Scrapbooking Has No Rules. Yes, But Scrapbooking Does Have Norms.

Posted on 02/16/2011 by Stephanie Medley-Rath

Each Wednesday, I write a post that is from my dissertation.

Over the last few Wednesdays, I have shared with you several sources of scrapbooking norms (e.g., scrapbooking celebrities, friends and family, industry workers). Today, I begin a discussion of what the norms of scrapbooking are. Most scrapbookers and industry workers (broadly defined) argue that one of the major appealing points of scrapbooking is that it does not have any rules. And compared to other leisure activities, such as sports, they are correct. Even if there are not really rules, there are norms—expectations and patterns of behavior that are followed.
Scrapbooking norms can be grouped into a few categories: purpose of scrapbooking, viewing the scrapbook, and telling the story.
The Purpose of Scrapbooking
Scrapbooking is many things to many people and has varied purposes. Overall, scrapbooking is relaxing and a fun way to archive one’s memories for future generations and spend time with others. Not all people scrapbook for these reasons, but most do at least some of the time. I discuss each of these reasons and a fourth category, other purposes that respondents mention over the next few Wednesdays.
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Stephanie

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Four Ways You Can Use Wikipedia to Scrapbook

Posted on 02/15/2011 by Stephanie Medley-Rath

I like to add interesting bits of trivia to some of my scrapbook pages. If I attend a baseball game, I include the score of the game on my layout. When I did a page about my walk across the Golden Gate Bridge, I included some facts about the bridge. Most of this information is pretty easy to find, but I thought I would tell you about a four different ways you can use Wikipedia in your scrapbooks.
Tip #1: Time
You can use Wikipedia to give you ideas as to what to scrapbook. Searching by month gives you a lot of great ideas of interesting facts to include about any given month. Taking this a step further, you can scroll down to the bottom of the page of the month you have selected and choose a specific day. All of a sudden you have information on things like famous people born on a particular day in history. There are also links to external sites with more events that occurred on a particular day. What a great way to scrapbook a birthday in a new way.
Tip #2: Places
Do you ever travel to new places? Do you ever travel to the same place over and over again? Well, look up that place on Wikipedia. If its a state, you’ll learn the state’s flower, bird, and other interesting facts about the state. Out of curiosity, I looked up my hometown and my itty-bitty hometown (pop. 5,685) has some information available. What an easy way to find out new details about a place you visited.
Tip #3: Favorites
Look up your favorite things. Whether you enjoy Trader Joe’s or ice cream, you can find an entry on your favorite thing. If you are making pages about the more everyday aspects of your life or completing a book of me album, you find it entertaining to learn more about your favorites.
Tip#4: Events
Maybe you attended the Super Bowl. Maybe you hosted a Super Bowl party. Either way, you can often find entries about specific events. The Super Bowl has a general entry plus additional entries for each Super Bowl. If you can’t remember the score of a game or want to learn the history of an event, check it out on Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is a great source to find trivial information about things that matter to you.

Stephanie

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Scrap Happy: Share an Electronic File of Photographs (File Under Remember Love)

Posted on 02/14/2011 by Stephanie Medley-Rath
This entry is part 13 of 66 in the series My Scrap Happy Project

Each Monday, I discuss my Scrap Happy project based on Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun.
Besides emailing and mailing photographs of my daughter to various family members, I can create a larger electronic file of photographs.
My mom doesn’t take photographs anymore. Well, she does, just not nearly as much as me. I have become the family photographer. Everyone in my family wants the photos I have taken. The problem is that I take a huge volume of photos. Take my sister’s visit last summer over my daughter’s birthday for example. There were around 500 photographs just from my camera (now my sister used my camera and took what appeared to be minute by minute photographs of my daughter’s birthday party, which I am thankful for though I was surprised at the sheer number of photographs when I went uploaded the images). No one wants to print all these images out and there is no need to print out every single photograph. If you do that, you might as well be using film. I also edit all of my photographs before printing. I mostly do just basic editing like cropping. I decided to burn all of my edited photographs to a disc for my mom. This way she does not have to weed through all the photographs to look for the really good ones or edit them herself. I’ve already done that work. She still will only print out a fraction of the photographs that I have edited, but this will save her a great deal of time once she does decide to print her photographs. Easy.
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Stephanie

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This Week on Scrapworthy Lives: February 12, 2011

Posted on 02/12/2011 by Stephanie Medley-Rath

Each Saturday, I provide a compilation of links from the week’s posts.

