Preserving Memories with Scrapbooks: Super Scrapbooking Links

Note: After my essay, below, there are dozens of links to scrapbooking websites, videos, crop locations, supplies, and more. So, scroll down if you are in a hurry, or better yet, bookmark this post so you can refer to it later.

A few months ago, I attended my first scrapbook "crop." I knew nothing about scrapbooking previously, beyond a visit to a camera store in Pickerington, Ohio, that had an astounding selection of scrapbooking products and tools and few people in the store buying or advising. There was little warmth there, and that made all the "stuff" seem very commercial to me. Also, a bit expensive.

Now, I see things differently. A friend named Janis invited me to a dinner with her needlework club (Athens Friends and Newcomers). There, I met Margaret, who invited me to the evening book club of the same main group. The book club met in the home of a woman named Jan Weckman (who I later found went to Kent State about the same time I was there). As the book club disbanded, we passed the door of a spacious craft room located off the foyer. I asked if I could see the room: two rooms, with big tables, comfortable chairs, a large-screen TV hooked up to a computer, all manner of tools and punches and stamps and binders and paper!

"What is this?" I asked, all Janice-in-Wonderland. "This is where I hold scrapbooking workshops," Jan replied (or something to that effect, I felt like I'd found the end of the new-crafty-person-in-town rainbow and, one-two-three, I'd signed up for the next class.

It was a Saturday morning at 10 a.m. and went until 4 p.m. The reasonable price included a healthful lunch as well. I took along the scrapbook I had been working on (with no exposure to other scrapbooks or "crops"). And purchased a few products Jan had in her studio from Creative Memories (with all the tools she had available, only the most basic of supplies were needed, and everything CM offers is acid-free and will keep your family photos safe for generations).

It was a great way to spend a rainy summer Saturday, and the eight women there were friendly and interesting. It was easy to start conversations because everyone had their family photographs with them and there were scenes of a child here, a vacation there, a holiday as well. The second crop I attended at Jan's house had a few of the same women, and a few I hadn't met yet. The third crop, earlier today, the same. I saw some women I knew and the others were scrapbooking friends-to-be. We swapped the information we had about the recent tornados that hit Athens and Meigs Counties (about 38 hours earlier), and I marveled that more information had not been available in this age of instant news (but the newspaper's building had been seriously damaged and our other paper in town only publishes twice a week).

Afterward, I couldn't help but think of my grandmother, Helen Greene. She made beautiful quilts, all pieced by hand and quilted by hand by the women in her church group. I wondered how their conversations compared to those in crops today: children, husbands, school activities, work, books read, recipes tried, movies, illness. But also there are periods of silence. Jan has quiet jazz playing in the background and fresh brewed coffee. How blessed I feel to have found Jan and her workshops.

Since Jan sells Creative Memories products, I am using those products now (previously I had bought materials at Wal-Mart). I also purchased CM's "Storybook Creator" and am learning how to do the digital scrapbooking. Since I've worked in Photoshop for years (creating book covers), it was pretty easy for me to pick up, but even without that background I think it would be fairly easy. After an hour or so, anyone with some digital photos (or print photos scanned in) should be happily creating a digital scrapbook page. (See my first effort in the image above.)

I spent some time searching for scrapbooking information online and perhaps these links will be of interest to you too. If I've left anything out (and I'm sure I have, this is not an exhaustive list, who has that kind of time...), let us all know in the comments field. Or, join Appalachian Morning on Facebook, and leave a comment there.


CATEGORIES BELOW:

1. General Information


2. Videos


3. Scrapbooking Supplies & Tools


4. Workspace


5. Digital Scrapbooking


6. Instructors / Crops / Conventions


7. Scrapbooking Magazines


8. Books on Scrapbooking (and Card Making)

ONE--GENERAL INFORMATION:

CREATING KEEPSAKES

MEMORY MAKERS MAGAZINE

CREATIVE MEMORIES

SIMPLE SCRAPBOOKS

SCRAPBOOKS, ETC. (A BETTER HOMES & GARDENS SITE)

SCRAPBOOK.COM

A GREAT VIDEO ON TAKING PHOTOS FROM BOXES TO SCRAPBOOK

SCRAPBOOK FLAIR

TWO--VIDEOS:

MY ASSISTANT, TYLER WINSTON, HAS SET UP A YOUTUBE CHANNEL WITH FAVORITE VIDEOS RELATED TO SCRAPBOOKING!

ALL CREATIVE MEMORIES VIDEOS

STAMPINGTON & COMPANY'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL

THREE--SCRAPBOOKING SUPPLIES & TOOLS:

CRICUT MACHINE

SILHOUETTE SD

VIDEO ON 4 FAVORITE TOOLS

CREATIVE MEMORIES

YOU CAN FIND MANY SCRAPBOOKING SUPPLIES FOR SALE ON EBAY.

