Lines

This week we start the two week discussion of elements - and in particular the line. I can't believe we are in week 9 already. This class will be over before we know it. I really liked sketch one for this week and had fun creating this layout. I had blogged about this event when it happened and it was neat to go back, re-read what I had written, and create a page.

Emerson's monitor was such a huge part of our lives for almost 8 months of his life - the three months he was in the NICU, and then 5 months after at home. It was the monitor that would alert us to any trouble he was having, the monitor that kept one of us tethered to his side, the monitor that gave us a bit of peace of mind so we could sleep at night. We knew when we were all ready to get rid of it though. The alarm wasn't going off any longer for "real" reasons. Emerson learned he could pull the leads off and make it alarm and make us come running. He started rolling over and getting tangled in the cords, and he started teething - on the monitor cords! There were a few sleepless nights when we first turned it off, but soon we could trust that he had really outgrown his tendency to stop breathing and everything was going to be ok.

Emphasis - week two

Well, we are continuing with emphasis this week. I never finished the second layout for last week. I have something started but I'm not sure I like it, so I put it aside and moved on. I'll get back to it at some point, hopefully with a fresh eye.

This week we are looking at using one very large photo as our emphasis - like you might find in a magazine story. Here is my first layout. I scrapped these same photos a few months back as my very first all digital layout, but I wanted to revisit them and see what else I could do with them.



In Library of Memories, this is a break week to allow people time to process the material from the first two weeks and get some of the leg work done on their organizing. This weekend I went out and bought three "storage binders" which are just pocket style photo albums with a three ring binding. The purpose of the storage binders in the system is to have a place to store your printed photos before you scrap them in a way that allows people to easily look at them. The binders are intended to hold just your highlight photos - the best photos you have taken for each quarter.

Since I am scrapping pretty much exclusively digital these days, I really wasn't very excited about printing out photos just to stick them in an album for now. It was suggested to try a digital photo album to basically digitally accomplish the same task. I'm headed to the stores today to see if I can find one I like at a reasonable price to do that.

I did, however, want to try the system as proposed and got myself three binders to hold my older photos that I did already have printed out. Binder one now contains all of my old photos - basically 1965 - 1985 or so. I skipped over my photos from 1987 - 1995 and put them in a storage box to deal with at a time when I felt better equipped emotionally to deal with them. Binder two starts when Colin was born. Many of these photos I have actually already scrapped, but those were the days of purchasing double prints everytime I had film developed, so I have lots of extras. I went through and pulled prints from that time that were my favorites. It was so fun to go back through them and I have started to see the magic in the connections that are made when you do a task like that. I found photos of people I didn't know I had pictures with, photos of people that are no longer with us, photos of funny faces or events, and pictures of Colin doing some of the same things his brothers are doing now.

I know Stacy (the teacher) has plans for us in the next few weeks to do things with some of these photos, and I look forward to seeing what those things are. For now, I'm enjoying just browsing through them and remembering.

School of Life - The Early Years

Back sometime around 1999, I took a class from Stacy Julian at a scrapbook store near Seattle. At the time, she was getting ready to publish her book "Simple Scrapbooks". When it came out, I fell in love with her "School of Life" concept and started a book for Colin. When Dutton came along, I wanted to do something similar for him but I knew it would be many years before he was school aged. I modified the idea slightly and called it "School of Life - The Early Years". Basically, I follow the same 6 page system that Stacy used for each "chapter". For the first year of their life, since they are changing so fast and there are lots of great things to remember, I created multiple "chapters". After that, each year is from one birthday to the next. I plan to do pages for the little guys this way until they are in Preschool and then start a School of Life - The Primary Years book for them.

Page 1 contains an enlargement of a portrait from that time period.
Page 2 contains a group of pictures from an important event (for the first year) or their birthday party (for age 1 and up)
Pages 3 and 4 contain a simple multi-photo layout of the major year events
Page 5 is a pocket page and contains the visit summaries from the doctor visits and any other important papers for that period of time
Page 6 contains calendar highlights for the period - dates for milestones (sitting up, first solid food, teeth coming in, etc.)

Since getting more organized for Library of Memories I have been able to very quickly pound through a bunch of pages for Emerson's book. I sat down and created some templates of some of the different page layouts I have used previously for Colin's and Dutton's books, and created Emerson's pages entirely digitally. So far, I have the page 1 and 2 created for Emerson's first three chapters - his NICU time, 4-6 months, and 7-9 months. His 10-12 month page one and two is almost complete as well but I need to search out some extra photos from his baptism from family members since I was a bit busy to take many.

Here are the completed layouts. It feels good to be checking things off my list!

Emphasis - assignment one

So, I didn't realize it until after I had completed it and posted it, but the layout I did for this assignment matched the one I did a few assignments back perfectly! For whatever reason, I am in a blue and red mood this past week. It helps that I like to dress the boys in those colors and they look really good in them. :-) Again, I wanted to do another "relationship" layout and had these great photos of Jim and Dutton together. I love the way it came out!

DYL - Week Six - Unity - Layout Two

Since we only had one layout assignment this week for LOM, I didn't have to worry about trying to combine assignments for this layout. I had a lot of trouble finding "tooth" embellishments that I liked, and I'm still not sure I'm happy with the one I picked. I really wanted a fun tooth font. I thought there was a great alpha in this digital kit I purchased, but it was only a cute word art that wouldn't work on this layout. I even tried re-working it to change it from saying "tooth" to "teeth"but I couldn't get it to look right, so I gave up on that idea for now. I'm finding that if I let myself, I can get lost in a single detail like that and waste a lot of time.

