t mean anything to you and no one will love? Delete. This is difficult at first, but gets easier over time.

4. Keyword and tag every photo worth keeping

Give your photos a home and a name. Get them into a file system you understand and tag, tag, tag. Adding keywords can help you find your photos and when it comes to memory keepings, you’ll appreciate the saved time. Consider tagging emotion, color, location, objects, and events.

5. Tag the people

Tag every person in every photo you take. Four people? Four tags. You’ll be glad when you need to find that special photo of Bobby from last year.

6. Mark your next action

Do you want to scrap a special story? Know it is a great photo to give to grandparents as a gift? Do you have photos you want to print?

Mark them accordingly. A quick star coded to your preference can work– anything with 3 stars means print, 4 stars means scrap, 5 stars means grandparents. Or you could add keywords like print, scrap, or gift to find them easily when you get your print order together or have time to scrap.

7. Stick with a process

Create your system and stick with it! The more routine it becomes the easier dealing with the volume of photos becomes.

Katrina Kennedy is a photographer, teacher, author, and a mom. She is passionate about documenting the everyday moments of her life. Visit CaptureYour365 for ideas+inspiration+support for your everyday photography.

Ideas to build, store and use your button stash | MacGyver’s Button Bootcamp

askings03 — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 05:06:32 +0000

by Amy Kingsford

Buttons…buttons…who’s got some buttons!?

Buttons are one of my favorite things in the world!

I remember looking through my grandmother’s button stash as a little girl and telling her one day I’d have a button collection just like her’s. I definitely made good on that promise!

Though my button stash doesn’t have quite the charm and sense of history that my grandmother’s held for me as a child, it still reminds me of her every time I sift through it!

How about you? Do you have a button stash to rival all others? Do you need some ideas for using buttons on your scrapbook pages? Are you looking for storage solutions for your sizable stash? Maybe you’re just starting out and looking for inexpensive ways to build your button collection. Solutions follow, so button up and dig in!

Frugal ways to build your stash

Save all of the replacement buttons that come with your new clothes.
Remove buttons from old clothing before throwing them away.
Try making your own fabric-covered or epoxy buttons.
Buy them in lots from places like etsy or ebay.
Search thrift stores for clothing with unique buttons.

How do you store your buttons?

What better way to illustrate the many ways you can store buttons than to have a look at how your fellow scrapbookers have gone about it.

Below are five stashes and five stories about how and why these scrapbookers have chosen to store their buttons the way they do.

Myself, I use small baskets to sort and store my buttons. While I don’t have quite enough space to sort them in individual baskets for each color, I still do some separating. I store all of my warm-colored buttons in one basket, my cool-colored buttons in another, and my neutrals and specialty buttons in two more baskets. Thus, I still get to do a little digging–but ultimately it cuts down on a little bit of the time spent searching. I guess you could say its the best of both worlds!

Tania Willis used to store her buttons sorted by color in plastic craft organizers. ”But now that I have little hands wanting to dig into the buttons along with me, that type of storage isn’t suitable.” Tania repurposed this fishbowl. Its wide opening makes it easy to dig through and find just what she and her children need.

To save on space, Tami Taylor uses a Making Memories wall storage shelf and medium-sized spice jars (from Ikea) to store her buttons. She likes to save time by narrowing her search for the right buttons, so she enjoys having them separated by color.

Diane Payne has been “collecting” buttons for a long time. And while she stores her specialty buttons in a jar above her scrap desk–her basic buttons live all together in a Ziploc bag. “When I need one I just dump some out of the bag and start sifting through the pile. I love it…I never know what I’ll discover in that bag.”

Because Cindy Liebel doesn’t have quite as much space to store all of her buttons by color in jars, she uses a few large jars (from Ikea) to store all all of her buttons together. “I just love how colorful they all look together and I am a digger. I love to rummage through piles of stuff–it’s like digging for gold!”

You could also try:

Drawstring sachets or flour sacks.
A hardware organizer or tackle box.
Toothbrush travel cylinders.

Creative ways to use buttons on your layouts

See how many buttons you can use to fill your background

In Cindy Liebel’s layout “Backyard Freedom” she was aiming to get at least 50 buttons onto this layout, and I’d say she accomplished this nicely! She not only created a wonderfully fun button background, she brought lots of color and dimension to her layout as well.