IDEAS: CHARITY CROPS; MASQUERADE CROPS; TIPS & TECHNIQUES CROPS

YAHOO SHOPPING LISTS SCRAPBOOKING SUPPLIES

TRAVEL SCRAPPIN': "QUALITY SCRAPBOOKING SUPPLIES FOR ALL YOUR TRAVEL ADVENTURES"

QUIRKS OF ART

STUFF4SCRAPBOOKING

FOUR--WORKSPACE:



FIVE--DIGITAL SCRAPBOOKING

CREATIVE MEMORIES: DIGITAL SCRAPBOOKING IDEAS

DIGITAL SCRAPBOOKING SOFTWARE REVIEWS (TOP 10)

CREATIVE MEMORIES: DIGITAL SOLUTIONS (ON YOUTUBE)

MEMORY MIXER (ON YOUTUBE)

MY MEMORIES SUITE

MAC SCRAP

SCRAP GIRLS

SIX--INSTRUCTORS / CROPS / CONVENTIONS:

GREAT AMERICAN SCRAPBOOK CONVENTIONS

U.S. SCRAPBOOK STORE LOCATOR

CREATIVE MEMORIES "FIND A CONSULTANT"

MY SCRAPBOOKING TEACHER, JAN WECKMAN, AND LINKS TO PURCHASE PRODUCTS (CREATIVE MEMORIES)

PROJECT CENTER AT CREATIVE MEMORIES

WHAT IS A "CROP"?

HOSTING A CROP

PREPARING TO ATTEND A CROP

OUR CROPS PLUS

MICHELLE VOKE'S BLOG HAS A LIST OF CROPS IN PA, MD, VA (AUG '10 - APRIL '11)

INTERVIEW WITH ALI EDWARDS

REAL WOMEN SCRAP TV

Creating Keepsakes Conventions - Scrapbooking conventions held throughout the United States.
Memories ScrapbooKing Expo - Shows in Ohio, Florida, and New Jersey.
Scrapbooks Megameet - Scrapbooking conventions in the Great Lakes area.
Scrapbook Tour -Midwest
Scrapbook Portal Events - US and Canada.
Crop All Day - North Texas and Oklahoma.
Get Croppin' - mid-Atlantic area
Crop a Lot Retreats - East Coast
Croptopia Getaways - Northeast (cruises, too)

SEVEN--SCRAPBOOKING MAGAZINES:

EIGHT--BOOKS ON SCRAPBOOKING (AND CARD MAKING ALSO):

Creating a Great Display of Your Photographs

As Mark and I pack up our framed photographs, loose photographs, photo albums, paintings, and photo negatives for our move (whew!).... and as I keep looking through decorating books for new ideas in our new-to-us home (with, thank goodness, a lot more wall space)... I was thinking of something I read about in a book on displaying photographs.

If you're like me, you've ended up with a hodge-podge of favorite photos, all different sizes, styles, some in color, some in black and white. Perhaps you'd like to display them together on the wall, but need something to unify them...

If you have photo-editing software (like Photoshop), you can scan the photos (or pull up your digital files) and saving under a new name (to preserve your original) start playing around with adjusting the color. By working several photographs with the same treatment (described below), you will unify the photographs visually and with similar frame, achieve unity in your arrangement on the wall. (This technique is also helpful in creating collages/memory books.)

Consider these photos and their treatments:

Here is a photo of my friend, David Pike. It was taken outside on a sunny day at The Inn at Cedar Falls in Logan, Ohio. There is a lot of color in the photo, but I wanted to focus on my friend...

...so...I have gone into Photoshop, cropped it a bit, and chosen "image" > "adjustments">"photo filter" and "sepia." Which do you prefer?
Next, here's a photograph of my beloved dog, Buster, from years ago. The original photo was in black and white (taken with film) and scanned into my computer. Though I usually love black and white, this seemed too harsh to me. It must have been a sunny day or perhaps the scan was just set at too high of a contrast.

So, I decided to alter this in Photoshop. First, I made sure the "mode" was changed from "grayscale" to "RGB." Then, under "image">"adjustments">"photo filter," I chose "orange 70%" and warmed up Buster's photo. But, in this case, I ended up preferring the original black and white photo. That's why it's important never to work on the original, work on a copy of it.

Mark and I had gone to a Japanese steakhouse with my sister, Joan, for Mark's birthday in May. It was a lot of fun and we had the waitress take our photo. Unfortunately, their camera setting was off and we ended up looking like we'd been out in the sun too long. Also, Joan's eyes were closed.

Still, I wanted something to remember this night by in our photo album, so I scanned the file, converted it to "grayscale" in Photoshop, and cropped Joan out of the photo.


Ugh, it looks like a poor newspaper photo... Not really an improvement at all.

I tried sprucing it up by going converting it back to RGB and then going to "image">"adjustments">"hue saturation"> and fooling around a bit with the color. I like this version better. But, it really shows that you have to start with a good photo to get anything worth hanging on your wall. I think I'll save this for the photo album only.



Using photo-editing software, you can tint the photograph to match the warmth or coolness of the room where you are going to display it.


Here's a photo of my bird, Bailey, taken a few years ago. Bailey, like Buster, passed away, and this is one of my favorite photos of her.

I changed it to sepia and actually like it better. If I were to do an arrangement of photos using the one of David, shown earlier, and this one of Bailey, they would look well together. Let's see...

If I work a bit more on Buster's photo (changing to "sepia" and also adjusting the brightness), AND, if I add in a photo of Buddy and Puck (David's dogs). Their photo was in color, but I've altered it to match these. I then put frames around these, still in Photoshop, and could move them around and see just how this arrangement might look on my wall. This sure beats pounding a bunch of holes in the wall as I changed my mind---back in the olden days before computers.

Of course, there is still an art to arranging photos on the wall, once you've got them the way you want each photo to look--and a unified theme or style. Check out Decorating with Pictures by Stephanie Hoppen for tips on that subject (available on Amazon), as is Decorating with Family Photos by Ryne Hazen and Teresa Hazen.

Here is a good article: "How Should I Frame and Display My Photographs" from the National Archives.

And another "The Meaning of Family Photographs" by Charles Williams (no relation).

Here are tips from "Mom Central" on displaying family photos.