Kiss and Tell Scrapbooking

Hey Twelvers: DOZEN DAY Scrapbook Layouts Videos *** PLUS A Winner for the 200,000+ Blog Page Views!

SCRAPBOOKING LAYOUTS VIDEOS - PALOOOZA!

I got a comment from Rhonda who is a scrapbooker who is in the Big Picture Class with Stacy Julian. 

Kate, Your presence is requested on the TWELVE CHIT CHAT board to help us learn how to produce our own videos for class!!! Thx, Rhonda

Stacy makes videos called "Dozen Day" in which she shares the last 12 layouts she made and explains them, so the students in class want to do some too.  Here was my answer to Rhonda:

Hi Rhonda! OH Funny :) Ok.  I have videos on ustream which I film with a Microsoft web cam and I film the 10 minute videos for you tube on my husband's ipad. I have also used my iphone on the fly - like when I was skiing - to film and upload. I am not technically awesome by any stretch so when I have glitches I call in the computer man (aka my husband) to fix things. I'll check in to class now. P.S. I'm in my scrapbook room now and am torn between making a scrapbook page or an art journal page. I would love to combine those two worlds more.

And then I made my own Dozen Day Scrapbook Videos (scroll down or head over to You Tube through one of those links below).

PLEASE NOTE:  That I really tried to keep the videos under 10 minutes because my iPad condenses them to under 10 but I went over a bit so when I uploaded them I labeled them as  #1, #3, #5, #7, and #9 in case I had to add in supplements - I didn't - so they are labeled with ODD numbers only on You Tube but there is 5 (five) of them.

Video #1 (#1 on Youtube): {video link}

 

{video link for the tail end of #1 - start around 1:15 I think}

 

Video #2 (#3 on Youtube): {video link}

  

Video #3 (#5 on Youtube): { video link}

 

Video #4 (#7 on Youtube): { video link }

 

Video #5 (#9 on youtube): {video link}

 

 Want to make videos of your own and support this blog?  Click through to the affiliate link here - once you over at Amazon, if you make any purchases (so you don't have to buy the stuff below)  you can buy anything and means I'll get 4-6% and that goes to support this blog (which costs about $150.00 /yearr to typad - so it would be cool to have the blog at least support itself :)

  

This is the one I use fpr  ustream videos - and I thinkI paid $100+ at Best Buy, so it looks like Amazon is less expensive. I used the iPad for the videos up top.

And NOW FOR THE BIG (or 6x6 inch) PRIZE - dun daaa naaa naaah!  The WINNER OF THE POST for the 200,000 blog hits is

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Laura T. said...

Laura - please email me your address at katiescottscrapbooking@gmail.com and I'll send you some papers from the 6x6 kits I bought last weekend from Heidi Swapp / Sugar Chic; Heidi Swapp / No Limits; Amy Tangerine / Sketchbook; Crate Paper / Story Teller;  and some older Basic Grey / Basics White and Infuse and Offbeat and probably some other stuff too!

P.S. I don't work for any scrapbook companies so this is just stuff from my stash - but that I think you'll like. 

P.S. Hey scrapbooking companies - if you ever want to provide me some free stuff to give away on the blog... just email me or leave a comment!

Thanks for visiting my little space on the internet :)

Katie.

$76 Scrapbook Yard Sale Haul Video

Whoo Hoo !  It was the Scrapbooking Yard Sale at Whim So Doodle Today and I made a HAUL VIDEO!  Here it is:

 

$20 for an art class next Saturday for me and my daughter to take together!

$28 for 5 paper packs (6x6):Heidi Swapp Sugar Chic; Heidi Swapp No Limits; Crate Paper Story Teller; Studio Calico Take Note Collection; & Amy Tangerine Sketchbook.

$26 for 4 organizing bins; 4 mini books; 4 packs of embellishments; 4 packs of Theresa Collins journaling cards;  one pack of metal clock faces; one acrylic stamping block; one Creative Memories paper trimmer; and one piece of 12x12 Studio Calico patterned paper;  PLUS an assortment of Barbie garden pots, presents, shutters and hats for my girl. 

And lots of fun conversations with scrapbookers and art journalers.

What a lovely Saturday Morning.

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Now we are off for another adventure - more on that soon.

 

 

5 Common Reasons for Scrapbooker's Block and 5 Easy Ways to Solve It and Get Scrapping!

 

Scrapbookers, Imagine This:  You just received your print order, several envelopes of your latest and greatest pictures, and you now have a new and exciting stack of awesome photos just waiting to be scrapbooked!  There's the birthday party photos, photos from your last vacation, and some really adorable photos of your 8 year old.   You are all excited to scrapbook them!  You rearrange some things on your to do list and you somehow find 3 hours of uninteruppted scrapbooking time.  You put your photos in your photo organization system.   You get out your adhesives, scalloped edged scissors  and that new pack of embellishments shown at the last CHA.   Ready!  Set!  And Nothing.  Instead of "Go!" you are at at dead end STOP!  You stare at the dreaded blank page and then it hits you:  The Dreaded Scrapbooker's Block.  