“Backyard Freedom” by Cindy Liebel

Everyone loves a fun button border

The button-accented border on Tania Willis’ layout “Definitely Not” does a wonderful job of reinforcing the fun and bubbly tone established in her photos and journaling. The random placement of these buttons is a great complement to her structured design.

“Definitely Not” by Tania Willis

Make your own “button art” embellishments

Using your button stash to make fun embellishments and shapes is a great way to add color and dimension to your pages. Whether you make something as intricate as Diane’s fall tree or as simple as a star shape, it’s sure to make an appealing focal point.

“Fall Button Art” by Diane Payne

Scatter buttons across your layout for a sprinkle of added interest

Adding a button scatter to your page is a simple and fun way to draw attention to your photos or another focal point. This kind of embellishing gives your layout a bit of random texture–even when the exact color and placement are planned out to the nearest centimeter.

“So Lovely” by Emily Pitts

Use buttons to put the finishing touches on your pages

Give your layouts a polished look by actually sewing the buttons to your layout. Whether you use them to create a visual triangle or as the center of a floral embellishment, nothing says “ta-da” like giving your layout that extra bit of detail.

“Beat the Heat” by Tami Taylor

Digi scrappers can have fun with buttons too

Whether you tag your buttons by color or lump them all together in a folder to sift through, digital scrappers can use their stash in these very same ways! Below are a few fun resources to help you get the most from your digital button stash!

“Crazy Boy” by Amy Kingsford

One Little Bird Designs’ “Shadow Like Me” Drop Shadows: This set of layer styles contains drop shadows specifically for digital buttons.
Build-a-Button Set by Vicki Stegall: Mix-n-Match 8 colorful rings and stitches with 4 button centers to create your own buttons!
“Button Maker Action” by Atomic Cupcake: This action makes a plastic button from any shape with a click of a button.
“Recoloring Digital Scrapbooking Elements Video” by Red Leaf Scrapbooking: This video tutorial shows you some great ways to recolor elements (including buttons), so that they are perfect for your pages.
Creating a Digital Scrapbooking Buttons Video: this is a brief tutorial how to use your defualt layer styles to create your own buttons.

So what are you waiting for…get using those buttons!

Amy Kingsford is a happy wife and blessed mother from Northern Utah. She teaches at Masterful Scrapbook Design, Creative Passion Classes and also shares ideas, inspiration and instruction on creative approaches to modern scrapbooking and papercrafting at her site AmyKingsford.com

Join us for the month of May at Masterful Scrapbook Design where we’ll be discussing many more ways to bust that stash with guests Amy Mallory, Emily Pitts, Noelle Hyman and Kayleigh Wiles!

Inside Tami Taylor’s Scraproom

TamiTaylor — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 22:04:30 +0000

by Tami Taylor

“Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up.”

- A. A. Milne

Lately, I’ve been trying very hard to change my scrapbooking process. With the numerous children I have, it’s hard to find time to just breathe, let alone scrapbook. (OK so there are only four in my home, but they’re all boys so some days it feels like 40.)

My process used to be a half hour of cleaning up and looking through my stash to remind myself how cool some of my stuff is. About 30 minutes to find that photo that I was thinking of before I walked into the room; then I’d spend maybe 30 minutes starting a page before it was time to cook a meal, put someone in a bath or read someone else a bedtime story. I realized quickly things had to change. Where was I to start?

Let me start here by showing you a glimpse; and I literally mean glimpse. (I’m half debating whether this photo will remain online after looking at it again.) I started this project about six months ago. When I first moved into the room I just put things where ever to get unpacked and be done. This method does not work, I advise against it at all costs. I decided I needed to regroup and reassess. I took a long hard look at the purpose of the room, what the best furniture layout would be, I bought books about organizing and read them (OK not all the way through, but still; I tried). It was so overwhelming. What worked for one person, wouldn’t work for me, I didn’t scrapbook that way. I couldn’t afford a ton of expensive containers; besides I had collected enough over the years.

