Punch Art Christmas Cards - Duck Cards and tags

Book 3, page 42. 

And another version with a tag. 

Bells and leaves, who would've thought?

:o)

The scrapping girls that inspire me...

They've taught me so much over the last however many years. The encouragement, the answers, the inspiration, the ideas. I'm grateful for the part they've played, and still play, in my life.

***

Ali Edwards

I wouldn't be doing half of what I'm doing if it wasn't for her. How we outwork things is completely different, but I am completely inspired by her. Always have been. 

I think it's the photos and stories philosophy that she has. They are most important to her and I totally agree. The way she tells those stories inspires me to tell my own. Little and big, they all matter.

Same with blurry photos - they're still a memory, so include them if they mean something to you. 

She took on Project Life and has been tracking her progress on her blog...(the amount of work that she puts into projects and then blogging about them - I respect that because I know how much work it is)... well, when she put the photo of her album open on her counter it sparked my whole move to scrapping at the cabinet in the living room with divided page protectors. 

Before that scrapping and I were at a stalemate. 

After that we were friends again. 

It was a revolution.  

And this book. This December Daily thing. All her. 

She's been doing it for five years now and it's grown into one of the biggest crafting events of the year on the web. I've been doing it for four years and just enjoy writing stuff down, putting photos in and looking back at the different albums. 

Anyway, it's all because of Ali, she truly does rock.

***

Stacy Julian

I've just watched her four dvds again. They're about six or seven years old now, but the concepts are still as relevant as they were then. Was fun to look back too and see the old products and how things have changed. No misting then!

She sparked my whole mini album phase and the resulting 100+ mini albums. Totally amazing.

She's currently doing episodes on My Craft Channel now and hers is the only show I definitely watch (not true - def. watch Ella too). She's always got something good to say. What I love is that she's passionate about photos and stories and putting them together. She loves the crafty part, but the memories are the most important.

"Let go of the expectation that you have to do something with all of your photos and embrace the idea that you can do something good (and fun) with some of your photos."

It's so simple when you think about it. 

***

Jennifer McGuire 

I think she's a great teacher and I really enjoy her videos. She's a stamper (unlike me) and she's taught me a lot of different things from techniques to product knowledge as well as inspirational things. 

She also taught me how to make rosettes. Did you see her huge one recently? I loved it. Almost fell off the chair when I first saw it :o) 

***

Noell Hyman from Paperclipping 

She has a lot of good stuff to say about design, organisation and scrapping in general. 

Noell always shares her roadblocks and solutions about things. She's all about creative problem solving and providing tools for people to use in their own scrapbooking world. 

She's definitely not copy and paste. She's...hold it, what other buttons are there? She's the link button. She links things together for people. 

Yep, she's done that for me.  

***

Kelly Purkey and Amy Tan 

They both inspire me to go make stuff. I love their styles of scrapping and their Instax photos. I look forward to seeing their pages because they're always colourful and trendy. 

Amy likes to layer strips of paper and cluster embellishments around one or two photos. I love how they turn out. And I love the Pivi printer too - could totally get into that. 

Kelly's style varies a lot. She's inspired by design around her and tries a lot of different things on her pages. They're right up there  - she's very, very good and one of the best scrapbookers out there.

I like these girls, they really rock it.

***

Stephanie Howell 

She inspires me by telling stories, being honest and making time for scrapbooking. 

She's a mum of four girls including one-year-old twins. She scraps because she needs to for the creativity, the therapy and the sane time it gives her. I understand that. I understand how she makes time and makes the most of her time. 

She scraps really fast because she has to. I like her get-it-down type style. Her pages are fun to look at and I love the little stories that she tells. Her girls are gorgeous too. 

***

So, thanks to you, girlies. I don't know you personally, but that doesn't mean I can't say thanks.

Thanks for the encouragement, answers, inspiration and ideas. And the like-mindedness, I really like that. Thanks for sharing your scrapping and crafting journey with us and for all the work you put into producing your blogs. 