Have you ever been hit with scrapbooker's block?  If you are a kid, chances are you haven't and you can stop reading and go play now!  But if you are a scrapbooker who is over the age of 18, then you might know what I'm talking about.  If you haven't experienced scrapbooker's block or perhaps you just need a definition for this frustrating condition, here's how wikipedia defines this common scrapbooker's ailment {please note I took some liberties with the "writer's block" definition and adapted it for our concern "scrapbooker's block"}:  

    "Scrapbooker's Block is a condition, primarily associated with scrapbooking as a hobby in     which the creative goddess loses the ability to produce new layouts.  The condition varies widely     in intensity. It can be trivial, a temporary difficulty in choosing how many photos should go onto     a particular layout or which embellishments to use for a visual triangle on the page to tie it all     together.  At the other extreme, some "blocked" scrapbookers have been unable to work for years     on end, and have been known to continue to buy supplies despite the complete stop of production     of scrapbooking layouts or mini books.  It can manifest as the affected scrapbooker viewing her     work as inferior or unsuitable, when in fact it could be the opposite. Scrapbooker's block is a     common affliction that most memory keepers will experience at one time or another, it is "an     inability to begin or continue scrapbooking for reasons other than lack of basic skill or     commitment".  

Who's been there?  I know I have, more than once.  Can I get an "Amen" scrapbooking sisters?

Scrapbooker's block can be caused by these five common problems:

1. Lack of Inspriation:  Oh sure there are dozens of inspiring projects on Pinterest and over at Two Peas, but nothing really "speaks" to you and your creativity just isn't sparked by anything - not even a glittery fire lit with hot-off-the-CHA-floor-patterned-paper by scrapbooking LOAD Coach Lain Ehmann herself.;

2. Over Awareness of the Audience:  Whether your audience is your own family or your online scrapbooking friends, you cant' seem to make anything because you keep thinking about what so-and-so will think of your completed scrapbook project so you just don't start or complete anything.;

3. External Circumstances like stress or health issues of the scrapbooker.  This will happen to all of us at one time or another.;

4. Sophmore Syndrome: Intimidation from a previous success.  Maybe you had a layout published in a magazine or recognized on an online scrapbooking gallery and now you are afraid to make another layout because you don't think it will be as awesome as the last layout.; or

5.  Perhaps the most dreaded of all "Trying to be Perfect":  You can't seem to do anything at all for fear that it might not be perfect and you'll ruin your photos, your supplies, or your own ego.

 Let's check in with wikipedia again and see what they say about the brain on scrapbooker's block {again I'll take some liberties and re-phrase to make it crafty}:

    "Scrapbooker's Block is more than just a mentality. Under stress, a human brain will "shift     control from the cerebral cortex to the limbic system". The limbic system is associated with the     instinctual processes, such as "fight or flight" response. Because the person is primarily thinking     in instinctual (learned) behaviors, creative processes are hindered. The person is often unaware     of the change, which may lead them to believe they are creatively "blocked"."

So enough of the problem, chances are you are just as familiar as I am with the causes or stresses of scrapbooker's block; what you really want to know is just how do you cure scrapbooker's block?

1. Take a Scrapbooking Class or Listen in on a Scrapbooking Group Discussion.

A few years ago I took Lain Ehmann's LayOut A Day (LOAD) Challenge and the exercise of making a scrapbook layout everyday for a month helped me get to a place where I could scrapbook no matter what; I think the key factor in this system is the short deadline. 

While I have been scrapbooking for well over a decade, I still take an occasional scrapbooking class to keep things fresh.  My favorite place to take online scrapbooking classes is Big Picture Classes.  I'm currently taking Stacy Julian's Twelve Class and Elizabeth Dillow's Twelve Challenges Class.

My favorite "Scrapbooking Discussion Group" otherwise known as a "podcast" is The Paperclipping Roundtable Podcast.   The Paperclipping Roundtable "airs" on itunes every week and is about an hour, topics include scrapbook organization, the process of scrapbooking, and scrapbooking tools and tricks.  Listening in always gets me in the mood to do some scrapbooking.

2. Keep a Scrapbooking Ideas Journal.

Whether you keep your ideas in a plain notebook, a fancy and embellished journal, or on your iphone; writing things down helps.  Even if you never go back to the list, the act of having written down an idea helps to keep it and grow it in your mind.  Depending on your personality, you may love or hate lists; but either way, try writing down ideas for a month and see if your ability to overcome scrapbooker's block improves.  My bet is that it will.

Pinterest is also a great place to keep ideas.  Major warning:  Pinterest is also a major time waster and can result in feelings of insecurity and inferiority since there are amazing ideas and photos there; so use Pinterest with caution.

3. Do some Free-Scrapbooking.

My husband often tells the story about how he was a bad student until he learned the trick of "getting ready" to do homework.  He'd tell himself that he was just "getting ready" to do some homework, he'd get his books and pencils, a snack, and sit at the desk; he didn't pressure himself to actually do anything, but, he says, once he was all set up and sitting there he'd do the homework.  Try that with your scrapbooking, get some photos out; get out some paper; don't pressure yourself to make anything but if you get even an inkling of inspiration, jump on it and go with whatever gave you that spark. 

