Incorporating More Journaling Onto Your Layouts

Posted by Aaron aka Sir Scrapalot on Jan 20, 2011 | View Comments

For a long time, I didn’t journal on my layouts.  There are a lot of excuses I can give for bypassing this step in the layout process, but the bottom line is I didn’t journal because I was lazy.  I didn’t want to spend the time to think about what to say and I didn’t want to figure out where it would go on my page.  Over time, I started to really realize how important journaling is to this scrapbooking process.  Realistically, if I am working at creating layouts to preserve memories, what good is it to not record those memories.  It was a major duh moment for me.  Today, I wanted to share with you some of the techniques I use to get my journaling onto the page.

Use a journaling spot as part of your design – This is one of the easiest ways to get your journaling onto the page.  If you incorporate a journaling spot into the design of you layout, you have an automatic place to put your journaling.  On the page “Christmas Show” the journaling spot is part of the design of the layout, leaving me a space for my story.

Use your journaling to balance the layout – With such a strong cluster and photo placement in the lower left corner of the page, having the journaling in the upper right corner helps create balance on the page.

Put your journaling in a frame - Often, when I am working with a template, I don’t have as many photos as the template has on it.  Sometimes, I’ll replace one of the photos with a journal spot and put a frame around it.  To me, this kills two birds with one stone: I have one less photo spot to worry about, and my journaling gets on the page.

Tuck the journaling along the edges of the main focal point –  In the layout, “Snow Much Fun” I was working with a heavily blocked design, so the journaling is tucked along the bottom and it formatted to match with the blocked design.

Five Ways to Get More Out of Your Kits

Posted by Aaron aka Sir Scrapalot on Jan 12, 2011 | View Comments

I love to shop.  There’s just something about how it makes you feel to get something new, a new shirt, a new kit…anything really.  Unfortunately, in today’s economy, we all can’t just run around spending money.  Most of us have to be very specific about the things we buy, and how we use them.  In the spirit of stretching everything we purchase, I thought I’d share my five tips for getting the most out of the kits I buy.

1. Tag your favorite basics – In every kit, there are some basics that I just fall in love with.  Maybe it’s a nice kraft paper, or a simple white alpha, whatever it is, I give it a special tag so that when I am looking for a good basic building block, I can check out these first.
2. Look for “inventive” ways to use theme kits – A while back, I fell in LOVE with the kit My Other Loves by Traci Reed and Heather Roselli.  The only problem was, I don’t do any type of sewing and neither does anyone around me.  However, I purchased the kit, and was able to use it for a few layouts using “sew” in place of “so” in my titles.  Worked like a charm.
3. Use one kit to scrap multiple layouts…at the same time – I’ve posted before about Katie the Scrapbook Lady’s Power Scrapping method, but try Power Scrapping with only one kit.  I am sure that you’d be able to get a number of pages done quickly when you only have one kit to pull from.
4. Keep your kits organized – How many times have you gone and purchased a birthday kit to scrap your little one’s birthday, only to find you had another birthday kit already in your stash?  By keeping your kits organized and knowing what is in your stash, you can make more informed purchases and are more likely to utilize a kit again.
5. Focus on the non themed elements of the kit - many times you can look at a kit and start working with the parts of the kit that aren’t heavily themed.  Sometimes you have to look beyond what the designer intended as the theme to start to see something a bit different.

Hopefully these tips will help you get more from the kits you purchase!!  I know they have helped me.  What do you do to make sure you are getting the most from the kits you are purchasing?

The Top Ten Blog Posts of 2010

Posted by Aaron aka Sir Scrapalot on Dec 31, 2010 | View Comments

Looking back at 2010, I wanted to take a minute to share with you my most popular posts from 2010.  Feel free to read through them, leave comments, or bookmark them for later!  Happy Reading!

1. The Secret Behind Extracting – Six Tutorials to Get You Moving
2. Scrapbooking with Templates: What if I Don’t Have Any Flowers?
3. Secrets to Using Patterned Paper as Backgrounds: Part One
4. Back to Basics: What Are the Things You Needed to Know to Start Out?
5. Secrets to Using Patterned Paper as Backgrounds: Part Two
6. Secrets to Using Patterned Paper as Backgrounds: Part Three
7. What Would YOU Like to See Next Year?
8. 8 Secrets for Staying Focused and Productive
9. 10 Creative Techniques for Titling Your Layouts
10. 4 Ways to Use One Photo On A Multiphoto Template

Back to Basics: What Are the Things You Needed to Know to Start Out?

Posted by Aaron aka Sir Scrapalot on Dec 14, 2010 | View Comments

As the year comes to a close, I am starting to plan out 2011. Over the next few weeks, I am going to be asking for your opinion on everything from new products to upcoming blog posts.

When you were starting out as a digiscrapper (or if you are now), what were the things that you wanted to learn about? What are the things you felt you “needed” to know? One thing I want to share more of next year is tutorials, and I am wondering what things a beginning digiscrapper would want to learn more about? If you have any thoughts, please share them in the comments below!

Scrapbooking with Templates: What if I Don’t Have Any Flowers?

Posted by Aaron aka Sir Scrapalot on Nov 16, 2010 | View Comments

Layering is one of the hottest trends in scrapbooking right now.  Layouts that feature flowers, string, ribbon and other elements all perfectly shadowed can be eye catching and fun.  My favorite template designer, Cindy Schneider over at Sweet Shoppe Designs, creates incredible templates that are expertly layered and make creating this look a snap.

One thing that I really love about Cindy’s templates are their versatility.  For example, over the weekend I was working with this template:

I loved all of the layers in this template.  The layered papers as well as the numerous layered flowers would give the layout the look of incredible dimension, which I am always looking to do on a layout.  There was one problem though….the kit I was working with didn’t have a whole lot of flowers.  For a long time, this would have deterred me from using this template.  As I have grown into using templates, I’ve begun to really embrace the idea that just because it’s a flower on the template doesn’t mean it has to be a flower on the layout.

In this case, I replaced all of the flowers with snowflakes (aren’t they winter’s flowers anyways?) and a few other large elements.  This is the layout I came up with:

Sometimes, I use a variety of elements to stand in for where there are flowers were on the template.  For example, I started with this template:

I replaced many of the flowers with stickers found in the kit and some word strips.  I even replaced the branch with a string, so that it would better fit with my layout.  This is the layout I ended up with:

Templates are a wonderful thing to work with.  They can make achieving a specific style or look easily accessible to all levels of scrapbookers.  It’s important to remember, however, that a template is just a starting point.  It’s up to you, the scrapbooker, to interpret the template to meet your needs.  Free yourself to make changes in a template, and you will open up a whole new door to your creativity!