What it finally took was two good friends, who showed up not once, but twice to be slave labor. Add in a 13-year-old who actually thought it’d be fun to move a large wall desk, and you’re in business! Having someone kick me in the pants and say “let’s just get it done” is what it took. More than that, having to articulate what my process is, out loud, and give someone else an idea of what I wanted the room to be, again out loud, was the doorway to getting it done. Verbalizing my pitfalls as a scrapbooker and having friends point out ones I didn’t realize helped with the “don’t do this” list of the room. Take for instance the photo above, it alone shows some of the things that do not work:

I am a pile gal. When something doesn’t have a home or I need to make a decision about it, I just pile it somewhere for later. It was clear I needed a space for everything, and I needed to remove as much ‘decision-making’ about it as I could.
I needed things I use in reach. If you look at the embellishment display on the wall, many jars are missing. I rarely put them back because it involved turning around, and away, from my project. When I’m in the zone I don’t like stopping even to go 4ft to put a jar away.
I like having people over. My space at the time of the photo, had the desk right when you walked in the room. This didn’t allow for more than a chair on the other side of an already small space.
That chair is was also occupied 9 times out of 10 by a then 4yr old. Trying to scrapbook with a 4yr old 3ft from your face isn’t the easiest thing to do. They want to touch your things and ugh, talk… a lot.
The last thing was some other things were out of reach, things like inspiration books and my printer were on the other side of the desk. My desk is amazing I can make it a T shape or an L. Why I chose to make it a T shape in this room, I’ll never know.

Round one was a purge. I purged, my friends and kids took my discarded items. I tried to group things into like categories, and left them in piles. Did I mention I love piles? Round two, my son helped me move my desk and reconfigure it into the L shape. Not having the desk part jut into the middle of the room freed up an immense amount of floor space. Then came round three. I purged more, I realized my color system is the only thing that worked so now not only were small embellishments grouped by color but larger ones were. I purged more, I cleaned, I moved, I was inspired and at the end I have a new scraproom that is functional to me. It fits my system and how I scrapbook so it’s easy for me to pick up within 15minutes of being done scrapbooking. What does that mean? It means I no longer spend 30 minutes clearing a spot so I can scrapbook! Now if I gain time in the day to scrapbook I can just go start!

Here are some highlights of my scraproom and a video tour my son helped me tape.

First I made sure everything had a home. I rearranged and took full use of iris carts, shelves and bins.
I moved the desk to the other side of the room, and had my embellishments and paper all within hands reach. This even meant limiting the amount of paper I kept out; I store additional scrapbook paper in the doors under the stash I keep out. Keeping the furniture on one side frees up so much space on the other side of the room. I can fit a 6ft folding table in my room now when friends come to visit and play. It also lets me paint and ink on my pages, then move to my desk to embellish and journal.
Keagan and Zach needed their own space to make messes and not worry they were getting into Mom’s things.

For the tour, watch the video below:

Tami Taylor writes for Get It Scrapped!, teaches at Masterful Scrapbook Design and runs the new site for creative classes Creative Passion. She is the mom of a big family. Her favorite escapes are trying new recipes, scrapbooking, and all things TV and cinema. To learn more about Tami check out her blog, The Taylor Life.

Keeping Track of Your Inks: Make your Own Ink Swatch Ring

askings03 — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 12:00:59 +0000

by Sharyn Tormanen

I like inks.

I like inks in multiple shades of blue, a wide variety of reds, and every other color of the rainbow. I also like inks from many different manufacturers and in many different styles.

So how do I keep track of my towering colorful stacks of ink pads?

Easy. I do it with one little swatch ring that I keep close at my desk, but is just as easy to tuck into my jacket pocket when I go to the store. Are you curious yet? Good! Then read on…

This is a picture of my ink swatch ring. I have it tied to a ribbon so that I can hang it easily right next to my work area, and I have it on an O-Ring so that I can easily add more swatches as I go– because you know I’m going to buy more inks.

When I purchase a new ink, the first thing I do upon getting it home is to create a new swatch. My swatches are cut from white cardstock, measure one inch by three inches, and have just a simple hole punched in the one end. I apply the color to my swatch by simply rubbing the ink back and forth over the surface of the cardstock.

To take it one step further, I write the ink color and brand of ink on the back of the swatch. This helps me to narrow down which tower of inks that particular color is in. I also go so far as to write the name of the matching color of cardstock (and if it’s Prism or Bazzil) because I sometimes enjoy (need) having my inks match my cardstock exactly.