Another idea is to make a card,  or a page in an ongoing mini book with a standard structure, or just to start doodling or punching or free hand cutting some patterened paper.  Just start moving and your brain will follow.

4. Just Do It.  Make a Page even if it is Not Perfect, especially if it is not perfect!  In fact, make an Imperfect Page! 

Take your worst, blurriest photo and the ugliest piece of paper you can find.  Make a page.  Just do it.  Once that's out of your system, you'll at least have done something.  The fact that its not awesome will give you the confidence to make the next one a bit better because it couldn't be any worse.  Just try it. 

In the alternative, set your kitchen timer for 15 mintues, and don't spend any time thinking, just do this:  1. Open your photo file and pick one without looking (1 minute).   2. Then pick a neutral colored cardstock, don't spend more than (30 seconds) picking.  3. Pick some letters, give yourself a minute.  4. Paste all that together (2 minutes).  5. Write something on the page - draw four or five lines and just start writing.  (5 minutes tops) .  6.  You are 8.5 minutes in and you can call it done if you like, but if you wish, pick a few embellishments and stick them down in a visual triangle (5 minutes tops). 

5. Find a Positive Place to Share Your Scrapbooking Work.

If you've been scrapbooking for any length of time, chances are your family has lost the level of excitement for your scrapbooking layouts that maybe they had in the beginning.  You need scrapbooking friends for this job my friend.

Feedback can be awesome, find a place where you can find some friendly scrapbookers who are at a similar scrapbooking skill level and share your work.  You can set up a flickr group or join in a variety of many, many scrapbooking communities online.  Or pick a few friends to be your viewing buddies. 

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Want to hear me read this essay?  Check this out:

 

 I hope that this article has been helpful or at least a bit entertaining.  Please leave a comment to share your most common cause of scrapbookers' block and your favorite solution.

If you'd like to learn more about "scrapbooker's block" or even "writer's block", check out these affiliate links:

 

 

 

 

Vacation Scrapbooking: How to Reconnect With the Stories, Adventures and Emotions of your Trip

How to Reconnect with Your Vacation Memories when you get home and scrapbook the trip weeks, months or years later:

1.  Scrapbook During Your Vacation - This is easy, really!

 

2. Get Home, Get Back to Your Routine, and Feel Confident That You Can Scrapbook Your Vacation Anytime - When You Have Time.  I went on an amazing vacation to Durango, Colorado and I did some scrapbooking on the road.  I'm back now, I've actually been back for about 3 weeks, and I haven't done much work on my vacation scrapbook, until last night.  This video shows how I am incorporating my vacation photos into Project Life, my homemade smash book, my "regular" 12x12 scrapbooks, and my vacation photo albums.

 

Please leave a comment with tips and tricks you use for vacation scrapbooking or a link to your vacation scrapbook!  I'd love to see what you do.

If you would like to support this blog, check out these affiliate links:

 

The Hunger Games Scrapbooking Challenge Videos

Here are links to the You Tube Videos for The Hunger Games Scrapbooking Challenge:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I thought I'd put them all in one place.  I haven't watched them myself but I might take a look while I do some scrapbooking later tonight.  Or maybe I'll just make some more without looking.  More videos are coming soon.

Scrapbooking Videos & Videos Scrapbooking

Following up my last post - I am blogging from my iPhone thus the shorter posts - here are some examples of the Scrapbooking how to videos on you tube and some of my video scrapbooks from my vacation which I plan to use later to scrapbook the vacation that I am lucky enough to be enjoying right now!

The Hunger Games Scrapbooking Challenge Series Day 7 / District 7: Lumber!

Welcome, Welcome, Scrapbooking Dystopian Fans to Panem District #7 Lumber,

First, you simply MUST watch this silly song about Lumberjacks from Monty Python:

 

This will get you in the appropriately silly mood to record some lumberjack and lumber related memories just like we did during our stop in District 10 Livestock.  So watch the song and then sit down at your computer or with a pen and paper and record at least 10 random memories, which may or may not be funny, about lumberjacks, lumber, the forrest, and/or trees.  You have to come up with at least 10.  My bet is that you could probably come up with 100, but stop at 10 ok? And then come back for more District 10 Lumber Scrapbooking on the Kiss and Tell Scrapbooking Blog.

 

Here's my layout with three pages of 11 stories about lumber, trees and lumberjacks:

Ok, so you've got your 10 lumberjack memories in hand right?  If you don't, do that now.  Really.  Do it now.  And THEN you can read the rest of the blog entry for today.  Trust me, just do it right now if you haven't already, it does not have to be full sentences, it does not have to make sense to anyone except you, but you do have to go through an remember and write down 10 memories about lumber to get the improvisational comedy concept of "piling it on" or the improv game "the minister's cat".