One word: Amazing.  

Five words: Merry Christmas to you all.

***

A Scrap Quiz - Where do you store your albums?

Yes, well, that's been interesting.

For years they were in the linen cupboard because it was the only cupboard in the house that could accommodate them for the keeping-the-dust-off-factor and the size factor. 12 x 12 albums are pretty big and don't fit in most normal furniture I've found.

Eventually I started to need the room in the linen cupboard for actual sheets and towels, so I asked Andrew to build me a shelf in the cupboard of the spare room.

Here's where they get stored now....

Yes, that's a cupboard with a TV in it.

Was my idea to put it in the cupboard so we (I) couldn't see it when it wasn't in use. Works really well.

So there are all the albums, all lined up. I love that they're easy to pull off the shelf and look at on the carpeted floor. Carpeted floor is good for viewing albums on.

Some of the mini albums are stored in this box and basket.

I know, not fabulous, but I don't look through them much (they're not as precious to me in that way). Works for the moment - I certainly don't want them out and scattered all over the place...too much.

I like them altogether in the same room pretty much even though they're in a plastic box...

There's a bookshelf in the same room and some of the albums are stored on there. As are games, other scrapping books and mags and bits and pieces (I can see a dictionary and some Lonely Planet guides up there).

We call this room the snug. It's certainly that - it's snug. It's great for reading (we have an old couch in there too), looking at albums, watching tele and just being quiet.

It's one of my favourite rooms in the house because it just works for us. Took us a while to figure out how to get it that way though. Sometimes things work themselves out...and this room did.

Last note: I think that was another reason I stopped making mini albums - the storage! Hello? How do you store them?

Anyway, that's how I store mine.

:o)

PS. A Scrap Quiz is a bit of a series on the ye olde blog - you can check out previous A Scrap Quiz posts on the right sidebar there.

A Scrap Quiz - What's your scrap history? Part 8

To finish the scrap history posts, I thought I'd end with the stats. 

Started in Dec 2000

Still going strong today.

This is not a hobby to me, it's something that I do. It's our life in photos and I'll always take them and organise them in some sort of album form.

Completed at last count: 

15 chronological albums - 12 x 12

4 trip albums - 12 x 12

10 other 12 x 12 albums of various themes.

2 albums in 8 x 8

Over 100 mini albums

4 Photo album books - 2 ups

3 December Daily albums

1 On the Road album

Wow, that's a lot.

I do get a bit concerned about the volume of stuff, but I've really pulled back on that in the last few years and I try to let the photos mature before I get them printed out. I print less that way.

So, that's it for this question - it turned out to be an eight parter, far out.

What it comes down to is...

...and that makes me happy.

:o)

PS. A Scrap Quiz is a series on the blog-o. Click on the A Scrap Quiz label on the right sidebar if you'd like to read the other posts. Bye now.

A Scrap Quiz - What's your scrap history? Part 7

Okay, the move to divided scrapbook page protectors is here, yay. 

(I'm talking about my scrapping history - all the different types of scrapping I've done over the years and how it's led me to where I am now)

And where I am now is...

...scrapping standing up at my cabinet in the living room using divided page protectors.


Yay.


Double yay. 

The three above are using Becky Higgins' page protectors from Project Life.

They have the four journalling spots across the middle (she's got some additional types of page protectors now too).

I use the spots for journalling, photos and/or decorations.

All the other page protectors below are various ones.

Yearly soup night which we didn't get to have this year. Next year's a definite. We've done soup night for at least eight years (missed another year in there somewhere).

My brother's made a lot of soups...pizza soup was a favourite.

Last year he bought chili soup with a "this will clear your drain pipes" warning on it. The photo at bottom right is him feeding it to Jack who said he was game. To our surprise it didn't bother him too much...a bit, but not much.

Special photo up the top there with my grandma and Pete's three boys (my nephews). Rare shots those.