I’ll be the first to confess that I felt a little over-the-top when I began my ink swatch ring a couple years ago. I’m not usually quite so organized when it comes to my supplies. But honestly, it’s the best thing I ever did when it comes to stamping. The time savings have been huge. No more guessing. I also love that it’s so easy to grab when I go to the store and that it’s also saved me money. I no longer accidentally purchase the same ink twice and I enjoy making sure I have all my favorite shades. As a bonus, it also makes it very easy to match the cardstocks right in the store.

Now to go add my purchases from this morning…. I was in a yellow mood!

Sharyn Tormanen developed her stamping skills and techniques while designing for stamping companies Close To My Heart and Technique Tuesday. See more of her work and get awesome stamping and memory keeping tips on her blog Live From Tormville.

Get It Scrapped! Project #4: Visualizing a Plan of Action

Debbie Hodge — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 15:53:00 +0000

by Tami Taylor

The 4th installment of a project in which Tami embarks upon a year-long quest (inspired by the Julie/Julia Project) to use the Get It Scrapped! book and website to Get It Scrapped!

Source: stock.xchng.com / OeilDeNuit

What turns you on? In each interview on Inside the Actors’ Studio, James Lipton asks his guest 10 questions, including: “What turns you on?” Some of the answers can be quite, well . . . interesting.

When I think of scrapbooking, I have to say it’s layouts that make my eye move. There is something to be said about having a visual plan of action when you are scrapbooking. For some it’s not a thought process, it’s intuitive, organic. Visual triangles, grids, and focal points just happen on their layouts. For others, it probably can’t get any more calculated. I am one of the ‘others.’ Scrapbooking isn’t always as easy as it looks.

Take a look at Debbie’s layout above. She probably just plopped all her stuff on a page and it looks fantastic. Her layout has a powerful grid, a focal point photo, and elements that draw your eye around the page. I especially love the text across the bottom of the right side that pulls your eye from the left page to the right. I wouldn’t have thought of that, nor would I have thought of the visual triangle she made with her brad attached elements.

Don’t hate her, it’s not her fault she’s so talented. When I was in high school, I was in the band. I worked my tail off learning to play the French Horn, I mean I worked at it. I took private lessons and practiced for hours without end. My friend, she was like the Rain Man of musical instruments. She could just pick up an instrument and make beautiful music. If she hadn’t been my best friend, I would have hated her.

Scrapbooking is supposed to be fun and thinking about all of the things I like in a layout, for every layout, is not fun. I have developed ways to make it look like I am a pro such as Debbie, without losing my mind in the process. I’m going to share those with you, be prepared to be amazed! OK, maybe not ‘amazed’. My secrets to success are these three things:

1. Take classes

2. Use sketches

3. Make cheat sheets

Take Classes

If you want to learn something; take a class. Really it’s that simple.

This isn’t something I say lightly, I have taken several scrapbooking classes in my life. I have attended the Great Lakes Mega Meet in Novi, MI every year from the first year I scrapbooked until I moved to Vegas. I attended probably 50 classes at those meets in all the years I went. I have taken classes online from several sites, not just here at Get It Scrapped. If I add in classes from my local scrapbook store, Creating Keepsakes University and other retreats I am well over 100 classes.

I love learning. I have had just a few classes (3 to be exact) that have been a disappointment. Otherwise I have either learned something from each class, had things I already knew reinforced or been inspired to do techniques that I hadn’t done in awhile. I hope knowing this about me gives me some credibility to say that in all the classes I’ve taken, Debbie has taught me more about the foundations of scrapbooking than any other teacher full stop.

Her class Page Parts was by far the greatest class I have ever taken. Many of us regular Hodgelings (Hodge followers) periodically harass her to offer this class again. I think we may be wearing her down. The other fantastic class was Building Pages. If you see either of these classes is offered again, take them. You won’t be sorry. To get an idea of how fantastic Debbie is, I recommend checking out the “Why It Works” articles on the home page. Videos with Scrapbooking Design Lessons. Debbie takes a look at a couple scrapbook pages and breaks them down for you.

You can find other great page design articles on the home page that will get you started on fantastic pages. Lessons and Ideas for Scrapbook Page Design.

