Scrapbook & Cards Today Blog

Travel mini album with Aly!

 

With the summer travel season, many of us will have lots of travel/vacation photos to scrapbook.  One of my favorite ways to do that is to create a mini album using photo collages so I can fit in as many photos of our wonderful memories as possible.  Last summer I shared with you a 4x6 photo collage mini album I made with a free Photoshop template HERE.   Well, this summer I’d like to share with you another easier way to scrapbook your travel photos using photo collages.  I created the photo collages for this 8x8 mini album using Google’s free photo editing software, Picasa .  Click on images to enlarge:

 

 

Supplies: 8x8 album (American Crafts), patterned paper (Echo Park Paper Co, October Afternoon, Teresa Collins), corrugated alphas (Jillibean Soup), letter stickers (Echo Park Paper Co), kraft luggage tags (Jillibean Soup), cardstock stickers (Colorbok, Echo Park Paper Co, Making Memories), twill (Jillibean Soup), ribbon (Offray), acrylic stamps (Jillibean Soup), ink pad (Clearsnap, Martha Steward Crafts), border punch (EK Success), circle punches (EK Success, Marvey Uchida), other (machine stitching)

Picasa has a wonderful collage maker that allows you to select any number of photos to create several different types of collages—grids, mosaics, frame mosaics, picture piles (like a scattered pile of Polaroid photos), contact sheets, and it even superimposes photos over each other.  You can adjust the width of the spacing between photos, change the background color, and shuffle the photos around to where you want them to be.  Picasa also offers different orientations, sizes, and proportions, and you can even set your own custom sizes/proportions.  Once you’ve created your collage, you can save it to your hard drive and upload it to your favorite photo printing site.  You can keep your collage together, or trim it into smaller sections, or individual photos to fit on your scrapbook page or mini album.  How easy is that?  Plus it’s all totally free!

Now, a few tips about this mini album: 
1. I used an American Crafts Modern Album which gave me the flexibility to alter the cover to my liking, and since it’s a D-ring I can add in more photo collages or pages in the future. 
2. I also used two October Afternoon 8x8 paper pads as my background pages, which saved me some time so I didn’t have to crop down 12x12 papers.
3. To create the memorabilia pocket, I cut out a pocket shape from patterned paper and machine stitched it to my background page.  I then used glue dots to adhere the coins we saved from our trip to a kraft luggage tag, and added a ribbon and some letter stickers to make the word, “pull”.
4. The journaling blocks were made by simply using a ruler and a fine point marker to create light lines as guides for my handwritten journaling.
5. Keeping the same design scheme throughout the album saved time, and created a cohesive feel.

Well, I hope these ideas have inspired you to get those travel photos scrapped.  Sometimes a stack of travel photos can be overwhelming, but using these tips I’ve shared with you can help save time and effort while still producing an album that you’ll love!

~ Aly Dosdall

Happy 4th of July!

For all our US friends, we would like to wish you a very happy 4th of July!  We loved this layout from Nancy Damiano and just had to share! 

 

What did you do today?  Where will you be enjoying fireworks tonight?  Our publisher Catherine will be in Marblehead, MA. enjoying a fabulous fireworks display!

 

A perspective challenge with Lisa!

Today I challenge you to play with perspective in your photos, adding great interest to your layouts! Most cameras (even point and shoots) allow you to play with the focus point-- that is where in the viewfinder the lens will focus when you take your picture. On my Canon Rebel, I see a little red dot light up on the focus point as I start to press down my shutter button. Have a look in your manual to how to move around the focus points on your camera, too.

 


For the layout above I took multiple photos of my daughters changing the focus point from one to the other. Although the effect is subtle, you can see in the two photos that the focus moves from one little face to the other. (I also used the word "Focus" in my title as a double entendre, referring both to the camera work and the focus it takes to parent two little people.)

To make the effect stronger, pull your subjects further apart, one closer to you, and the subject that is not in your focus point will then be fuzzier. Moving your focus point sometimes takes a little trial and error, but it can also allow you to tell a story with your photos by putting the focus exactly where you want it. (Pun intended!)

~ Lisa Kisch

Happy Canada Day!

Wishing all our Canadian friends a Happy Canada Day and a fun, safe long weekend!  Here are some treasures to share from some of our readers!