Andrew's grandma's 100th birthday celebration. What a momentous day. And I love that photo of her and him. A very special one.

Funny dog - he had some blue paint on his nose in the top left photo. Not sure where that came from.

As I mentioned before - I wanted to include more everyday shots in my album. Took this one of Andrew's work bag with all the lunch rejects, mainly fruit. Gotcha.

Family time at Mum and Dad's. That's Andrew playing with Casey and Joey is the baby up the top.

I love to include old photos in my album too.

Just random ones and I stick them in. I like having them all in there like one big happy photo family.

The page above has three different ones that I wanted to put in 1911 (my granny was five), 1957 (my mother was eight), 1983 (I was ten).

Sometimes I'll decorate a lot. Sometimes not. All depends on my time and motivation and will. I like that I can keep it simple or play around a bit...

...and do something like this.

8 1/2" x 11" page protector with nine divided spaces with October Afternoon's Seaside collection.

I love photos, but I love patterned paper too. This was pure fun. I made the decorative bits double sided and used some for journalling and some for just colour.

You can see above it's just included in the album as another page.

I did the same last year with some Christmas papers too.

Essentially I can have fun with the papers and then keep what I make. Can't do that with a card - they're made to give away.

So, that's what my albums look like now.

A big mix of stuff that I love and that I really want to get back to because it feels like I haven't touched a photo in ages.

PS. I use We R Memory Keepers three ring binder albums and I get them from here (Scrap Boutique). Red's my favourite. She has the page protectors too.

A Scrap Quiz - What's your scrap history? Part 6

We're continuing on with my scrap history today...

You can check out the rest of the posts under the A Scrap Quiz label on the sidebar there. 

Today I'm talking about December Daily albums. 

I've done a December Daily album for the past three years and I'll be doing one again this year. 

This year's will be in another visual diary like the black one below. I find they're what work for me at the moment. I like creating a 'scrapbook' rather than an album.

I was going to use the blue Smash book, but it just said no right at the time I went to use it. It happens.   

Below the visual diary is about 10 x 10, this year's is A4. It's black too. I'm going to tie a big red bow on it when I'm done.

Best part? No cover to decorate.  

Here are my three December Daily albums.

2008 - top left

• I made the album.
• Bound with rings.
• Pages of all sizes.
• Mostly one page (front and back) per day.
• A lot of work.
• Liked it.
• Did the 30 days of December.
• You can read more about my 2008 December Daily project here - lots of inside page photos etc.

2009 - top right

• Did the project in Dec 2009, but didn't buy the album until halfway through 2010, and didn't finish the whole thing until Dec 2010.
• Used page protectors (8 x 8).
• Mostly one single page per day.
• Made the page inserts.
• Kept it a lot more simple.
• Didn't finish this one until late 2010 (because of the album and I just lost interest because it got confusing as to what I was doing. Took the buying the album to sort it out).
• Think I did just the 25 days of Dec.
• I remember this project being a bit of a muck around...just wasn't on my game.
• You can read more about my 2009 December Daily project here - lots of photos. 

2010 - bottom

• Used a visual diary (black cover, white paper, bound spine) - a pre-bought book that I already had here at home.
• Didn't have to make an album before December - hip hip hooray (after doing a lot of craft for my job during the year, I found making the album too much and I lost my mojo to actually document December when it rolled around in 2008 and 2009).
• Used as many pages as I wanted for the day.
• Stuck bits in.
• Used a 4 x 6 piece of paper as a template for the photo that was going to go there in the future. Just journalled around the template and wrote in pencil in the middle of the space what the photo was.  
• Enjoyed the process a lot. 
• Even used a different punch each day just for fun. I added paper strips to fill up the white spaces if I wanted to and I used the different border punches I had to decorate those strips. What punch are we using today? Liked that. 
• This approach is very much the old, old (think Lucy Maud Montgomery old) approach to scrapbooking. Scrap-booking. 
• It's fun.
• I used a blue biro to journal with.
• I wrote in running writing.
• I never do that in my albums normally.
• Actually, not true, I've started using blue biro in my chrono albums. I do not like (the proper) black journalling pens when they get chisels on the tips!
• Further info on my 2010 December Daily project can be found here. 