Use Sketches

This is a no brainer. Using sketches is not new. Scrapbooking is probably one of the few areas of life that copying another person’s design for your personal scrapbook is a good thing. We have sketches at Get It Scrapped, a new one posted every Friday. {link http://www.debbiehodge.com/gisforum/index.php?showforum=192}. I won’t get too in depth on sketches since I did that already, you can also read the article here. Using Scrapbook Page Sketches. I’ll just say that they are by far the easiest way to get a visual plan for your layout.

Make a Cheat Sheet

Surprisingly or not so surprisingly, another great class that helped my scrapbooking was a photography class. A lot of the ideas on visual composition for photos also apply to scrapbooking layouts. The suggestion in photography class for checking the composition of photos was to print the rule of thirds grid on a transparency. Then you use the transparency by holding it over photos to check the composition.

I realized this would be just as easy to do with a layout. Since I do not own a wide format printer, I had to make mine. I simply took a large transparency that I knew I wouldn’t actually use on a page and used some thin black tape I stole from my husband’s garage. (Shhh… That’s between you and me.) I taped a grid onto the transparency. I also purchased a dry erase marker.

Now when I am scrapbooking and want to work on practicing my page design skills, I will take that transparency and lay it on top of my layout before I adhere anything. I can check to see if it follows the rule of three with the grid. I can use the dry erase marker to mark focal points to see if they create a visual triangle. When I’m feeling adventurous I will play with tracing certain colors on my layout to see if I have followed the pint-quart-gallon rule of color choice. It can actually be fun ‘checking your work’ in this manner.

Before you accuse me of sucking the fun out of scrapbooking, realize I don’t do it on every layout. However, with anything in life if you don’t continually practice these things they will never become an innate part of your scrapbooking.

“As practice makes perfect, I cannot but make progress; each drawing one makes, each study one paints, is a step forward.” – Vincent Van Gogh

It takes 21 days to develop a habit. I’m giving you 30. Over the next month you are challenged to scrapbook, scrapbook, and then scrapbook. All the while, practice the visual rules of design. As these rules become more natural to your process, it will make the rest of this project easier. The upcoming months of this project will be devoted to learning the different pages we scrapbook, how to emphasize the subject matter, and getting pages scrapped.

Take the challenge

I’d like to invite you to take this challenge and share what you create with us. When you find a page that shows a visual plan; a grid, a triangle, a strong focal point, share that layout with us. Put a link in the forum thread and share your thoughts on the layout. Share your process on page design; we’ll even let you brag if you’re one of those scrapbookers that are blessed and it comes naturally to you. On Wednesday April 28^st, join us for a Pop Quiz chat at 9PM EST. You know me; there will be prizes. Matter of fact, the more people that show, the more prizes I will give.

Now go Get It Scrapped!

Tami Taylor writes for Get It Scrapped!, teaches at Masterful Scrapbook Design and runs the new site for creative classes Creative Passion. She is the mom of a big family. Her favorite escapes are trying new recipes, scrapbooking, and all things TV and cinema. To learn more about Tami check out her blog, The Taylor Life.

6 ways to organize ribbon for scrapbooking

Debbie Hodge — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 14:41:29 +0000

by Amy Kingsford

Creative organizing is a great way to give your scrap space the makeover it needs while having a little bit of fun! Check out these fun suggestions for organizing and storing your ribbon using everyday household objects, and see how a little bit of creative organizing can go a long way!

1. Glass Jars and Canisters are a perfect way to store your small scraps of ribbon. You may be tempted to throw those smaller pieces out, but that would be a huge mistake! Instead keep them handy in a small glass jar, so that you can see the variety of colors and patterns you have on hand. Then put your scraps to use by adding knots, tabs or even ribbon flowers to projects and layouts!

2. Paper Towel Holders are another great tool I use to temporarily store the spools of ribbons that I am currently using on a project or lo. This way they are readily accessible at my work area through the duration of a project, then I can easily put them all away in their proper place when I’ve finished with them.

3. Recycled Boxes are perfect for making your own ribbon storage containers. Try using shoe boxes or photo boxes for larger spools, or plastic wrap, tinfoil, or wax paper boxes for smaller spools! Simply paint or cover the box in your favorite paper or fabric, then measure and punch holes in the box’s flap to create pull guides for your spools. Add eyelets to the holes for reinforcement and you’re all set!