7 Ways to get more out of Scrapworthy Lives:
1. Subscribe by RSS. Click on the RSS button (in the upper left corner) and you can receive all of Scrapworthy Live’s posts in your RSS feeder.
2. Comment. I would love to hear from you! Join the discussion by commenting.
3. Become a fan of Scrapworthy Lives on Facebook.
4. Follow scrapworthy on Twitter.
5. Join the Email List so you never miss a post! You will receive no more than two emails a week from this list. Subscribers will be the first to learn about any new products and promotions at Scrapworthy Lives.
6. Email me your questions and suggestions. Email me at stephaniemedleyrath at gmail dot com or contact me here (http://www.scrapworthylives.com/contact-me/) and let me know what you’re thinking, what you’d like to see, and any questions you might have. I will personally respond to your emails and may use your questions in future articles.
7. Share a great article you find with your friends. Tweet it, facebook it (is that a real expression?), email it, save it and so on. Just look at the link at the bottom of each article to share it in the way that suits you best. I appreciate it!

Stephanie

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Scrapweb: February 11, 2011 Edition

Posted on 02/11/2011 by Stephanie Medley-Rath

Here are the best links from the web for the week:

Understanding Photobuckets Terms of Use & Privacy
I have only dabbled in Flickr. I have never used Photobucket. I have been exploring using one of these services, and Katie provides a great discussion regarding Photobucket’s terms of service.
Scrapbooking on vacation with no supplies? Here’s how!
Lisa Kisch explains how she prepped a scrapbook layout without any supplies while on vacation. My favorite part of her post was the link to www.wordle.com. What a clever and easy way to make an interesting journaling layout.
Does Home Photo Printing Really Save Money?
Trent writes a blog that teaches people about personal finance. One of his trademarks is frugality and testing the economics of various frugal-tasks. Here he takes on photo printing. It should come as no surprise that printing outside the home is less expensive, while less convenient.
Designing Your Memories & Communicating With Color
Joey explains how to use a color. Though the post is ultimately geared towards digital scrapbookers, conventional scrapbookers will also learn a lot of useful information about using color in your scrapbooking.
iPhone Love
I do not own an iPhone. I do own an iPod Touch and have been dowloading apps since Santa brought it. Trish describes several photograph apps that look really cool! I have a couple of them already, but love how my iPod Touch can take such fun photos with the different photography apps out there.
Pop-up Palooza!
Eric has an incredibly unique scrapbooking style. In this post he shows he creates pop-up, yes pop-up scrapbook pages. His pages are absolutely amazing.

Stephanie

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B&B Review: Get it Scrapped!

Posted on 02/10/2011 by Stephanie Medley-Rath
This entry is part 14 of 45 in the series Books & Blogs Review

Each Thursday I review a book or blog related to scrapbooking.
The Review
Get it Scrapped! provides great tutorials and scrapbooking inspiration. The blog is just one aspect of the site, as classes are available for purchase.
I reviewed the blog’s posts from January 2-31, 2011. There were 18 posts. Only one post was not directly related to scrapbooking, but could still be of interest to scrapbookers (it was a post about making vintage-style brooches).
There was not one giveaway-centered post during the month, which is surprising considering this website does have scrapbooking classes available for sale. I am surprised that they did not offer any giveways for spots in any of their classes. Further investigation finds that they are moving their classes to a new classroom, so this might be why there were no giveaways. Don’t get me wrong, giveaways are fine in moderation. It is just that some blogs have more giveaways than useful content, so to not have any giveaways is refreshing.
I often link to posts from Get it Scrapped! on my Friday Scrapweb posts. I really like their monthly idea sheet for scrapbooking ideas based on the month. As I already mentioned, they also provide several tutorials. This month, they offered two tutorials on using Copic markers.
The best part of Get it Scrapped! is how nicely their homepage is organized. If you are new to their site or are looking for specific types of content, it is easy to find from their homepage and if you go to their About page, they offer a map with explanation of what readers will find in each section of their website. Overall, if you are looking for blog about scrapbooking that has educational value, then visit Get it Scrapped!

