By Katrina Kennedy

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.

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.

Here's a page kit Tami built from her stash. Read on for tips and approaches to building your own page kits.

Whether you’re off to a crop or scrapbooking at home, kits can speed up your scrapbooking.

Using a kit eliminates many of the decisions you face when you sit down to scrapbook. The kit creator has already put time and thought into selecting products that will work well together–so that you don’t have to.

If you stick with what is in the kit you’re using, you eliminate time spent deciding whether to use the cantaloupe or peach-mist cardstock.  Plus it’s a pretty cool way to keep stash organized for quick starting your scrapbooking.

Purchasing scrapbook page kits

If you’re interested in treating yourself to new scrapbook supplies, purchasing a kit is a great way to get a variety of coordinated supplies while saving money.

How it works

Kit clubs often have a membership price and/or a single-kit purchase price.  You can usually save money by becoming a member, and, most importantly,  you are guaranteed not to miss a kit.  Kits are popular and they do sell out, so if you love the kits a club offers, joining will ensure you don’t miss any offerings.

If you want to join a kit club, check out the membership policies in addition to the product.  Are you allowed to skip kits you don’t like? Can you cancel without penalty? How long is the membership obligation?  What day is the kit fee charged to your account?

Selecting a kit

When choosing a kit, begin by looking through past kits the club has offered.  See if the product choices the owner makes match the products you would use. You probably won’t 100%-love every single item, but take this as a challenge to branch out a little and try to incorporate those items into your pages. You may find this to be just the inspiration you need.  You can also gift those few products you don’t like to your favorite scrapbook friend.

Willow Traders is a forum dedicated to kit lovers. Register and check out the subforum called “Full List of Kits.” It’s a pretty amazing list of the many kit clubs out there.

Check out Noell Hyman’s article at Paperclipping.com on choosing a kit club to join. There are lots of kit club suggestions in the comments area.

I used this kit from Trish Turay’s Work In Progress Kits to make 4 layouts shared in this article. I loved the colors of this kit, and that big red and white polka dot paper was a must have. Plus those little buttons with the camera images on them, adorable!

The text print patterned paper made a great background canvas for my page about brothers, and I used a band of the red polka-dot paper to mat my smaller photos. Look for the rest of that red paper in my other layouts below.

How to make your own scrapbook page kits

If you’ve got stash to be used, building your own kits is a great way to get started using it up. Gathering product together this way saves you time when making scrapbook pages. Here’s an approach for building your own kits good for making at least four pages.

To get started, study the last two or three layouts you’ve made that are typical of your page-making approach.

How many pieces of paper to include?

Remember, your goal is to pull together product for making at least four finished scrapbook pages. This is a calculation you’ll make once–and then tweak as you move forward making more kits.

Here’s a look at my thought process for deciding on how many papers to include in my own kits.

Take a look at your own pages and get an idea for how many pieces of patterned paper and cardstock to include in your own kit. As you move forward you can tweak this number

Here are three recent layouts of mine that I’m taking a look at as a guide for building kits.

Start by figuring out how many papers you need in a kit. In addition to background papers, I pulled from 3, 3, and 9 different patterned papers on the layouts above.  Some of the patterns on the last page were from the “b” side of double-sided pager. This means that including 2 to 5 papers for layering along with 4 sheets  for background canvases will do the job for me. Since I like choices I’m going to favor the right side of that curve and include 5 patterned pieces and 4 cardstock pieces for backgrounds for a total of 9 pieces of paper, on average, in my kits.

Choosing papers

As you choose your papers think about:

Backgrounds. Do you prefer cardstock or patterned paper? A mix of both?

Mats, layers, strips, and other pieces of paper. Just how much cardstock and patterned paper do you use on pages? And in what proportions? Do you tend toward heavy layering, judicious use of paper strips or block, or something else along that continuum?

Mixing product from different manufacturers or sticking with one. Using papers from a coordinated manufacturer line will save time and ensure things really work together. Mixing papers from multiple manufacterers might be the kind of work you love, though, and it’s a great way to use your stash.