4. Toilet Paper Holders –I know it sounds funny, but these can be helpful when looking for a way to store your ribbon cards. I simply love ribbon card spools, because they don’t take up as much room and you can organize your ribbon by color or manufacturer on rings, for easy reference. Buy hanging them on this flush mount Toilet Paper Holder, I can store them on the inside my scrap cabinet doors!

5. Curtain Rods are an inexpensive, yet totally decorative way to store your ribbon spools so that they are visible on the walls of your scrap space. I’d look for rods whose ends pull off to make for easier access and make sure the brackets give you enough distance from the wall for your larger spools. Another tip: when you’ve finished a spool of ribbon, save the spool so that you can wind ribbon you may get from kit clubs, or that you may purchase by the yard on it and store it with the rest of your ribbon!

6. Key Holders can be useful if you’re like me and like to have 12 inch lengths of ribbon available in a variety of colors for borders on your layouts. Using bulldog clips I clip ribbons of the same color or theme in a bunch and then hang them from the hooks on the key holder.For me its always the challenge of out of sight…out of mind…this way I know what I have and am inspired to use it!

Now get out there and get organizing…creatively! Can’t wait to see what you all come up with!

Amy Kingsford is a happy wife and blessed mother from Northern Utah. She teaches at Masterful Scrapbook Design, Creative Passion Classes and also shares ideas, inspiration and instruction on creative approaches to modern scrapbooking and papercrafting at her site AmyKingsford.com

What does “archival” scrapbooking mean to you today?

Debbie Hodge — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 15:47:55 +0000

by Debbie Hodge

“archival” scrapbooking in the 90s

When I began scrapbooking in the mid 90s (this was following the photo-albuming I’d been doing until then) I immediately learned that to scrapbook well, using supplies low in acid content was crucial for my photos’ assured long life. And I believed! Of course I believed: I have several of those peel-away albums (still) degrading my older photos.

There were several years during which I was “archival” compliant (kind of like ISO9000 compliant). And then . . . I got a digital camera and a color printer — and I could, thus, make scrapbook pages with photos I’d just taken. Still I considered these home-printed photos temporary–I wasn’t really sure of the ink and the paper—and it seemed humidity could affect them. So I ordered professionally printed photos and subbed them in . . . as I had time.

The thing is . . . I stopped making time and many pages are still waiting for those professionally printed photos to be subbed in. Every once in a while I pull a few pages and start replacing the home-printed photos–but, dang!, if a lot of my old chipboard alphas aren’t falling off now. Sometimes I get them reaffixed. Other times I put them in a bowl with all of my strays, mostly confident I’ll remember which page they came from.

“archival” scrapbooking in 2010

What happened to me? Why did I let my archival guard down?

You probably know why: because of technology.

I left out part of my story above. Because I was publishing scrapbook pages in magazines for several years, I was scanning all of my pages. Not only was I scanning them—-I was opening them in Photoshop and dragging over DIGITAL versions of the photos so that the scanned pages looked as good as possible. With these scanned pages accumulating –and storing so nicely on my hard drive–I’ve started to lose my sense of urgency about fixing up the paper pages. They are what they are. They’ll last for . . . however long they last. . .and my archives? They’re digital now!

I now make both paper and digital pages, but I always make my paper pages 11.5″ x 11.5″ for easy scanning. And I make sure to scan at 300ppi. I make a variety of albums (either bound at Shutterfly or printed and slipped into page protectors) — and any of them can include any of my paper or digital pages.

When I think about how my family or I might view these pages in 10 years, I imagine it’ll be on something like a digital tablet. Yet, really, I understand that it’ll be on something I haven’t even imagined–but I’m confident it’ll display digital images.

There might be someone who will appreciate my paper pages in the future. . . or maybe not, but I’m no longer worried about my records decaying — in the traditional way. The archival worry now is for the digital medium upon which I store my scrapbook pages. I keep my pages on my computer’s hard drive, and on an external hard drive, and I upload them to Shutterfly, and I use Mozy to back up everything offsite.

And I’m optimistic about the possibilities for preserving, mixing, and sharing all of my “scrapbooked” memories.

The Get It Scrapped Project #3: Albums

Debbie Hodge — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:24:49 +0000

by Tami Taylor

The 3rd installment of a project in which Tami embarks upon a year-long quest (inspired by the Julie/Julia Project) to use the Get It Scrapped! book and website to Get It Scrapped! Get It Scrapped!: Organize, Visualize, Create. First edition, 2008. Written by Debbie Hodge. The book that began it all for a fun online community. You can buy the book at Amazon.com, and many local Joann’s and AC Moore stores (don’t forget your 40% off coupons for those local stores!).