And here they are open, so you can see the differences inside. 

The Joy is the Christmas card my mum sent me that year. 

Hmm, interesting projects these. 

Like 'em. 

Wonder how this year's will go?

Will see!

PS. Next post is my move to divided page protectors for good. 

A Scrap Quiz - What's your scrap history? Part 5

Previous scrapping history posts have discussed how I started scrapbooking and all the different types of scrapping I've tried.

At this point we're around 2007 ish.

Now, I don't know when it was, but I know I went on a scrapping hiatus for about a year at some point. 

I was frustrated with having to keep up all the time. 


I was completely overwhelmed with the photo developing part! I was getting them done for mini albums, the holiday album, chrono albums - gosh, I remember how confusing it was.

I'd come home with so many photos for so many things and in so many sizes. All that organising took so much effort...too much and I flicked it eventually.

I know I stopped making mini albums in 2009. It might've been halfway through 2008. 

I didn't do it on purpose, it just happened.

I think they had just run their course with me pretty much.

I wanted to simplify things and just concentrate on our everyday photos. They were where my heart was.

I wasn't happy with my process though - there was definitely no output.

I see myself as a lifelong scrapbooker.

A lifelong photo and story organiser.

I am a scrapbooker, yes.

I am a lifelong scrapbooker more like it.

So, no output for a year.

I hoped an answer would come, so I just left it.

One day (and I've blogged about this before), I saw an open album using divided page protectors in a photo that Ali Edwards put on her blog and all of a sudden the penny dropped.

"I need my stuff out where I can see it."

You can read the story here...

After that - it all started happening.

I was getting so much done and I was standing up - amazing.

Before the penny dropped, in an effort to change things up and find a solution, I bought Project Life by Becky Higgins.

It was going to be my introduction to scrapping using a pre-made kit, divided page protectors and a three ring binder (something I'd always avoided)....and hopefully the solution I needed.

(Project Life started out as a photo-a-day project, but it's evolved into more than that. It's a whole system that you can buy and use however you want. My intention was to just use it with my photos as I took them and got them developed).

While I waited for Project Life to arrive...

I kept scrapping the old way to use up the albums I already had...

(Yep, that's an 8 1/2 x 11" page protector in a 12 x 12 album. Ah la Ali Edwards too. She mixes all the different sizes.)

...which led me to my new way.


My old way of scrapping?

• Post bound albums
• Photos developed in lots of sizes
• Full sized page protectors
• White backgrounds (the ones that came in the album)
• Some colour with patterned paper and bits
• Fairly flat - no buttons or whatnots. 
• Chronological order
• I sat and scrapped at the dining table (or other location)
• I scrapped in bunches a lot more - 2 or 3 times a year for days or weeks at a time
• I did mini albums, chrono scrapping, other 12 x12 albums, gift albums etc etc all at the same time and got very confused!

My new way of scrapping?

• Three ring binders (we'll be friends for life)
• Photos developed in 4 x 6
• Photos chopped from 4 x 6 if I want them smaller
• Some larger photos, but not many. 
• Divided page protectors - all sizes, all brands including Project Life
• Colour with patterned paper and bits
• Fairly flat - no buttons really
• Chronological order
• Standing up at my cabinet in the living room (I'm now one of those ladies who scraps in what they call shared spaces).
• I scrap more often. 
• I do just my chrono photos now. I don't do any other mini albums, 12 x 12 ones or anything like that. 
• Actually not true, I do do the occasional other thing, but it pretty much goes all into the one book (except trips). I really like that. 
• Trips will be in divided page protector albums too from now on, but separate from the chrono pages. I like to be able to pull a trip album off the shelf and look through it. 
• I like December Daily albums. I'll do them for as long as I want to. If I don't want to, I won't. 

