::ANNA::

Good times

...spent with Mum and Dad. 

We're not doing a whole lot other than just being together.  Here they are with E & L on the couch playing airplane crashes.  Luke's ides of course.

On the home front...

My feet have barely touched the ground this past few weeks.

I thought things might get a little quieter once E & L started their respective schools but that does not seem to be the case.

Mum and Dad are in town for the whole of this month to help us with some house projects.  Dad and I picked up some bright red cherry paint for the living room walls and a nice teal for the laundry room today.  I'm excited to see it go up.

Mum meanwhile is working on planting in the yard so we can finish that up before Fall arrives.  She has Luke helping out as we pulled him from daycare today.  After many tears on his part and much heartache on mine we made the decision today just to call it quits. I'm not sure if we have done the right thing or what I will do longterm in terms of work, but right now, we'll make it work.

Ella on the other hand, in stark contrat to last years events, seems to be enjoying her new school (as much as Ella can).  She'd rather not go to school if the truth be known but for the most part she's happy.  For that I am glad.  She's even riding the regular school bus this with the rest of her neighbourhood friends this year which is a major leap.

Workwise, I am slammed.  It's been one of those weeks where I have wondered often how I will get it all done.  Tomorrow's always a new day right? 

Huge Congrats

...to my sister and her her boyfriend of 10 years who just got engaged.  Proof that miracles do happen.  Just kidding Sah.

Wedding is rumoured to be July 2009 so I might be crossing the pond next year.  It'll be the first time in 4 years I have been "home".

FloralART Paperie No. 11, FotoBlendz Clipping Masks No. 6, Mixed Stamped Alpha

Blow Up 2

A new version of Blow Up by Alien Skin is here.  Insert BIG grin.

Blow Up is a Photoshop plugin that creates enlargements of photos or images.  I use Blow Up 1 both professionally and personally.

I particularly like "blowing up" old scanned photos or small elements in kits without loss of resolution.

I heart this software but not sure I will upgrade just yet.  I am tempted though.

Typically I will fork out for the latest and greatest and a few months later something new will be on the market.  It's frustrating but seems to be the way of the world these days.

In the meantime, it's going on my ever growing wish list.

Happy Labor Day!

Digital Organization

To be organized in your scrapbooking you’ve got to be organized with your photos and scrapbooking supplies i.e. creative assets.  There are no rules as to how you go about this just as long as you have a system of organization in place that works for you.  You need to know where your photos are and what you have on your hard drive in order to put it all together in some sort of semblance of order to fullfill that end goal of creating pages you’ll love and cherish in the future.

 

There are lots of options.  Almost too many.  When I began digital scrapbooking it was, in a sense, easier.  There was less choice and so it was a little more simple.  We digital scrapbookers now have a lot more resources available to us.  Some we can glean from the traditional scrapbooking world while others are more unique to our tool set. 

 

Software falls into that latter category, and as digital scrapbooking becomes a more mainstream “sport”, we have more to choose from.  The photo-editing software packages that were available 6 years ago are becoming more sophisticated and new one’s are slowly breaking into the market.  Better still they are being better tailored to our needs to include both an organize and edit/create approach.  Enter bundled applications.  These applications are often delivered in the same package or can be purchased together.  The following list is by no means inclusive but are the packages that I am most familiar with.  Do a google search and you will find more depending on whether you're using a Mac or Windows platform.

 

• The Bridge (Adobe Photoshop CS3)
• Adobe Photoshop Elements 7
• ACDSee 10 Photo Manager and Editor
• Adobe Lightroom 2

Each one of the above offers similar features and  is available as a 30-day trial.  This means you can download the software to your computer from the web and play with it for 30 days for free.  After the 30 day trial period you’ll have the option to purchase the software or it will cease to function.  I love that in digital scrapbooking you can try before you buy to discover what suits your needs first.  It’s all very well to read about what I like but if that doesn’t work for you then it’s all just a waste of your time and money.

 

In terms of photo organization I use none of the above.  While I love the functionality these programs offer, I find the process of photo managing time-consuming and it is all too easy to become consumed by the organization process instead of getting the job done.  My time is precious and I prefer to spend it scrapbooking. For sure, I’d love to have all my photos edited, tagged and ready to go but it’s a trade off.  It’s about prioritizing and deciding what’s most important to you.

 

I personally store my photos in a year/month/day folder structure.  I label them with letters and numbers in front of the folder name so that they remain in alphabetical order.