I like to draw primarily from one manufacturer for my patterned papers–unless I don’t have enough to fill the kit, and then I’ll pull in other papers.

If you prefer to mix papers from manufacturers, follow your instincts and choose papers that coordinate well and that also incorporate contrast in color, pattern scale, and pattern density.

Here’s a second page I made with the Work In Progress kit I showed you at the beginning of this article. See how Trish chose patterns and colors that mix well. The blue and red work well together while adding a contrast and these colors are repeated on multiple papers. Dots and stripes mix well with many other patterns. The large scale, low-density polka dot paper works well with the tighter smaller prints on the other papers.

Including embellishments

Manufacturer embellishments. Do you have any embellishments made specifically by the manufacturer of your papers to coordinate with the papers you’re using? Reach for these first. You might also have goodies you’ve picked up because you couldn’t resist them! See what you can combine.

Versatile embellishments. Be sure to include standard embellishments.  Look to your recent pages. Are you frequently using a brad or a manilla tag? How about ribbon or buttons or journaling blocks? Understand what you like to use, and select these versatile pieces to coordinate with the colors, styling, and mood of the papers you’ve already chosen.

How many? When you look at your recent layouts as a guide, you’ll need to look at several, since the amount of embellishing you do on one page may be quite different from that on another. (My sample pages above are a great illustration of how greatly a level of embellishing can vary from page to page.)

As you pack more kits you’ll get a better feel with how many embellishments you should include.  Just remember to make a mental note when you’re done with a kit how many embellishments you had left over.

When I’m making my kits, my embellishments usually fit in a standard sandwich-sized zip-top bag.

Don’t forget letter stickers

How important are title and lettering to you on a layout? What kinds and sizes of alphas do you use? Do you take the opportunity to work in contrasts between alpha sizes, fonts, styling, and colors? Let the answers to these questions guide your choices.

For me titles and lettering are an essential part of any layout.  I love mixing alphas so I always aim to include 2 to 3 alpha sets in each kit.  My favorite combination is to include one mini alpha, one alpha in basic black or white, and then a third in some bold color that will contrast with my papers and really pop on my page.  I also know that I’ll be able to use letter stamps.  I keep them handy when I’m at home and I bring them to crops.  I consider them a basic tool for scrapbooking.  I like lots of options when it comes to my titles.

That little something extra

The last thing to add to your kits is a little “something extra.” Look for piece that will add strong visual interest and perhaps even fun to a page. Look through your stash for something you haven’t used because it’s challenging you or because you’re saving it for the “right” project.

Great candidates for this “something extra” in my own stash are:

• the Prima Marketing vine that I purchased four months ago and still haven’t gotten on a page
• handmade confined collages from when I was trying a new technique
• a bottle of spray ink
• a stamp I haven’t used in awhile

I made this kit beginning with Basic Grey’s Lime Rickey papers. I added felt, brads, and buttons that coordinated by color. The red alphas were chosen to pop against the blue and green papers. For my “something extra” here I included two die-cut papers that I’ve had for a while but haven’t used.

Storing kits

A craft keeper or 2-gallon zip-top bag both make great storage for your page kits.  Many kit clubs send their kits in bags and you can reuse those for your homemade kits.

If you’re making lots of kits you can organize them by color scheme (brights, darks, etc.) or theme (holiday, birthday, etc.). I keep about a dozen kits on hand and love looking through them to choose which one I’ll work with next.

Using Kits

Have fun and get lots of scrapbooking done! I made four pages from the Work In Progress Kits I showed you at the beginning of this article. What’s more, I made those four layouts  in 50 minutes, and I have enough product left over for three more layouts, at least.

Here are two more pages made from the Work In Progress kit. A good kit will give you product that works well together while yielding different looks. The first two pages I showed combine lots of red and blue and brown and are dense with detail and pattern. These two pages below are lighter, incorporate more white space, and use the blues and yellows from the kit.

So what do you think? I think this is a great way to start approaching all those goodies you’ve been acquiring. Kit them up and be ready to scrapbooking awesome pages in a jiffy! I’d love to see the kits you make on your own, so link us up in the comments.

The July issue of Masterful Scrapbook Design is all about speeding things up. Join us!