In my next post I'm going to have a look at the three DD albums I've done and then after that show you some pages in my current chrono album. 

Back soon!

A Scrap Quiz - What's your scrapping process?

Well...sometimes the hardest part is actually going and standing at the cabinet. 

After that it's usually easy. 

One.

I grab some photos from the box where I keep them in chronological order. This is where I put them after I get them developed.

You can see some typed journalling there already. On that day (whatever it was) I typed out the journalling and just stuck it in the box next to the relevant photos, so it'd be all ready to stick in when I got to it.

I scrap in chronological order.

I sometimes add different stories and connections in that chronological sequence.

Two.

I grab some paper from the paper section. Full sheets above.

Scraps in the drawer here.

I cut a piece to 4 x 6 (or choose one from the pile already cut at the front. Some are patterned paper, some are lined paper if I just want to journal the story and nothing else).

Three. 

I grab a journalling card to stick to the 4 x 6 piece of paper.

Or I grab a decorative bit if I want that.

I seem to grab a lot of things.

Four. 

I choose some stickers for a title if I want to add it with stickers.

Five. 

I type my journalling with Grandma's typewriter and enjoy the clickity clackity sound.

Or I write it by hand.

Or I type it on the computer and print it out and slip it behind the 4 x 6 title piece.

(Sometimes I sit at the computer and write the journalling for a stack of photos, cut the bits up and put them in the photo box ready to go)

The result is something like this.

Like any good choose-your-own-adventure-book, the process changes and the outcome changes, but the experience is always the same.

That is, worth it.

:o)

A Scrap Quiz - What's your scrap history? Part 4

Back with Part 4 today.

Scrapping history topics covered so far - 12 x 12 chrono scrapping, other 12 x 12 scrapping, mini albums, albums made from scratch and then I started taking notice of

2 up albums as per Stacy Julian (also known as Photo Album Scrapbooking)


because they seemed like such a simple option. 

On the DVDs I mentioned previously, Stacy showed lots of different types of albums and mini albums. I'm sure she showed her famous 2 ups there.

Or it might've been in one of her books, or from Simple Scrapbooks magazine, but I definitely got the idea from her.

Edited to add: Look what I found in the Nov/Dec 2008 Simple Scrapbooks magazine?

Yep, that's an album done by Stacy. I remember the tags sticking out and ribbons and bits.

Same ad, but with the special issue they were advertising.

Here are some of my 2 up albums.

I made this one in 2005. 


I must've seen Stacy's 2 ups in those DVDs that I saw at the beginning of 2005 in order to have made it then. 


It's all a blur sometimes :o) - when I did this and started that. 

Two up albums are essentially pre-made albums that you buy at Myer or wherever you like. I like the ones without the journalling strips.

This album is one about fun days out. It's nice to look back on and see the things Andrew and I did as a couple, with family and with friends.

Above and below are two family ones.

Here's a Holiday Highlights album that I started around 2006, 2007.

It's ongoing, even to this day (the Days Out one is full).

I get four (or so) extra photos developed from holidays we've had and stick them in here...

with typed journalling right on the photos.

It's al la Ali Edwards. I saw a 2 up album she did like this and knew I wanted to do the same with this particular album.

All these photos are in the chrono albums, so it doesn't bother me that there's writing on them. It's about the photos and the memories together as a holiday theme.

I like this album, it's fun to flick through. It starts with our honeymoon back in 1996 and is ongoing like I said.

Need to do a couple more pages in it - the last ones I did were from 2009.

Still got more scrap history to show you!

This is a ten year process we're looking at here, hope you're sticking with me. Bless you if you are.

:o)

PS. A Scrap Quiz is a series I'm doing on the old blog-o. You can check out my other A Scrap Quiz posts on the right sidebar there.