Publishers and Authors
If you are a publisher or an author and would like me to review your scrapbooking-related book or blog, please email me at stephaniemedleyrath at gmail dot com.

Stephanie

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My Friend Introduced Me to the Hobby

Posted on 02/09/2011 by Stephanie Medley-Rath

Each Wednesday, I write a post that is from my dissertation.

Thus far, I have discussed how scrapbooking norms are influenced by the scrapbooking industry, but the reality is that most of my respondents rarely learn about scrapbooking purely from industry workers or avenues controlled by industry workers (e.g., scrapbooking-related television or magazines).
Most scrapbookers learn about scrapbooking initially from a family member or a friend. This means that the scrapbooking industry must utilize these relationships to gain new scrapbookers and to sell to existing scrapbookers. There are several direct selling scrapbooking companies. They have had their ups and downs but they still exist. They work because they take advantage of these relationships. Brick and mortar stores should also strategize to take advantage of these relationships. Share a discount with a current customer if they bring in a friend who also makes a purchase (and give them a discount, too). Create a class that is geared towards a current customer bringing in a friend (again, offer a discount). As a business owner, you want to not only satisfy your current customers, but bring in new customers, too. And possibly most importantly, get on the social network sites.
Other scrapbookers are a source of norms beyond just introducing the hobby to others. Other scrapbookers provide feedback and ideas directly and indirectly (e.g., sharing a scrapbook with a new technique may cause the other scrapbooker to then want to try that technique). All in all, other scrapbookers are an important source of scrapbooking norms. They may be the most important source of scrapbook norms because they rarely have a commercial motive (unless they are hosting a direct selling party where they earn free product in the process or get a store discount for bringing in a friend). Even in those cases where there is a commercial motive, the financial incentive is rather small. The moral of the story is that if you are in the scrapbooking business and are not already utilizing the relationships consumers already have to gain new customers, then you need to start strategizing. Also, be careful not to exploit these relationships in the process. The risk to your reputation is simply too great.
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Stephanie

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Scrapbook Traditions

Posted on 02/08/2011 by Stephanie Medley-Rath

“One More Christmas”
Almost anyone who scrapbooks for any length of time, comes to the conclusion that they just can not scrapbook “one more Christmas” or “one more birthday.”
The claim is that chronological scrapbookers have this problem. Therefore, you should stop scrapbooking chronologically. Instead you should scrapbook what inspires you. Problem solved.
Not so fast. Just because you decide to start scrapbooking what inspires you instead of chronologically, does not mean that you stop taking photographs or collecting memorabilia in a time-oriented fashion. You may still have photographs from each of your children’s birthdays. You may still mainly take photographs of events. (See chronological scrapbookers are often event-based scrapbookers, too).
What I want to point out is that one function of scrapbooking is to memorialize traditions. To do this, you have memorialize the tradition more than once as evidence that it is a tradition and not just a one time occurrence. Yes, you can memorialize your household’s traditions without being a chronological or event-based scrapbookerr, but it takes more effort.
Instead of complaining about scrapbooking “one more Christmas,” decide what you want to do. If one reason that you scrabpook is to chronicle family traditions, then scrapbook “one more Christmas” even if it is very similar to last year’s Christmas. That is the point of tradition–to do the same thing again and again. There is nothing wrong with that.
Don’t get me wrong, an inspiration-based scrapbooker could also chronicle family traditions, but it might be more challenging. Inspiration-based scrapbookers are already memorializing the everyday, why not scrapbook “one more Christmas?” Start a file of Christmas or whatever the tradition is and after a few years, scrapbook the tradition. You don’t have to scrapbook every Christmas, each year, because that is what the calendar tells you to do.
It is possible to be both a chronological and inspiration based scrapbooker. This message is nothing new. if you follow any of the scrapbooking celebrities, they mainly emphasize scrapbooking by what inspires you or whatever you feel like, yet most were super-excited to get their Project Life kit so that they would also have a chronological record. What I want you to get out of this post is that it is important to memorialize traditions and that there are multiple ways to accomplish this task. Also, I want you to remember that traditions can be anything. I mentioned birthdays and Christmas because these are a couple of my traditions, you might have other traditions.