In-depth seminars, focused lessons, live webinars (with video & audio recordings), and annotated galleries make membership at Masterful Scrapbook Design an inspiring and instructional value. Join now and grab a discounted bundle of archived issues.

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!

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!

“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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.

1. First I made sure everything had a home.  I rearranged and took full use of iris carts, shelves and bins.
   
2. 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.
   
3. 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:

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!

Listen to the interview

download the audio interview

Watch the interview

As is often the case with scrapbookers and artists—every photographer’s space in which they create, differs based on their style and their surroundings.  Some of us may have expensive equipment and a professional set-up–but the rest of us aim to make do with what we have!  So here’s a peek at my photography studio and the equipment I use on a daily basis.

First, here’s the kitchen studio…

Notice the $5.00 cutting board in the back. It is a great background and serves as a reflector in a pinch. The wooden cutting board can be maneuvered easily on the counter top. Light comes in from the window behind the set up. Not the ideal light set up, but we make it work.

Here’s how I’ve used this space and these helpful pieces of equipment, in capturing the following photos:

Now onto the main studio, where much of my work takes place…

The side lighting works nicely for smaller subjects I want to photograph. I’d like to try a newborn shoot here. It’s the perfect height and size for a little one. Maybe with it running, I could lull them to sleep.

This is the location where I took the following shots and yes, I get the laundry done here as well!

So, now that you’ve seen my studio–care to share your favorite/quirky studio spots?

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!

In Organizing Events Photos I share a step-by-step process for winnowing down the photos you’ve taken to a manageble number for scrapbooking events. In the last section of that article, I suggest going through your photos relatively quickly to select those you really like and think you’ll put on a page. Here I’m offering more guidance about what photos make good “keepers.”

What photos make good “keepers” for events pages?

Essentially you want photos that tell the story of the event and that document important particulars.

Good candidates to include on your page are photos:

• of people key to your event (both posed and candid)
• of interesting and relevant items (the birthday cake, the pumpkin, the valentine card)
• of event activities (the champagne toast, the three-legged race)
• that convey a sense of place
• that you just plain like

Remove photos that:

• are close duplicates of others
• are of poor quality
• don’t really add to the story you’re telling on this page

I took 200+ digital photos at my friend’s 40th birthday party, and I was happy to give her all those prints. For my albums, though, I wanted to get her party onto one layout. During the winnowing process I selected two strong focal photos (of the birthday girl and her cake). For supporting photos, I chose three shots of when she received a motorcycle from her hubby and four posed shots of the guests I know best.

From those keepers, select one (or two) focal photos

Each photo on your page can have the same emphasis as the others on the page OR you may choose to highlight one (or more) photo(s). Selecting one photo to highlight above all others results in your page having a focal-point photo.

Why have a focal-point photo?

A focal-point photo can help make your page clear and appealing because it gives the viewer’s eye a place to start. When this starting place exists, so, too, does a hierarchy that lets the viewer understand levels of importance–some photos take on more importance than others. The result of this is that your viewer can better understand just what went on at your event and what it meant. Be sure to check out Creating A Focal Point on Pages for design how-tos on focal points.

When my son had a lead role in “Aladdin” there was no way I was taking only a few photos. The problem with having 100 photos, though, is that it can be hard to really make sense of what went on. The four supporting photos here show the progression of the play, but they’re busy. A photo of just my son, after the play with flowers, helps draw the eye in and make the story one the viewer can settle in to.

What makes a good focal-point photo?

• a photo that is engaging (like a great shot of one or two people looking into the camera or engaged in a relevant activity)
• a photo that represents or triggers an association with the holiday or celebration you are scrapping
• a photo with great photographic quality

When your focal point photo includes  people:

• show them in a relevant activity or looking into the camera
• understand that in most circumstances a photo with only one or two people works better as a focal-point than one with multiple subjects; it’s just less complicated and more clear.

On "Party Surprise" I included two focal-point photos -- one of the entertainment and one of the cupcakes. These are supported by four photos of the partiers.

Let’s see your events pages and tell us how you chose your photos. Share them in the Get It Scrapped Gallery and link us up here in the comments section.