If you wish to support this blog and learn more about scrapbooking and improv and read the The Hunger Games (if you haven't yet); please click on the affiliate links:

  

P.S. Here are my 11 stories about lumberjacks:

Eleven Real Life Lumberjack Remember When Stories:

 1. I went to high school in Bangor Maine where Paul Bunyan, legendary giant woodsman, stands as a symbol of a great era, the 1800s when Bangor, Maine was acclaimed "THE LUMBER CAPITAL OF THE WORLD!" I remember the Paul Bunyan statue from when I was about 5 and went to Bangor to the circus; I remember the Paul Bunyan statue from when I was about 15 and used to climb up and sit on the feet with my friend Lizzy Dean; I remember the Paul Bunyan statue from when I was about 25 when I took Charlie to see Maine and we had our picture taken in front of the statue; I remember the Paul Bunyan statue from when I was about 35 (or technically 41) when I brought the entire family to Maine and showed my kids this statue. I have a wooden Paul Bunyan that its in my kitchen as a reminder of my hometown.

 2. I not only can sing the Monty Python version of the Lumberjack Song, I also remember a song about Lumberjacks from summer camp - the one about My name is Jan Janson, I come from Wisconsin... and it goes again and again and again, when I sang it for the kids they both begged me to stop - maybe we should start using that one in the morning to get them out of bed! I used to watch Monty Python on Bangor’s PBS station late at night with my BFF Missy Woodbury and I’m pretty sure we used to sing the Lumberjack song and laugh our heads off until we fell asleep.

 3. My Grandpi had 600 acres of mostly woods in Calais on River Road and we used to walk through the forrest when I was a kid and there was one tree that had a nail in it with a metal bucket hanging from the nail this was the tree near a natural well and I think maybe there was some sort of old fashioned pump that you could pump and fill the bucket up with water and get a drink, just in case you were a thirsty lumberjack I’m guessing.

 4. My Dad had about 1000 acres of woodland just outside of Bangor and he won all sorts of Tree Forestry awards for being a very environmentally sound tree farmer, I have the plaques in my law office now. Sometimes I make a lame joke to clients that we waste a lot of paper because my law school professor J.J. Brown always used to say "paper’s cheap and time is short" - I think he was trying to convince us L1s of the brilliance of only writing on one side of the paper because it would be easier to read later on; so my story to clients is that even through our law office has been paperless since 2002, we still have and use a lot of paper - but karma wise I’m OK since my dad was an environmentally sound tree farmer. I don’t really think anyone gets this story, but my mind always goes there when the client comments about how gigantic their files have gotten - we are paperless in that everything gets scanned in and we have a fantastic client profiles software management system that I completely love and allows me to work from anywhere including from home and vacation and even my iphone!; but we still keep paper files and I usually have the staff put the physical files on my desk for client meetings and generally they are huge, like at least a foot or two tall of paper. Seriously, so it just kind of seems funny that we consider ourselves to be paperless with all that paper.

 5. When we lived in Calais, Maine when I was little, the town next to ours had a paper mill and the whole town smelled really, really bad and I was always so happy that we didn’t live there and I only had to hold my breath for about 2 minutes while we drove through that town on the old Airline road on our trips to Bangor.

 6. When I was a teenager and living with my Dad and he owned all that land, he insisted we go out to the land to cut down our Christmas tree; we always ended up with a very Charlie Brown tree and we didn’t axe it down as you might imagine, he’d bring a hand saw. Once, when I was about 16 and was dating David Q, he said he could solve my Christmas tree problem and we drove out into the woods and found a giant tree - just like the Griswolds did in Christmas vacation and we chopped it down with an axe and then realized it was about 4 or 5 times longer than his little Subaru so we chopped off the top of it and tied it to the roof and hauled it home. My first Christmas in our house with Charlie, we had a real live tree and I decorated it with spray painted and glittered sea shells and pine cones, it was also when our black lab was a puppy and he kept trying to eat and/or hump the tree and it was a mess and at about 2 pm on Christmas Day that year, I hauled the tree, ornaments and lights and all, out to the curb in front of our house and vowed to never, ever have a real live tree again. We’ve had a fake tree ever since and I’m totally OK with that; someone usually sends us a Maine wreath as a Christmas present so I still get the smell of home without the giant mess or driving out to the woods.

 7. My family came to America in 1706 from Scotland; Wallace Finlayson was in shipping and he landed in Portsmouth, NH on my birthday, June 6^th in the year 1706 and he quickly moved up to Maine but continued in shipping, he or maybe his son is rumored to have been captured by Pirates and never seen again. His son or grandson, William Penn Fenderson and/or Nathanial Fenderson had a farm in Maine and one of them went into town one year with the harvest and was never to be seen again, it is rumored that he sold his crop, left his wife and kids high and dry, and he went out to California for the Gold Rush and that his descendants got into the wine business and now have some connection with Reunite and Mad Dog or Thunder something rott-gutt wine. Even though our family has been in Maine for over 300 years and it was once the lumber capital of the world, I don’t think any of my ancestors were lumberjacks, but the men in the Fenderson family always wore plaid shirts on the weekends - which maybe a lumberjack thing but could also have been a Scottish thing, anyway, they looked like lumberjacks and spent lots of time in the woods.