 

 

Within each year folder I have a “Themes” folder in which I create folders for themed albums and photobooks.   I add images to these folders as I come across them.  I have a pretty good memory for when events took place when so when I’m ready to tackle these projects I’ll search through my photos based on an estimated time period and add any applicable photos that I have missed.  I can then see what I have to work with in one folder and it makes the project a lot more manageable.

 

 

Within each month folder I have a “Layouts” folder in which I create folders for pages I want to create based on the main events from that month.  I have a hard time deleting photos, epecially those of E & L, because even if I have 10 sequential images of Luke playing with his Star Wars figures, each one captures something different.  I do not feel the need to use all of them in my scrapbooking but I am unable to delete them even if they’re out of focus or blurred.  I just like to back them up and keep them “just in case” I want to look at them again sometime in the future. 

 

 

The "Layouts" folders allow me to organize only those photos I’m going to use in my scrapbooking.  I add images and folders throughout the month as I download my photos from my camera.  I might also add text files with journaling if I have time or think I might forget the details between the time the event takes place and the time I scrapbook the supporting photos. 

 

When I am ready, and more importantly have time to scrapbook, my photos are ready to go.  I can spend my time creating pages as opposed to searching for photos.  This is not to say I don’t sometimes download my photos and get excited by the photos I took that day.  I have the flexibilty to scrapbook whichever photos I want.  I just find that my system keeps me on track in the absense of such times.

 

This system works for me in terms of photos but not in terms of digital supplies. 

 

As both a digital scrapbooker and designer I have a huge collection of product.  I generally keep my own product in separate folders from that of other designers.  Originally I began organizing my digital supplies by designer and store but as my collection has grown it has become more diffuilt to keep track of what I have.  When you don’t know what you have you lose all efficiency.

 

At the beginning of this year I began using ACDSee Photo Manager to manage my digital supplies.  While I have learned that it is not worth my time to manage my photos I have found  it is worth taking the time to tag my supplies.  I spent a good chunk of time at the beginning of the year purging my supplies and tagging all my papers and elements by color and type.  I have most of my papers tagged by pattern and elements by type, but the more I use this system, it’s become clear that I generally search for paper and elements foremost by color.

 

The process of organizing product from start to finish:

• I download a product and save to my “To sort” folder.
• I make time every week to unzip my new downloads and place them into the store/designer designated folders.  Depending on quantity of product from a particualr designer I will also have other sub folders that categorize the product by type.
• At the same time that I place the product in the folders I tag them them in ACDSee Photo Manager.  I will tag a paper by theme, color and pattern for example.
• When I am scrapbooking I have ACDSee Photo Manager Open.  If I am looking to add a white embellishment to a page I’m creating  I click on my “White” folder and “Elements” subfolder and the program will bring up all the white embellishments that I have saved on my hard drive and previously tagged.  I can also go to the "Embellishments" folder and search in the Brads or Buttons folder for example.  It’s magic. 

• I also love that the program also shows . ABR and .PSD files as thumb previews.  i.e. I have a visual of all my brush files and layered files without having to have a .PNG or .JPG saved of those files.  I drag the file I wish to use from ACDSee Photo Manager straight into Photoshop using mouse.
• I get on with the job in hand.

So for those wondering how I do 10-30 minute pages?  It’s all down to my organization.  Knowing what I have, where it is located and how to quickly access it, helps me remain efficient in documenting my day to day and creating lots of scrapbook pages.

 

Think about your organizational process, what changes can you make to make your scrapbooking more streamlined?  Think about the end goal of your pages.  Define your priorities and tweak your organizational system to support them.  What changes do you need to make to become more efficient?

 

Next Up: Photo Editing

Cute

I picked up Luke from preschool today and he said:

"Mama.  I been dreaming about you".

Needless to say he was happy to see me.

New ART

10 new products in the store this week.

You can see a few new pages I have created using some of these products here and here.

Also check out this layout by Cassie Jones using some of my new products.

Good stuff :)

Late Night Inspiration

Before I head to bed...

From Pottery Barn:

Love the clean lines of this bread bin from Anthropologie:

Totally in love with this table from Crate and Barrell.  It;s too bad we just bought a new ottoman for our living space:

 

Drawn to concentric circles from foundwandering at Etsy.

Mum and Dad arrived in town last night and will be here for a month.  Looking forward to getting some projects done both in the home and scrapbooking department.