You know who you are. You’re the digi-scrapper who has made dozens and dozens of layouts that are now saved safely on your hard drive and fourteen back-up systems ‘just in case.’ You’re the paper scrapper with a knee-high pile of layouts. You’ve got all of these completed layouts with only a minimal number actually in albums. My father-in-law was the first to raise an eyebrow at my album issues. He would come over and ask if I had anything new scrapbooked. I did, but not in albums. Then he gave me the look–that raised-eyebrow-that-makes-no-sense look.

It didn’t make sense. I’m not going to bring a stack of albums out for people to look through, especially if most often they are children with grubby hands. I needed a better album system than I had. Like many others, I started with Creative Memories. My albums were in chronological order, and in strap-hinge albums. I found that my creativity was not chronological. When I got a stack of pictures and loved a shot of one of my kids at the zoo, I hated having to scrapbook the month of pictures before the zoo outing. I scrapped what inspired me, when it inspired me. My layouts weren’t in albums because it meant work on my end. I had to remember dates and put them in order. If that wasn’t enough work, what if I had done a one page layout? I needed to make sure there was a second one-page layout from the same time to pair with it. What if I had skipped that zoo trip? How many pages should I leave empty for it? I am in no way exaggerating when I tell you that at one point I had five 12” stacks of layouts sitting along a shelf. Ironically, it was built by my husband to hold albums.

So I posted on message boards, read books, and asked all my scrapbooking friends how they organized their albums. With all of the opinions and information I received and three words from Debbie’s book, I developed a system that worked for me. Now I don’t want to mislead you, Debbie’s book does not contain the greater mysteries of album organization. What it does do is briefly explain formats and album types. However, while reading the book three words on page 19 gave me permission to shun all of the “rules” I thought I had to follow.

The first thing I did was to switch to D-ring albums. This allowed me to insert pages wherever I needed. I loved the idea that if something came along in the future I could easily move pages around. This move to D-ring also was inspired by Debbie’s use of pocket pages. If I had loads of photos from an event like the zoo, I could scrap the moments that meant something and throw the series of elephant shots in pocket pages like these! I also fell in love with Ali Edwards’ idea of using different sized page protectors in the same album. [side note:: Ali has other articles on album organization that could help here.

After I made the decision to switch albums, I made a plan for organizing them. Keeping with my newfound mantra from Debbie’s book–“Make it easy”–I decided to have my albums match the way I scrapbooked. I took all of my layouts out of all of my albums and sorted them into piles. These piles each became an album (or a series of albums).

Years – These albums house the events, everyday life and moments of our family. Some of these events I will scrap again for a specific child’s book if it is relevant to that child.

Kids – Each child has their own set of albums that hold layouts of events, everyday life, collections, world and moments that are specific to that child.

Christmas – This is a big collection album. It has just layouts of our family’s Christmas activities.

Me – This is the book where I put my events. I also use this book to reminisce about my world, current events if they move me to do so, or just scrapbook things for the pure fun of the art.

I have found this to be the most relaxed method of organization for my albums, which still allows me to feel organized. How are your albums organized? Do you have a pile of layouts towering on the corner of your scrap desk? Need help developing a system? Join us in the forums and let us know where you are with your album organization. If you’re brave, share how many layouts you have sitting in pile(s).

This is the last leg of organizing. As you may have noticed, I did not cover supply organization. This isn’t something that can be easily covered in an article so I ask you to keep an eye on the challenge forums in April for the Spring Cleaning challenge. We’ll kick off that challenge off and discuss this project in a chat on March 31^st at 9PM EST.

For the rest of the year, the GIS project will focus on learning about the different types of pages and how to scrapbook those pages. This means we will be producing a massive amount of layouts. In anticipation of that, I challenge you this month to get prepared. Organize your photos, organize your stories and get your layouts put into albums. Imagine with all of this organization how much time we’ll have to Get It Scrapped!