I am continuing to sort, organize, and delete my digital images for LOM. I'm really enjoying spending the time looking at each and every photo, and I think the boys are enjoying it too. I know I will get faster and better at it as I go on, but for now, choosing the best one or two photos out of a series of a dozen or so nearly identical pictures is a challenge for me. I'm also getting better at allowing myself to delete an image no matter how cute it could have been if it is out of focus. (I may save a FEW of them to use in a creative way, but for the most part, I'm not holding on to them!)

Here is layout two, week six as it stands right now. The background paper is from a kit called Waiting for Spring by Sexy and Hot Mama Scrapper and the little tooth is from a kit called Toothy Smile by LLIELLA.

Combining limited resources!

I have limited time available to me to complete my homework for my classes, and now that I started Library of Memories too, I am really feeling the time crunch - especially when the three year old comes in to the computer room and is tugging on my arm asking me to play with him. I decided to combine two assignments into one and create my layout 1 for week 6 of DYL using the requirements for assignment 1 of LOM. Here is the result. I'm really pleased with how it came out! When I finished doing the inventory of my completed layouts for LOM, I realized that almost all of my layouts are about things/events - this birthday celebration, that Christmas, that
hobby, the first day of school for a given year, etc. What I was sorely missing was layouts that talked about relationships, dreams, and everyday life. Who are we, and why do we do the things we do? As I was sorting my digital images, I came across these photos of the little guys and I knew I had to make a layout celebrating their relationship and putting into words my hopes and dreams for them in the future.

Now, off to buy Emerson some new shoes because he won't stop growing! :-)

Join Me For Some Sweet Talking!

We’re kicking off a month-long challenge at one of my favorite sites today … the Sweet Talk Journaling Challenge at Log Your Memory! {please link to http://logyourmemory.com}

I hope you’ll come on over and check it out today … there will be an entire month of scrapbooking challenges with a focus on “real life” journaling, plus the chance to earn points and prizes along the way! And if you’ve never visited before, you’re in for a treat! We have a wonderful group of friendly, helpful scrapbookers just waiting to say hello and show you around!

Get started by visiting the Log Your Memory Blog HERE and get ready to journal your way to becoming a Log Your Memory Sweet Talker!

(And tell them scrapchris sent you!)

Extra layout!

Ok, I am still behind a few layouts for the first few weeks of class, but I couldn't resist finishing up this one anyway. I had started it when I first was playing with this week's template and I wasn't happy with how it was coming out. When I saw the new kit "It's Not Easy Being Green" by Scraps by Andrea that was released this week, I knew I had to buy it and use it to finish up this layout. I used the diagonal plaid paper in the other layout I made with this same template and really liked the way it framed the central square. I just had to repeat it. I rotated the template because the photos I wanted to use just weren't working in the other direction.

The stitching was from the STS Blog train "Hey Mr Groundhog" and was recolored for this layout.

Deer!

Ok, so it isn't scrapbook related, but I did take some pictures of it. Yesterday evening right at dusk, I happened to look out into the backyard and there was a deer standing at my garden. She was quite cooperative to stand there for a bit as we took some photos, then she turned and jumped over the fence to leave, joining two other deer friends that were waiting for her.
The boys got a big kick out of it and Dutton wants to know when she is coming back again.

Black Space?

So, I took the idea of white space on this layout and turned it into "Black" space in honor of the Halloween photos. I really like the way this one turned out. I was worried that the bright orange would detract from the photos. What do you think?

Week Five - White Space

Design Your Life Week five is all about white space. Some of the white space discussions have gone beyond scrapbooking and are discussing white space in our lives. As I look around me at the clutter everywhere I wish for a bit of "white space"in my life!

I really wanted to create these layouts in a way that helped me catch up with some of the scrapbooking that I feel like I am behind on, but I am finding that trying to fit a specific event into that week's assignment just isn't working well for me. For example - Colin's scrapbooks are all done in the 8.5 x 11 size because that is what I started with back in 1996 when I first started scrapbooking. This week's first layout was a 12x12 size. I may go back and try and re-do this layout into an 8.5x11 size so that I can use it in Colin's album, but for now I just completed the assignment as given.


I am still not sure about the background paper, but I'm going to set it aside for now and see what I think about it after walking away for a while.

In other scrapbooking news, Stacy Julian's Library of Memories class starts Thursday and I am chipping away at the pre-class homework that has been assigned for that as well. I have been a HUGE Stacy fan since the 90's. I took a few classes with her when she was in Seattle and my "School of Life" books for all three boys are her design. I am looking forward to this but I don't know what I have got myself into! The good part about LOM is that you can come back for the next two years as an alumni for no additional charge and the class materials are available forever. So, if I am over my head this go around, I can wait and try again later.

I have also been in touch with one of the local photo shops about getting 12x12 layouts printed. He is in the process of purchasing a new machine that will print that size layout. If I print a quantity of layouts at a time, he is willing to give me a discount. It will still end up costing more than ordering them online, but I would really like to be able to keep my business local in this economy. We'll have to compare quality and see if the extra cost is worth it to me.