 

 

Jennifer Day

 
Janet Zeppa

 
Alycia Tedford

Thank you ladies!  We would love to share some more over the weekend so be sure to share. Send them to ideas@scrapbookandcards.com!

~ Catherine

 

 

Project 12 - May reveal and new July sketch!

Project 12 May in June 2011.  Still going strong!  I really enjoyed using the May sketch this month.  I think it’s because I liked the smaller photos.  I think it was also easy for me because I didn’t take a lot of photos in May, but the shots I got worked perfectly, so it made the layout come together really easy for me.  It may have also been the pink and orange washi tape.  That stuff made me smile big time!

 As a reminder, here’s what the May sketch Becky created looked like:

 

And this is what I came up with this month:

 

 

 

I liked the burst of different colors on this layout, which was very spring themed with Mother’s Day tucked in there and a great big photo with ME in it right out front and center.  This layout also made me happy because I had a few photos of Morgan to choose from, and my 7 year old is becoming quite elusive (if she’s even HOME), so it made me happy to be able to include her sweet face on a layout.  Payton is always a ham for the camera and is still home with me a lot, so it’s never hard to include her.

Here’s a couple of layouts I wanted to share this month from some of our Project 12 followers using the May sketch.

 

I was immediately drawn to the little houses on the lower right en lieu of flowers in the sketch.  So fun and makes me think of home and what you’ve been doing.  I also really like that little window flap on the upper right that opens to reveal an extra photo.  Very creative idea!

 I also loved the concept behind this one from Gail:

 
 

I think it’s a great idea to take photos and create a layout about what you can grow in your garden (I am completely jealous!) and I adore the button border!

Thank you so much for playing along this month, ladies!  To make it even sweeter, the prize for playing along this time is a one-year subscription to SCT AND the CardMaps Today special issue!  What a great prize!!!!

The winner from my blog is:   ShellyJ

And the winner from the SCT blog is:  Darla Weber

Woot!  Shelly!  I know Shelly!  And congratulations Darla!  Please send us your snail mail address to ideas@scrapbookandcards.com with "P12 May winner" in your reference line.

Linking a layout to my blog, this blog, or emailing ideas@scrapbookandcards.com to get your layout on the Facebook page by the 28^th of each month enters you in a  drawing for a fun prize.  (ladies, we are working hard to get the final layouts uploaded to FB!)  Before I reveal the next prize, check out the June sketch we revealed last month HERE that you'll are working on:

 

More square photos.  I am a happy girl.  Remember, per the June 1 post where the June sketch was revealed (again HERE), I mentioned that the prize for June is the Ladybug Garden Collection from Doodlebug.  Delightful! 

And now (drumroll please!) for the July sketch reveal!  Looking ahead, this is the sketch we’ll be using in the coming month:

 

The prize you’ll be playing for when it is time to compile those July photos is the PK4 from Picture Keeper AND some extra little goodies too!  What a fun prize!

 

"Just insert the Picture Keeper drive into any USB port on your PC or Mac, open program, click "Start Backup" and Picture Keeper automatically finds and saves all your pictures. That’s it! Picture Keeper does all the work for you! What's more, subsequent backups are fast because Picture Keeper will only copy the newest images when you use it again to save your recently added or changed pictures."  

As always, thank you so much for playing along, and I’ll see you back here August 1^st! 

P.S.  Roxy.   Husbands.  Of course that’s a Spring layout.  There wasn’t anything Christmas about it!  (give her some love, ladies).

~ Davinie

(If you are just joining us and thinking what is Project 12, it is a fun monthly challenge based on a sketch by Becky Fleck of PageMaps.  Becky has created a perfect double page sketch that is revealed right here on the 1st of each month.  We release on the 1st of the month so that you have it in mind as you take your photos throughout the month.  If you complete that sketch by the 28th of the following month (ie today's July sketch does not have to be linked or sent to us until August 28th) and either link it in the comment section of the blog post when that sketch was revealed (ie July sketches would be linked to today's post where the July sketch was revealed) then you will be entered in to our drawing for a monthly prize from our OH SO FABULOUS sponsors!  To see all the sketches, visit our website at www.scrapbookandcards.com.)