Tami Taylor writes for Get It Scrapped!, teaches at Masterful Scrapbook Design and runs the new site for creative classes Creative Passion. She is the mom of a big family. Her favorite escapes are trying new recipes, scrapbooking, and all things TV and cinema. To learn more about Tami check out her blog, The Taylor Life.

Getting Organized

Debbie Hodge — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 02:11:20 +0000

Memory Keeping is all about preserving photos, stories, and memorabilia so that you (and others) can look at them later. Memory keeping is, by definition, a kind of organizing.

This is the initial post in a new section on our home page that will be a part of our core content for you to return to as a reference and aid for getting your photos and other memories in order.

Be sure to subscribe to our feed and read our new lessons as soon as they’re posted here. And . . . tell us here in the comments what you want to know and get help with in this area.

We’re planning on covering the storage and organization of:

photo prints
digital photos
documentation and stories
memorabilia

Again — we’d love a comment from you about what kinds of memory-keeping organization questions and needs you have.

No related posts.

The Get It Scrapped Project #2: Your Stories

Debbie Hodge — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:35:57 +0000

by Tami Taylor

The 2nd installment of a project in which Tami embarks upon a year-long quest (inspired by the Julie/Julia Project) to use the Get It Scrapped! book and website to Get It Scrapped!). Get It Scrapped!: Organize, Visualize, Create. First edition, 2008. Written by Debbie Hodge. The book that began it all for a fun online community. You can buy the book at Amazon.com, The F+W Media Book Store, and many local Joann’s and AC Moore stores (don’t forget your 40% off coupons for those local stores!).

Organize your scrapbooking stories.

By now I hope you’ve made progress in organizing your photos. Remember it’s an ongoing process; just keep doing it a few minutes each day.

This month we are going to organize our story. This is a sidestep from the book itself. When I read Debbie’s book, visit her blog, or view any of her layouts, I’m always captivated by the stories she shares. I wonder how she always remembers such details and nuances of the moments. I would swear she is scrapbooking while the moment is happening. I ask myself, how can I better capture my stories? How can I get my layouts to feel like I’m in the moment?

Write it down.

This isn’t new advice–the best advice rarely ever is, but it’s good advice. My process began simply with pen and paper. I am a notebook aficionado. I love notebooks. When I first started scrapbooking, I started with one notebook in my purse. Then I realized it was easier to have another notebook on my nightstand than to remember where my purse was downstairs. My one notebook became several. Currently, I have a notebook on my nightstand, several on my scrapbook desk, a small one in my purse, and another larger one on my kitchen counter. I also have a drawer full of notebooks waiting to be used. In addition to my notebooks, I’ve left myself phone messages, so later when I have time I can add them to my notebooks. I’ve emailed myself and often use my blog as a place to write down my stories.

The flaw in this method is finding the story I want to scrapbook, when I want to scrapbook it. Around the same time I first received Debbie’s book, I was coming to the realization that I was accumulating a library of stories with no Dewey Decimal System. On top of the several notebooks I’d accumulated, I also had a box of memorabilia, old school papers and art projects from my children that I wanted to incorporate onto my pages. I realized it was no small coincidence that Debbie’s first chapter was “Get Organized” and I made a plan to tackle these odds and ends of my story.

Keep your stories organized.

My method is the 3-ring binder method. I keep all of my stories in a regular 3-ring binder. First, I purchased a few binders and a box of sheet protectors. Then, I went through my box of saved items and put them in the sheet protectors. I have one binder for my kids’ everyday life and another binder that holds family items. Periodically, I go through my notebook putting each used page into it. If they go with other items in the binder then I put them in that sheet protector. Otherwise, they get their own sheet protector. Now I have a binder full of my family’s stories that I can easily grab when I’m ready to scrapbook.

Tip.

For larger pieces of memorabilia or art projects you can scan or take a photo of the piece, then resize and print on smaller paper. Or take a photo of the piece with someone holding it. The person who went to the zoo holds up the zoo map, or the artist holds up their painting.}

How do you organize your story?

Where do you keep your memorabilia, school papers or other such items?

Leave us a message here and visit our forums to share your method.

Tami Taylor writes for Get It Scrapped!, teaches at Masterful Scrapbook Design and runs the new site for creative classes Creative Passion. She is the mom of a big family. Her favorite escapes are trying new recipes, scrapbooking, and all things TV and cinema. To learn more about Tami check out her blog, The Taylor Life.