My Scrapbooking Evolution

I started scrapbooking in Summer 2002 when Ella was born.  At the time I was actually trying to avoid the “sport” knowing full well it would quickly encroach on my need for order and create clutter in my living space.  I received some paper supplies at my baby shower and proceeded to struggle through Ella’s first year albums.  A few months in I discovered digital scrapbooking.  The appeal?  I could stretch the boundaries and do in digital what could not be done in paper.  And need I mention what I call the “triple LESS factor”? Digital Scrapbooking means less time, less money and less mess.  What’s not to love about that?

 

Over the last 6 years I have been influenced by trends and gone through phases just like every other scrapbooker.  Each phase has contributed to my evolution in the hobby and helped me grow into the scrapbooker I am today.  It’s been a journey of trial and error, figuring out what works for me and what doesn’t.  It’s been both fun and an education to take a look back.

 

I began with my 5 X 7 phase.  Digital Scrapbooking was new and 12 X 12 printing was expensive and hard to find.  Living in Japan further complicated matters.  I have always been a big advocate of printing digital pages.  My pages may not get printed immediately but they all get printed eventually.  I like to have my pages accessible, to be looked at and enjoyed.  It’s easy to forget about them when they are saved somewhere on a hard drive.

 

I quickly got the hang of Microsofts Digital Image Pro 7 (DIP) and wanted to take my pages to the next level.  Enter Photoshop Elements 2.0, and for all those still trying to come to terms with Photoshop, I can totally relate.  I would open it up, start something, get frustrated, close it down and then revert to DIP.  This cycle repeated for literally months until I had that classic “Aha!” moment.   Here began my launch into 12 X 12 digital scrapbooking with a Niecey scraplift.

 

My pages started out beginning simple and graphic.  Within months I upgraded to Photoshop CS and as my knowledge in the program increased so did the complexity of my pages.

There was the Monotone phase.

 

 

The Montage phase.

 

 

The Doodle phase.

 

 

The Quote Phase

 

 

And so on….  There were lots of phases.  6 years worth to be precise.  You can take a look at more of my older pages here.

 

Some of the phases occurred independently while others overlapped.  Looking back it is apparent that I was just trying it all on for size.  I was experimenting with what I liked and what I didn’t, trying to find balance between enjoying the art and getting my scrapbooking done, even establishing the direction and end goal of why I was scrapbooking at all.

 

It has been valuable to pay attention during the process but also to take a step back at the end and look back over my work and view it with a new perspective.  I have found that I have moved on but my pages, and the moments they represent, stand still in the time that they were created.  It has also been good to take on board the experience of others and incorporate some of their successes into my own process.  Over the years I have been influenced by many great scrapbookers, not limited to but including, Veronica Ponce, Ali Edwards, Rhonna Farrer, Stacy Julian.  I have come to the following conclusions in terms of my scrapbooking:

1. I like my photos to be in color.  They are the best reflection of what is happening now.
2. I like to have the details that surround the photo and the date. I am not a good writer and I don’t really care to write.  If I can get the job done with pictures alone and a simple title then I’m happy, but if I need to add some words I prefer to keep it brief or in list format.  Many of my early pages are based on a quote and in just 6 years I have forgotton the details surrounding my photos.
3. When the hobby turned into a career it was no longer feasible to spend hours on one page.  I like to get my pages done in 10-30 mins.
4. I like the focus of my pages to be the photos and not the art.  Most of my pages these days are photo focussed but once in a while I’ll throw in an artsy page to satisfy my need to exert my creativity. 
5. I like lots of photos on one page instead of one.
6. I like to take good photos but I will also make the best of the photos I have.
7. To accept that I am, as a scrapbooker, ever changing and therefore it is unrealistic for my pages to stay constant.
8. There are no rules.  I have the freedom to create however I wish to.  I do not have to stick to my style and switching it up prevents boredom.
9. I still like and can do paper as a digital scrapbooker, though my focus tends to be entire albums of mini-books as opposed to everyday scrapbooking.
10. I now have a distinct end goal.

And that end goal?  To preserve the memories of a life well lived and loved.  I am a creature of sentiment.  It is as simple as that.  My favorite part of scrapbooking?  I love to look at the pages I have created, remember the past, devour the details of what used to be, understand life, and ultimately, see how much I have grown over a period of time.  I like to see progress and it’s a combination of images and details that help take me down memory lane.

 

What lessons can you learn from your scrapbooking so far?  What is your end goal in terms of scrapbooking?

 

Next up:  Digital Organization

Coming Soon

Apologies for the delay.  In short:  Major issues with Typepad freezing.  Is it just me? I've formatted this post twice now.  Hopefully thrid time is a charm.  Coming later today.

More on finding your scrapbooking groove by Lain Ehmann