Fun Expressions Blog

Begin an About Me Album Today

One of the things most woman find hard in Scrapbooking is including ourselves in our books.  But these layouts are some of the most important ones you can do.  "About Me" layouts let us tell our own stories. They are the stories we want our children and loved ones to always remember.  "About Me" pages can also be more than just stories. They can tell about our imperfections, our likes and dislikes, our secrets.  They can also tell what happened in the 5^th grade that we will never forget, but has changed us forever.  They tell about our beliefs, what is in our purse right this very moment... the topics are endless.

Spring is a wonderful time to start "All About Me" album.  It is a beautiful season.  All the flowers are blooming and everything is just so green and fragrant.  Why not go out and take a picture of your favorite flowers, or all your favorite spring things and SCRAPBOOK those pictures on a layout.  Begin that "About Me" album today!

A Craft Anyone Can Do

The Leader Times has a nice little article about getting started in scrapbooking and how it is a craft anyone can do. It's a decent read with some good basic pointers for beginners or those on the fence about whether they should pick up scrapbooking or not.

Firsts & Lasts

Angie Pedersen expands on some creative prompting advice by thinking of your "firsts and lasts." Your "firsts" being your first dance, or first kiss. Likewise, your "lasts" could be the last time you saw someone, or your last cigarette (I've been thinking about that one lately myself for some reason). Here's some more from Angie:

Do you need pictures to scrap these firsts/lasts?  No!  Just write -- describe the time, place, feelings, thoughts -- and decorate the page however you like, and you're done!

Read more at Angie's site!

Martha Weighs In

Martha Stewart is currently featuring a Scrapbooking 101 article on her website.

If you’re displaying original photos, it’s generally best to use translucent interleaving, which will protect the photos over time. Or, you can opt to use photocopies, keeping your original photos, documents, and other valued items in a light-safe, acid-free box, away from fluctuations in temperature and humidity. If you do use originals, select papers and adhesives that are acid-free or, better yet, archival.

[via Blogging Baby]

New Year's Resolution

Linda Fantin of the The Salt Lake Tribune has a recent article promoting scrapbooking as a New Year's resolution, and how easy it is to get started:

The real incentive is simplicity: Color-coordinated paper and ribbon and alphabet stickers and other embellishments now come packaged in easy-to-assemble kits. And you can find them everywhere - Target, Kmart, Office Depot, even dollar stores. The rapid growth of scrapbooking also has created tons of discontinued and overstocked merchandise.

A Rookie's Experience

Eileen Mitchell has written about her first experience in scrapbooking as published in the San Francisco Chronicle's online edition. Her first scrapbook starts as a gift for her mother, but she hadn't realized how much work can be involved:

"Where are the scrapbooks with the pretty decorations?" I asked, handing the blank book back to her. "You know, the templates?" The nice lady cocked her head and got the same puzzled look my dog gets when he hears a cat meow from the television set. She handed the blank book back to me. "There are no templates with decorations," she explained slowly, as if she suspected I wasn't working with a full deck. "You do all that yourself."

It's a pretty funny read about an experience that everyone is familiar with in one capacity or another: starting at the bottom.

Scrapbooking Simplified

Besides mentioning us in a recent post, Angie Pedersen's The Blog of Me! offers some wonderful tips and tricks for your scrapping passions. One of our favorites is her post on super-simplifying her scrapbooking in order to keep up with her hobby!

"...I went out and bought a regular slip-in-the-pocket photo album, pulled out my paper scraps, and set to work.  I can't tell you how freeing it was.  I was practically giggling at how fabulous it was to whip my way through three years' of Christmas photos in two hours.  I felt like I was getting away with something, and I LOVED it!"

"Basically you use the pockets for photos as intended, but you can also use the pockets for journaling boxes, or small embellishments.  It's a lot less intimidating that trying to figure out how to design/decorate a whole 12x12."

Angie includes some great photos of her 12x12 photo/scrap albums so you can get a feel for the process. Much less daunting than staring at a blank page!

Free Layouts

Having a hard time coming up with a good layout? The Scrapbook-Sketches blog has downloadable templates for use in your own scrapbook! From the blog:

This blog will have sketches that I've created on the computer for scrapbooking. You're welcome to use them for digital or paper scrapping.

Lured to a "Crop"

Debbie Farmer of the Gilroy Dispatch has written an article about being lured to her first  "crop," or scrapbooking party. Later in the evening, she discovers she's hooked:

Whatever the reason, all I know for sure is that somehow I had crossed a line. Suddenly I was finishing page after page and using terms like "velum," "Sizzix," "crop cushion," and cutting pictures into fun shapes and decorating around the edges with multiple shades of colored chalk.

I was hooked.

And it’s not just me. My friend Suzie, who barely knows how to work a camera, went to her first crop six months ago and now takes pictures of every move her family makes. Trips to the dentist, a visit to the park, eating breakfast and on and on.

Sound familiar? How did you first get started scrapbooking?