I love looking in my mailbox each day of December to find Seasons Greetings from out-of-town relatives, or the beautifully handcrafted card I get each year from my cousin Holly, with a cheerful picture of their family tucked inside!  During the holidays we hang the cards in the archway that leads from our living room to our dining room, for all of our holiday visitors to see!  But once the gifts are all unwrapped, and the decorations are all put away…what do we all do with our cards then?

Some of us simply remove the photos that have been included and toss the cards, others :raising hand: throw them in a box never to be seen or heard from again.  The point is that very few of us do something with our Christmas cards, not because they’re not important to us, but because we don’t have the time or we are simply at a loss with what to do with them!  Well NO MORE!  Give this idea a quick try and you’ll be storing your Christmas cards in style in no time!

Holiday Card Holder

SUPPLY LIST

• Your Stash of Christmas Cards
• Ribbon (2 ft)
• Chipboard Mini Album Page/Large Chipboard Element/ Scrap Chipboard (a cereal box would work!)
• O-Ring Clasps (1-3)
• Patterned Paper/Elements/Extra Ribbon
• Sewing Machine (alternate steps provided for those who don’t sew)
• Adhesive
• Scissors
• Hole Punch

1. First gather all of your cards for the season (previous seasons too if you like) and arrange them by size, with the longest cards on the bottom and the shortest/smallest on top.
2. Using a bought chipboard page, a large chipboard element, or even a scrap piece of chipboard (a cereal box will work if you have nothing else) decide the shape and size of your front cover (and back if you choose to do so).
3. After lining up your cover with your cards, select the number and placement of the holes for your rings.  Consider what will be necessary to keep your cards intact when someone is flipping thru the album.   If you have several large cards you may want to go with three holes/rings, however, if most of your cards are very small then you may be able to get away with just one. You be the judge!
4. Using a Crop-a-dile (or an eyelet punch or basic hole punch) punch the necessary holes through your chipboard and cards.  You may want to consider punching each size grouping of cards separately…to avoid misplaced punches.
5. Next cover the chipboard piece with your patterned paper, using adhesive and re punch your holes thru the paper.  Then thread your rings thru the cover and cards to keep the booklet intact throughout the rest of the crafting process.
6. Now you must decide what type of a ribbon closure you would like…the kind I have illustrated here is a button enclosure that is stitched to the chipboard and uses a machine stitched button hole, but if sewing is not your thing, then you can simply make the necessary adjustments in the measurements of your ribbons, secure them with an adhesive or decorative staple and then tie the two pieces of ribbon in a bow.
7. Now choose a simple design for your title and year for your card keeper, but do not adhere any of the mats, or elements to the front cover just yet, because you must first adhere your ribbon, in such a way that the spot where you attach it on your front cover, it will be covered by your title and design elements.
8. Using a doubled piece of ribbon (double by folding…as it will be used to create a tab) long enough to reach from the point of attachment to roughly an inch from the right edge of your chipboard cover, use your sewing machine to create a button hole centered down the ribbon starting about a half an inch from the fold in the ribbon and sewing out towards the raw edges.
9. Adhere the raw edges of your buttonhole tab to the attachment point by stitching the ribbon to your chipboard cover.
10. Now take a second piece of ribbon (give yourself a pretty good length to work with) and stitch one end to the back edge (the same edge that will be bound by your rings) of your last card or back cover if you have chosen to make one. Then pull the ribbon tight around to the front of the card, until it is overlapping your buttonhole mark the position for your button to be sewn and then cut the ribbon to a length which reaches just past the button pull (measure twice cut once…but don’t give yourself a whole lot of slack, keep the ribbon pulled tight–most ribbon is cut on the biased so it has a little give).
11. Sew your button onto the second piece of ribbon and then make sure your closure works properly.
12. Now you are ready to decorate your front cover by adhering your title, year and other elements, and adding any final touches, like tying ribbons around your rings if your wish.

Voila…now you have a quick and easy way to store your Christmas Cards in style year after year! Hope you have a wonderful Christmas filled with lots of holiday cheer and many season’s greetings!