 8. When I was a teenager and lived with my Dad and he was single, he used to date a lot of different women. His favorite kind of date would be to take the lady to dinner - one time he brought a lady to 7 or 8 McDonalds around the Bangor Area to get a free Chicken McNugget when the nuggets finally came to Maine, and afterwards, he brought her out to the land which he was very proud of; I remember distinctly him telling me about this date afterwards and telling me that he couldn’t figure out why she would never take his calls afterwards. And then he’d add the bit about how he "clubbed 7 porcupines to death with a stick" while he was on this woodland date; and then he’d add how it was environmentally sound to kill the cute little porcupines because they liked to eat a ring around the bark of the trees which would kill the trees and he was trying to grow the trees. I’m sure whoever that lucky lady was still tells this story about that weird guy who brought her on a date to McDonalds and topped it off with killing porcupines. Weird.

 9. When I was dating Charlie and his parents had a house in Georgia, they used to have to cut down the Georgia pines since they’d blow over easily in a storm so my husband and father in law know their way around a chain saw. Charlie also has a song that has something to do with lumberjacks and is played on chainsaws, he relayed that song to the kids this morning but I’m guessing he’ll play it for them tonight so they get the full effect.

 10. I grew up with Pine Trees and since I moved to Florida its been Palm Trees. I get nostalgic when I walk through a forest with lots of pine trees, it reminds me of my Dad and childhood and funny stories about trees and lumberjacks and home.- Katie 2/29/12 (leap day)

 IMPROV CONCEPT OF EMBRACING YOUR MISTAKES:  I forgot to include an 11th story on the computer journaling so I wrote the 11th story on the layout.

Here's the text from #11 which is included on the front of the page as though spoken by that nervous little skunk - hoping my dad wouldn't mistake him for a porcupine:

#11. Hey Psst. If you see Bob Fenderson "tromping around" in the woods up there in Heaven, make sure NOT to point out the porcupines, better to ask him about the SECOND LARGEST BAROQUE TREE IN MAINE, that will get him going for at least 2 hours; just ask my Tom K., the dad of my highschool sweetheart who remembered the STORY about the BAAARRROOKE tree when I paid a surprise visit to Jefferson St. while I was in Bangor, Maine for my 20^th High School Reunion - it was so funny to me that he remembered. K 2/29/12

The Hunger Games Scrapbooking District 11 + A 2 Peas Garden Girls Memory Keeping Monday Scrapbooking Challenge

Now Playing: The Hunger Games on the Kiss and Tell Scrapbooking Blog:

I posted The Hunger Games Scrapbooking Challenge for District 11 this morning but used layouts that I already created in the video and blog post.  So I was feeling a bit like I didn't get to play enough.  So, after work, I came home and had to bust out a layout quick about agriculture.  We've been working on our herb garden.  I went to Two Peas in a Bucket for a little layout inspiration and found a Memory Keeping Monday with Jen Gallacher challenge to alter a sticker, check it out: 

 

So I connected dystopia with gardening and scrapbooking with stickers and stamps, totally logical right?  Want more randomness?  Watch me explain my layout and herb garden but please don't tell Charlie that I brought his iPad outside!

 

Here's how I alterned the stickers:

And here is my Spring Hunger Games District 11 Agriculture scrapbooking layout:

Ta-Da!  All these random things mixed up on one page makes me so happy and I had lots of fun making the page and the dorky video. 

And I didn't even get into how "Improv Scrapbooking" helps me to get to the mental place where I can bring all this stuff together while having fun, more on that soon.  Plus you can search this blog for related "scrapbook improv" posts if you are at all interested in the concept of merging scrapbooking with techniques from improvisational comedy to get productive, playful, present moment, positive, perfectly authentic scrapbooking fun.

If you'd like to get in touch with your inner child and get creative juices flowing and if you'd like to simultaneously support this blog, check out the following affiliate links:

Also, be sure to check out the Flickr Group and Facebook Event called "The Hunger Games Scrapbooking Challenge Series."

 

 

Old School & Modern Wedding Scrapbooking

This Scrapbooking Video is about my old school magnetic scrapbook wedding scrapbook and my modern scrapbook albums and photo books.  It is in response to Noell Hymann's Paperclipping Roundtable #103 "Too Precious to Scrapbook" and the connection between what kind of scrapbooker you are in relation to how you planned your wedding. 

 

Click here for a link to the Ella Publishing ezine article I wrote about scrapbooking your marriage and relationship based on Stacy Julian & Lain Ehmann's ebook Simple Secrets of Happy Scrapbookers and my adaptation of David Niven's book about Happy Relationships.

Click here for a link to Noel Hyman & Nancy Nally's podcast Paperclipping Roundtable PRT #103: Too Precious to Scrapbook relating wedding planning and scrapbooking.

If you wish to support this blog, check out these affiliate links which are related to products I mentioned in the video:

The Hunger Games Scrapbooking Challenge Day 3: District 11

Hello Scrapbooking Friends & Hunger Games Fans:

Welcome to Day 3 of The Hunger Games Scrapbooking Challenge on Kiss and Tell Scrapbooking, today we are visiting District 11:

 

The Hunger Games:  Today we are visiting Rue's District 11 Agriculture.  Rue reminded  Katniss Everdeen of her little sister, they relaxed together in the woods and Katniss sang to Rue as she tragically died.  We are going to use this part of the story as a jumping off point for themes for possible scrapbooking layouts or projects; think of them as story prompts.  Our themes for today are agriculture; siblings; relaxing in the great outdoors; and music.  Here are some (previously created) pages I made in each of these theme categories:

1. DISTRICT 11 AGRICULTURE:  Themes could include growing a garden, layouts about flowers or trees, tree climbing, nature, etc.

