Theme albums

So my little one just turned one year old, and what better pictures to scrapbook than a birthday! I end up taking so many cute pictures at my boy's birthday parties, that I scrapbook each of my boy's birthdays in a 7x7 album. It's a great size album, perfect for 4x6 and 5x7 pictures. It's also a time saver because I don't crop many of the pictures in my birthday albums.

This is a perfect solution for an event that you have lots of great pictures from, and want to scrapbook. I also think it will be cool to be able to look back at my son's birthdays, share them with the boys, see who attended the parties, what they received as gifts, what the party "theme" was, and to see their precious smiling faces each year they grow older.



This particular album I did was for my son Collin's first birthday. We had a pinwheel theme, which I incorporated into the album's design. If you want to know how to make simple pinwheels for your scrapbook, email me. They are so easy, inexpensive, and cute!



I think it's a great idea to "dedicate" the front inside cover or first page of a themed album to introduce the content using dates, names, etc. On my son's birthday albums, I always list the child's name, birthday date, and the date of their birthday party.

Here are a few examples of the pages I created:

CAKE!

BALLOONS!

PINWHEELS!

It's great to expand your scrapbooking work by creating something different, like a themed album. I encourage you to get out of your regular scrapbooking style, and try something new-whatever that means for you!

Making Use of That "Empty" Photo Space

Have you ever had a great photo, but also had extra space which you can't crop off due to subject placement? While doing a recent layout, I had this reoccuring problem. I had some great pictures, cropped them as much as I could, but still had places in the photos that were "empty", and needed a little bit of something... the space needed a little "pop". I came up with a fun idea which is SO simple, and it turned out pretty cool. Thanks to my sister-in-law who saw this layout and technique, told me how much she loved the idea, and said I should post this idea online!

Here is the overall completed layout:

Using a punch (in this case I used a circle punch), I punched a semi-circle into the empty/negative photo space. Then using a slightly smaller punch, I used some scraps to punch out a circle that would lay just inside the original punched out area. And the cool thing is that this area can be used for title placement, stamping, journaling, etc.

Here is a picture of my subtitle, using this technique with a circle punch into the picture, then a circle stamp inside of that, stamped directly onto the paper...

And here I used a circle stamp, punched that out with a circle punch, embellished it, than placed it into the other circle.....

It's a great, easy, unique and versatile technique to use on any layout. Try it on your next layout-I'd love to see how you incorporate this fun technique and make it your own.

Scrapbook Something Right Now

The cool thing about scrapbooking is the limitless possibilities. Got pictures? Scrapbook them! No pictures, but still want to tell a story? No problem! One of the most important things I feel about this art is the importance of telling the story and communicating the emotion and feelings. It's all about sharing your story, writing it down, pictures or not. Through the stories shared-journaling, the colors used, the size and style of font used versus your own handwriting, you are creating not only art, but a memory heritage for yourself, your children, other family members, and so many others for generations to come. Don't know what to scrapbook or don't have pictures? Make 5 observations around you right now (see my blog entry from yesterday) and write them down. Use all your senses to tell the story. Right now my 11 month old son is laughing while playing with his cars, the washer and dryer are running, there is a beautiful breeze coming in the open windows, one of my dogs is outside chasing the birds from our lantern, and the other one is sleeping at my feet. Oh--and now the phone is ringing. (My sister just called)

So scrapbook something right now-whether you have pictures or not-and have those memories recorded. Communicate the story, record memories, and you won't regret it!