Fill in the gaps!

I am totally loving my album class over at Shimelle.com. Lately we've been discussing upgrade albums vs. chronological albums. The thought here is that there are some events that we tend to take a lot of photos and scrap many pages. When all of these pages are included in our chronological albums, it tends to skew the entire album. Basically, you pull all of the layouts from that one event, minus one or two, and put them into their own album. The one or two that stay in your chronological album show that the event occurred in that year. Add a little note to your page that directs the reader to the other album.

My main focus during this class has been Christopher's baby albums. They are a mess! There are tons of gaps. I also have 3 of them. One is a "formal" baby book/album (think firsts and milestones), one was put together by my SIL. She totally understood that those first several months were crazy and left me no room for scrap time. The third is the everything else album. It has been quite a process to go through the three albums and identify gaps. Sometimes it is a complete gap in time. Other times it is a gap in the story of the time. I've carefully gone through my photos and the albums in an attempt to cover everything I want preserved. Sometimes this might mean I have layouts in each album with photos from the same day, maybe even the same photo---but each one focuses on a different aspect.

The other albums from years beyond Christopher's first are in better form. I have more things already scrapped. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure I'll find plenty of gaps to fill--I am so totally NOT a chronological scrapper. I don't expect I'll find as many or have quite the complicated process.

Stay tuned for more to come in my ongoing saga!

From pages to albums

Yesterday a new class began for me. It started at the perfect time as I was getting "bored"---that feeling of wanting something new to challenge me. Perhaps that is the reason that I am a serial starter! Anyway...


Our first assignment was to assess where we stand with our albums at this point. Even though I feel as though my albums are a mess, I do actually have some rhyme and reason to them. For the most part, my layouts are filed chronologically. I also have "special albums"--Thomas the Tank, Summer 2007, Salem, New England trip, California, birthdays, Christmas, and pre-Christopher---you get the idea.  We aren't even talking about all of those layouts that haven't yet made it into an album.

My "album system" makes sense to me. I even know why it doesn't work well enough to allow newly made layouts to find a home---the post bound albums! I have always struggled to integrate new layouts into those albums. It gets to be a real pain (not to mention a huge undertaking) to move things around and file the new layouts. I guess it would be easier if I created in chronological order, but my creative brain doesn't work like that. My memory doesn't work like that. As a result of this challenge, I have stopped purchasing post bound albums and moved into D ring albums. They are sooo much easier with which to work.

Another part of our assignment on day one was to photograph our albums. I did that---sort of. I have albums stashed everywhere. I did photograph a section of them. I'm thinking that I need to gather them all up into one huge stack to adequately illustrate what I truly have. I'll need to do that anyway if I'm going to create a cohesive album flow.

Day two of class is all about photos--it makes total sense to me that if you're going to organize your albums, you need to organize your photos. In my mind, that would allow you to see the gaps in your stories and be able to better estimate how much space to leave in each album. Thanks to the Photo Flow class at jessicasprague.com, I'm well on my way to have my 2012 photos organized--even a chunk of 2011 photos are in process. I am still cataloging my library--it IS a process. I think for this part of Cover to Cover, I'll focus on situating those photos that are already printed. There is a loose chronological flow happening there, but not to the degree I'd like.

Mist-ical Magic

Mists are everywhere lately. There are many different companies and options out there.  Tattered Angels offers lots of shimmers with translucent color in their GlimmerMist line. Their Chalkboard line offers that same shimmer with slightly more opaque color. Ranger makes Perfect Pearl Mist that gives you shimmer without the underlying color.  Want some color without the shimmer? Ranger has Adirondack color washes. Think the color washes are pretty but you want something more opaque? Check out Studio Calico’s Mr. Huey mists.  There are many more companies that produce some form of mistable ink and more are popping up everyday. Shimelle has a great Glitter Girl video that compares several different brands of mist.  The big question is: How does one use mists in scrapbooking, art journaling, or card making.

Check out these links to get you started:

Misting techniques

Elizabeth Hicks on YouTube

Creating Keepsakes Blog

Layered Masking Technique

on a card:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3MC0AAaRWI

http://www.kwernerdesign.com/blog/?p=7182

how to make your own:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxi8DpiDQRg&feature=related