I am a fan of The Paperclipping Roundtable, a podcast devoted to conversation about scrapbooking and the scrapbooking industry. One thing that listeners occasionally ask (both The Paperclipping Roundtable and it’s sister show, The Paperclipping Digi Show is about having more extensive write-ups about each episode. Each time the response, is that the shows producer and hosts really do not have time to provide this in addition to their other work. They do provide links to the picks of the week and information about any sponsors, but that’s about it.
Many listeners patiently wait for new episodes to post and listen immediately. New listeners often listen to older episodes in addition the new episodes. Some listeners listen to episodes more than once.
This week, I thought that I would try something new. I often take notes during the show anyway, especially if it relates to my research in some way. I thought, why not take notes that could be shared with other listeners of the Paperclipping Roundtable? So here are my notes from The Paperclipping Roundtable episode PRT057, The Closet Trendsetter.
The Guests
This week’s guests are Wendy Smedley, Angie Lucas, Nancy Nally, and Noell Hyman. Nancy and Noell are the shows hosts. Both Wendy and Angie have been on as guests in the past. I am not linking to any of the guests or hosts because you can get those links through The Paperclipping Roundtable’s blog.
Introduction
In today’s show, Nancy Nally took the lead hosting duties. The discussion began with a brief commentary on how difficult it was for Nancy to select her CHA hot picks. Angie and Noell also talked about how they process the new products at CHA. Angie is able to let it percolate and think about after CHA. Noell has to think fast on the spot because she provides video coverage from the show floor. The biggest challenge at this year’s show was that there were not as many buzz-worthy products.
The Male Reads the Mail
Question 1: The first reader question asked about how do the guests decide what to buy for your own personal use compared to what the trends are. Nancy says it is fairly simple. She looks at CHA like it is the worlds biggest scrapbook store so she uses the same system she would use in any scrapbook store. She asks herself, what are the things I actually use? Wendy thinks about what are the things that I can not seem to find or wish that I had. Angie decides that if the item still excites her by the time it is available to consumers, then she buys it. Noell thinks about the learning curve. If she doesn’t have time to learn how to use product, then she most likely will not purchase it. Izzy (the producer) mentions that even then, he might still make a purchase if there is a promo code. Both Nancy and Noell stress that they think about how they might use the product and that they buy what they love.
Question 2: How does metadata transfer with photographs? So if a photo is emailed, does the metatdata go with it? Noell wrote a blog post recently about using metadata, which I can not find to link to right now. Overall, you should assume that the metadata will stay with the photograph. If you use Flickr, the metadata will upload with your photograph. Be careful here. This means that anyone can see your metadata if you photos are publicly available.If you use facebook, the metadata is stripped from the photos when they upload. For the most part, you have to strip the metadata from the photo in order for it to be removed.
Question 3: This was comment that Scrivener is coming to Windows.
Question 4: This was a comment from a listener about how she has been scrapbooking since 1994, finally became a Paperclipping subscriber, and has learned so much from the video tutorials.
Sponsor Message
Today’s sponsor is Big Picture Classes. The sponsor also has a giveaway to a class by Karen Grunberg. I did not catch the class name, but there will be a separate blog post on Paperclipping with more details about the giveaway.
Main Discussion
Nancy Nally, who runs Scrapbook Update, took the lead hosting duties during the discussion. Today’s topic is albums. She presents the case that the industry is moving more towards being project-centered instead of layout-centered. Being layout centered means that most scrapbookers do not put a lot of thought into album selection because the album is seen just as storage. Being project-centered means that the album is just as important of a component as the layouts. This transition stems from scrapbookers making stacks of layouts and never putting them in albums. The guests talked about how there are more albums today that can be decorated than there were in the past to prove their point. Personally, I disagree that albums have never been very important to scrapbookers. I spend a great deal of time selecting just the right album. The scrapbook industry has almost almost always had albums that could be personalized. For instance you can get Creative Memories albums engraved with a title. Other companies have produced albums with a window on the cover so you could put a title or a photo to decorate the cover. Wendy does talk about how there have been companies that offered albums that could have embroidered covers.
Angie mentioned that she has always been a project-centered scrapbooker. Noell talked about how she was a chronological scrapbooker but now practices the Library of Memories (LOM) system. Now that she uses LOM, she does sometimes end up with a stack of layouts because she has to think for a minute about which album it should go into.
The discussion of album covers led to a discussion of page protectors. They say there are more varieties of page protectors now. You can get page protectors that hold layouts or protectors that are more like photo sleeves. For instance, American Crafts now has photo sleeves that are 6x 12.
They talked about how consumer demand for gimicky page protectors is usually small, so alternatives have existed before but they tend to fade away. Wendy (I think) mentioned SEI’s Preservation Series as an alternative album type and there was a brief discussion of the different album styles, which I have wrote about on this blog before here.
The guests then identified a couple of products they would like to see more of produced. First, they want more color/fabric combination in albums. They also want to see more album or page protector styles that completely protect the page. One of the guests (I missed which one) complained about how dust and dog hair finds its way into her top-loading page protectors. They talked about the box style of scrapbook albums and how they were not always in the most stylish color so they were not much of an option right now. I agree and would add that the box style scrapbooks are problematic if you need to get everything in an album. I used one of these for my pregnancy journal and I really have 2 or 3 too many page protectors. It is a struggle every time I close the album to get it closed. They work better for more open ended projects, where continuing your story into another album is more feasible or for smaller projects.
Wrap-Up
Noell shared a coupon code for The Very Basics with Katrina Kennedy, a photography class from Get It Scrapped.
Picks of the Week
I am not going to go over their picks of the week because they have links to the picks of the week in the blog post for this episode.
Where Can You Be Found
I am also not going over this segment because they have links to where each of the guests can be found in the blog post for this episode.
Closing (from me not the episode)
Well, that’s this week’s episode! I can’t make any promises that I will ever do this again. This took a great deal of time and I am not sure how many people really want the show notes. I’ll have to think about it. I also was never authorized by anyone from the Paperclipping Roundtable to do this, so they could be really mad that I did. I hope you enjoyed the notes. Let me know what you think in the comments below.
Stephanie
Stephanie Medley-Rath is a sociologist and scrapbooker who studies scrapbooking and memory keeping. Scrapworthy Lives is a blog focused on her sociological analysis of scrapbooking, with a sprinkling of posts about Stephanie's own scrapbooking projects.