2. KATNISS & RUE:  The SIBLING CONNECTION:  Katniss Everdeen was the older sister and wanted to protect her little sister Primrose from having to participate in The Hunger Games; Katniss volunteers to take her place as tribute and once in the games, finds a connection to Rue from District 11 since she reminds Katniss of her little sister.   Pages in this theme could include actual siblings or friends who seem like siblings:

Here's another page that I made about my sister and on the backside in the page protector I keep letters from her and her son:

3. REST AND RELAXATION IN THE GREAT OUTDOORS:  I picked some camping layouts and a layout about relaxing in our backyard hammock with a Story People quote that I love:

4. MUSIC:  This is the title page for my Music Section of my Library of Memories Scrapbooking Albums and several of the filler pages. 

P.S. Check out Taylor Swift's song from The Hunger Games and Ben Fold's song Rockin the Suburbs - I highly recommend both.

Want to play along?

1. Please leave a comment with a link to your layout.

2. Join the Facebook Event:  The Hunger Games Scrapbooking Challenge Facebook Event Page

3. Join the Flickr Group: The Hunger Games Scrapbooking Challenge.

4. If you wish to support this blog and have more fun with scrapbooking and The Hunger Games, check out these affiliate links:

 

 

The Hunger Games Scrapbooking Challenge Series #2: District 12 & Taking It the Wrong Way

Welcome to Day #2 of The Hunger Games Scrapbooking Challenge Series!

Part 1 of The Hunger Games Scrapbooking Challenge Day 2:

 

(Psst - Hey Scrapbookers:  The videos overlap a bit so you can fast forward a bit through the second one.  Improv and scrapbooking and making videos about these concepts are not perfect - and that is OK!  I'm not letting technical difficulties keep me from having a bit of fun.)

Part 2 of the video:

 

 SCRAPBOOKING IMPROV TIP:  TAKING IT THE WRONG WAY:  Think of a word and use it in the wrong way.  For example, if some one is talking about dinner reservations you could misinterpret them to mean the kind of reservations or hesitation you might have about bungee jumping.  This improvisational comedy technique is known as "taking it the wrong way" and it is a fun exercise to try especially with your kids. 

The improv principle of "taking it the wrong way" was the inspiration for today's Hunger Games Challenge.  The improv principle of listening and reacting to what your scene partners are saying and the principle of staying in the present moment were also at play when I created this page, as was the improv principle that you don't keep your own ideas "too precious" you go with the flow of the group:

For example: I had a "precious" idea.  This morning, I thought I'd start each day with one of the Districts starting with #12 descending down to #1.  Each District in The Hunger Games had an industry and I thought I could take inspiration from those industries like fishing, textiles, war, lumber etc.  The main character, Katniss Everdeen's home district is #12 and the industry is coal since, in this dystopian post apocalyptic world, it is located in what was once Appalachia in North America.  I was sort of deciding about whether to start in at District #1 and work out to #12 or vice versa so I asked my family at breakfast "Should I scrapbook about Lumber or Coal? " just to see if they had any thoughts.  {Here's where I went "improv" and discarded my "precious idea" and listened to what my "scene partners" were saying and I reacted to that instead.} To my surprise, they did.  They each had different thoughts - my son thought I was talking about Lego's Ninjago named Cole and he brought out the minifig to show me; my daugther thought I was talking about our friend's daughter Nicole; and Charlie, playing along I think, suggested I might be talking about his cousin, Penni Cole.  Then I suggested that maybe I was talking about the kind of coal that Santa brings when children are naughty.  Here is the collage with text I made in Picasa demonstrating this morning's conversation:

STEP 1: Think of a word you can "take the wrong way" and use it in a layout.  You can use a word in its incorrect form.  Yesterday I talked about high school English Class with Mrs. Rideout and she did this exercise with us, we had vocabulary words each week and we'd have to write definition appropriate sentences for all of them except one; we'd each have to take a word and use it incorrectly in a sentence.  I remember a couple of the sentences quite specificially: 

"Hey! Stop that!  European all over my shoe."

"The figure skater finished her routine and looked at the judges and whispered to herself hopefully: Benign!  Benign!"

It is a fun and silly exercise that is easily applied to scrapbooking.    Seriously, try it. 

STEP 2: Find Photos that Support Your Wrong Way Word.  I think that you are most likely not going to have a photo displaying a word used in the wrong context - although if you do - then kudos to you - use that.  More likely, you'll have to get a bit creative with your photo interpretation of how you are using a word incorrectly.  This is the time to play, think out side of the box of what you originally took the photo about and use it in a different way.  So improv.  So fun.

 

I used all the different definitions of the word coal and found a head shot of each member of my family and created a grid photo collage and then wrote each family member's definition over the photo.  Otherwise, all these photos would never had ended up on the same page.  To add some consistency, I converted most of the photo collage to black and white but kept a pop of color on a photo of my family at Appalachian Ski Mountain - the original thought behind the word of the day: Coal.