Stephanie

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Scrap Happy: Mail Photos (File Under Remember Love)

Posted on 02/07/2011 by Stephanie Medley-Rath
This entry is part 12 of 66 in the series My Scrap Happy Project

Each Monday, I discuss my Scrap Happy project based on Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun.

Last Monday, I talked about how emailing photos of my daughter to family members is one way to give proofs of love. Today, I talk about mailing photos of my daughter to relatives as another way to give proofs of love.
But Email is So Easy…
Yes, these tasks are really the same type of task, but the logistics are different. Emailing photos is relatively easy in the digital era. Email is nice, but not everyone uses email, especially older relatives. Younger relatives are also less likely to use email as they are using facebook and text messaging to do much of their communicating.
Logistics of Mail
Mailing photos requires ordering extra prints or printing out photos at home. It might also involve a trip to the post office if you mail enough photos that the package requires additional postage. This task is a bit more difficult than simply emailing a few photos every so often.
What I Do
At Christmas, I made photo card and sent it to a few family members. In this envelope, I also included a few wallet sized photos of various snapshots of my daughter. I have only had my daughter’s photograph taken professionally once, so it is easy to slack off on sending out printed copies of photos when you haven’t spent a fortune getting professional photographs taken and getting dozens of copies of the same photo in the process. (I realize that I instead of spending the money on professional photos, I have spent a fortune on camera equipment.) I think it will be difficult to remember this particular task, but have a strategy in mind.
Option 1
Whenever I have photographs printed (about every 1-2 months, I could have 2-3 images printed up as wallets or as duplicates. Then I could mail out photographs to those relatives who do not use email or who would like printed copies.
Option 2
I could always just leave the task for Christmas and my daughter’s birthday (I send her birthday photograph with her thank you card). Her birthday is in the summer so plenty of time has passed to accumulate a lot of photographs to choose from. I think this is what I will do. Instead of only including her birthday photograph, I will also add a few snapshots that were taken since Christmas.
I can handle this.
I can print out a few photos twice a year to send to some of my family members. What about you? Do you email or mail photos of your children? Which do you prefer?
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Stephanie

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This Week on Scrapworthy Lives: February 5, 2011

Posted on 02/05/2011 by Stephanie Medley-Rath

Each Saturday, I provide a compilation of links from the week’s posts.

7 Ways to get more out of Scrapworthy Lives:
1. Subscribe by RSS. Click on the RSS button (in the upper left corner) and you can receive all of Scrapworthy Live’s posts in your RSS feeder.
2. Comment. I would love to hear from you! Join the discussion by commenting.
3. Become a fan of Scrapworthy Lives on Facebook.
4. Follow scrapworthy on Twitter.
5. Join the Email List so you never miss a post! You will receive no more than two emails a week from this list. Subscribers will be the first to learn about any new products and promotions at Scrapworthy Lives.
6. Email me your questions and suggestions. Email me at stephaniemedleyrath at gmail dot com or contact me here (http://www.scrapworthylives.com/contact-me/) and let me know what you’re thinking, what you’d like to see, and any questions you might have. I will personally respond to your emails and may use your questions in future articles.
7. Share a great article you find with your friends. Tweet it, facebook it (is that a real expression?), email it, save it and so on. Just look at the link at the bottom of each article to share it in the way that suits you best. I appreciate it!

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