STEP 3: Put your Page Together and Try to Use Embellishments that Support Your Theme.  I used a map from our trip to Appalachian Ski Mountain.  I also used a bit of patterned paper with a picture of a bird since that refers to the Mockingjays in The Hunger Games books.

STEP 4:   SHARE!  Post a comment with a link to your page, I would love to see it and hear about how you used a word incorrectly!  There is a flickr group called "The Hunger Games Scrapbooking Challenges" so you can post your layout there if you don't have a blog.  Can't wait to see what you make!

If you wish to support this blog and learn more about scrapbooking and improvisational comedy and how they can work together and/or catch up on The Hunger Games, then check out these affiliate links: 

 

 

The Hunger Games Scrapbooking Challenge #1: Main Characters

Welcome Scrapbookers to The Hunger Games Kiss and Tell Scrapbooking Challenge #1:   Main Characters.  Let the Games Begin!

Over the past week, I've been fully immersed into the dystopian world of Katniss Everdeen and The Hunger Games.  I couldn't help but notice that there were so many similarities between the main character, Katniss Everdeen, and myself.  Our nuclear family units growing up were identical, even the personalities of the family members, like our late fathers were hunters, our mothers worked in healthcare, and our little sisters had a fondness for stray cats.  The similarities didn't stop there, we went from a small town to the big city all by ourselves, we are claustrophobic, and we both love scrapbooking.  Yes, scrapbooking.  Apparently there is a little hope in dystopian District 12 in the form of some post traumatic scrapbooking and gratitude journaling.  I had to create something that showed the commonalities I noticed while I was engrossed in this trilogy.   Then I started thinking of all sorts of scrapbooking themes and ideas related to The Hunger Games and I thought it might be fun to host some scrapbooking challenges.  I don't have any prizes to offer but I do think you will have a lot of fun playing along with me.  {Pssst. If you know of any scrapbooking companies that might like to sponsor some prize give-aways on my blog for this series, please leave a comment and send them my way.}  With or without prizes, I can't wait to get started.

Let me explain my dystopian-scrapbooking concept, first watch The Hunger Games Scrapbooking Challenge #1 Video:

 

Want to play along?  Here's how:

Step 1.  CHOOSE A FICTIONAL CHARACTER AND COMPARE WITH A REAL LIFE PERSON.  I chose myself and Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games.  You could choose yourself or another person you love and pair them up with a fictional character,it doesn't have to be from The Hunger Games.  For example, if I were to do this for members of my family, I might compare my son Mac with the No, David books by David Shannon; I might compare my daughter Allison with the ever creative and social Olivia; and I might compare my husband Charlie to (hmmmmm) I'm not sure, maybe Jimmy Buffet or Alec Baldwin or I'm not sure; I know those aren't fictional characters - but I think celebrity personalities could count. If you are having a hard time figuring out who to choose, probably start with yourself - you know yourself best and think back to a character from a book, movie, or tv show, or even celebritiy personality, with whom you really identified with or felt a connection to, or even someone you aspire to be like.

STEP 2.  CHOOSE COMPARISON PHOTOS:  I found some photos of The Hunger Games' main character, Katniss Everdeen, on the internet and some photos of myself at about her age from the 80s.  I picked one full body shot with weapons and one head shot with a more serious face for each of us.   I scanned in my old photos.  Then I created a photo collage in Picasa.  I would have put Katniss all on the left and me all on the right except that I wanted our faces to be facing in and I don't think Picasa has the mirror flip feature so I mixed them up, I actually think it is a bit more interesting this way.   If you are playing along, find some photos of yourself or the real life person you are using for this comparison challenge and then do a google search for the fictional character you are comparing with your real life person.

Step 3:  COMPARE AND CONTRAST: This part of the process sort of reminds me of high school English class when we had to write an essay comparing and contrasting something, anything, my senior English teacher Mrs. Rideout was always giving us these types of assignments.  I remember creating a yearbook where we used characters from the stories we'd read and fit them into senior superlatives like "most likely to succeed" and "most popular" etc.  I created a table in word perfect listing the similarities between the main character of The Hunger Games and myself, it really was funny to see our common threads.  If you have a computer available, create a table to compare your real life and your fictional character; if you don't have a computer handy, just hand draw a table and handwrite in the blanks; in the alternative, you could go the high school "compare and contrast" essay route,but trust me, making a table with bullet points is much quicker and easier {and you are less likely to get all those red marks on the page when some persnicketly grammar policeman sees it} .   

STEP 4:  CHOOSE SCRAPBOOKING PRODUCTS TO SUPPORT YOUR THEME. 
Once I had my table and photos printed, I knew I wanted to create a 8.5x11 page rather than a 12x12 page.  Because my table and photos were 7x7.75, I knew I didn't have a lot of space for embellishments or even the title.  I wanted the photos and the table to shine and for the rest to support my theme.  I looked through my black patterened paper and found some patterns that I otherwise thought were ugly but seemed to work for these theme.  Then I went about finding letters to create a title with, the main focus there was that I needed smaller letters.  I couldn't find my white or black smaller letters, so I used bright blue and green mostly because they fit, but also because they were a bit discordant with the rest of the layout, which in this case supports the theme, and I used alternating colors mainly because that's all I had left, but I think that the use of two colors also supports my comparison of two people.  I didn't want to use a big flower or arrow or butterfly or other typical scrapbooking embellishment, so instead I chose to "jazz up" my page with some machine stitching.  That game me the idea for the title:  "Common Threads" so I stitched over my title letters as well and along the bottom of the photos with the zig zag stitch under the head shot photos.  Not every scrapbooking paper, embellishment, or letters have to have a meaning, but it is sort of awesome when they can support your theme visually.  Don't over-think this process, use what you have.  Often times, the real meaning of the embellishments or design of the page that I have used doesn't really hit me until after I have made the page;  That's OK, because I really believe that at some gut level, my subconscious was making connections that my thinking brain hadn't caught up with yet.  Just go with it.  Don't fret over the embellishment part of the page, if you've already done the thinking about the story of the comparison, the rest of the page is going to come together easily.  Remember, this part is supposed to be the fun part, so have fun!

STEP 5:  SHARE YOUR WORK!  I would love to see what you create with this challenge, please leave a comment with a link to your page.  I have set up a Flickr Group called The Hunger Games Scrapbooking Challenge.  Please feel free to join and upload your project and/or leave a link in the comments to your blog or online gallery.

If you wish to support this blog, then please click on one of the following links for cool scrapbooking and The Hunger Games related products at Amazon:

 

Springtime Scrapbooking

It is starting to feel like spring and a change of seasons for me means some seasonal scrapbooking:

My grandma used to wear seasonal scarves, I don't normally wear scarves but I do mark the seasons with my scrapbooking projects:

 

I use Stacy Julian's Library of Memories System so that most of my scrapbook layouts are in the 3 ringed binder 12x12 albums.  When a particular section of an album builds up, I'll take out those layouts and put them in a post bound "bump out" album.  I have a 12x12 post bound Spring Themed scrapbook album that includes traditional 12x12 scrapbook layouts along with page protectors with spring themed photographs so that the pages are all different and I get to use a lot of my photographs in one album:

I keep a 12x12 framed scrapbook page in my kitchen with the current season's "Bucket List" - its time to update since it is now February and the frame still contains our Fall Bucket List:

After I take the Fall Bucket List Layout out of the frame, it will go into either the "Things We Do - Seasons" part of my Library of Memories Album or it will go into a Fall "bump out" album depending on which album has extra space.  I love that making a seasonal scrapbook page or mini book can mark time, especially since I live in Florida and there are no clear changes in the seasons.  Making seasonal scrapbooking pages and projects help me and my family to notice and celebrate the seasonal things we do and to establish seasonal traditions in our family.

If you would like to support this blog, please check out the following links for divided page protectors like the ones I used in my Spring 12x12 Scrapbook Album:

 

 

 

 

All Caught Up with Project Life!

Here are my Project Life pages for weeks 1 through 7.5 of this year 2012.

 

I've been sort of keeping up with Project Life but there were gaps in each week.  Tonight I ordered a bunch of prints and picked them up in an hour and filled in the gaps and did a bit of journaling and I'm done.

 

I will mention that I did not include a lot of journaling in this Project Life album since I was playing catch up.  I think it is better to do the journaling everyday, however, if you didn't I think that should not be a deal breaker and I think its ok to have sparse journaling and have it be photo heavy.  Going forward, I will try to do a bit of journaling everyday or at least every couple of days so that I will have more journaling included.  But I'm glad that its done and I am doing forward with this project.

I think it is important to remember that you can start Project Life at any time and even if you've missed a bunch of weeks, you don't have to have it be continuous - it would be totally ok to have a gap.  Really, it would.  I think the important part is to not give up just because you haven't been fully committed to doing it everyday because there are going to be days - even weeks - where you fall off the Project Life wagon - its, Ok, its easy to get back in to the groove of this awesome album. 

Are you doing Project Life?  Are you keeping up?  Do you have any tips for staying caught up?  I'd love to hear all about your Project Life process.

Making Scrapbooking Videos & Systems & Top Ten Ways to Systematize Your Creative Process.

This week's Paperclipping Roundtable Podcast is about SYSTEMS.  I love the concept of systems and creating systems to solve problems that come up again and again.  Lately I've been making scrapbooking videos and I definately need to work on my systems associated with that process and I'm working on that, for example, I need to work on my system of making them shorter!

Here are some great resources for creating systems for your creative process:

1. Creativity Tools - Start Here!

2. How To Plan and Manage Creative Teams.

3. The Dynamics of Creativity

4. How to Systematize Your Creative Writing

5. Systems are Great, But Systems Don't Solve Everything in the Creative Process

6. Why You Should Learn a Productivity System.

7. Zen To Done: The Ultimate Simple Productivity System

8. Why Creatives need a Productivity System.

9. Creatica: A Model to Systematize Creativity's Stimuli

10. Unlocking Your Creative Genius Potential with Mind Mapping

Want to read more and support this blog?  Check out these books about systems on Amazon: