Scrap Happy: Use My Supplies (File Under Boost Energy)

Posted on 12/20/2010 by Stephanie Medley-Rath
This entry is part 6 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.

No More Pattern Paper!
If you’re anything like me, you probably have more supplies than you know what to do with. This fact, however, does not prevent you from buying more supplies. When I worked at my local scrapbook store regularly, at one point my New Year’s Resolution was to not buy anymore pattern paper. I was pretty successful with this and today I am much more selective about the pattern paper I do purchase.

Buying Supplies to Meet a Quota
I was also a direct seller for about a year-and-a-half. I bought supplies for myself to meet my quota because I had few customers. I ended up with product that I normally would not have bought, such as 6×6 paper albums. I usually do not make this type of album. I prefer 12×12 albums. I save mini-books for very specific projects: Cows Atlanta, Chihuly at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, the destruction from the tornado that hit Atlanta in 2008 (I lived in Atlanta for six years), and so on. In other words, I save mini-books for very focused topics where I have a couple dozen photographs.

Using My Mini-Books
I have been listening to The Paperclipping Roundtable podcasts for the last few weeks and earlier this year they discussed when they use mini-books. I finally got it. I finally understand why you might use mini-books for other topics beyond the narrowly focused topics I have used in the past.

My Mini-Book
One of my daughter’s favorite activities this year was going to the park. On several occasions, I took photographs of her at the park. I decided that those photos would go in a mini-book. I decided on this topic because:
1. I had a couple dozen photos from my daughter at the park (enough for several scrapbook pages).
2. I want to have a basket full of mini-books that my daughter can reach into and look at easily.
3. I want to boost my energy by using my supplies. The paper album I selected for my photos does not perfectly coordinate color-wise but the energy it gives off, does match the energy in the photos.

Here’s the cover of what I made:


Use Your Supplies!
Using your supplies can mean a lot of different things. I am glad that I made this mini-book. I am happy to use my supplies and I can’t wait to select photographs for my next mini-book (I have several of these paper albums).

What supplies are sitting in your stash that you aren’t using? Please comment below.

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This Week on Scrapworthy Lives: December 18, 2010

Posted on 12/18/2010 by Stephanie Medley-Rath

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

6×6 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. Send me your questions and suggestions. Send me at stephaniemedleyrath at gmail dot com 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.
6. 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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Scrapweb: December 17, 2010 Edition

Posted on 12/17/2010 by Stephanie Medley-Rath

Here are the best posts from the web this week.

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B&B Review: Journaling that Matters

Posted on 12/16/2010 by Stephanie Medley-Rath
This entry is part 7 of 45 in the series Books & Blogs Review

Full Disclosure
I bought Journaling That Matters on Black Friday, but then won my purchase back during Ella Publishing’s Black Friday special promotion. So, I got it for free, but intended on paying for it. Ella Publishing is also an advertiser on this blog. I try to remain unbiased, but tell you this in the interest of full disclosure. If you decide you would like to purchase this book, I would appreciate it if you purchased it through the Ella Publishing link on the right. I earn a small commission through this link and your purchase would help support this blog. Thanks.

The Review
The books from Ella Publishing are all e-books. E-books are great because they are usually very affordable. I printed mine out so I could read it at my convenience. One disadvantage of this is that it could be costly to print if you want it in color (the book is only 26 pages, so it would not be too costly to print in color). There are layout ideas in the book (for each prompt), so some readers might want a color copy. It might be nice if people could have the option of buying a printed copy or a digital copy (or both).

The Authors are Trained Writers
I appreciate that both authors, Kelly Jeppson and Angie Lucas both have a background in writing. This fact makes them very credible sources on the topic.

Prompts
The first prompt the author’s give is to transcribe a complete conversation. Now, I don’t want to give away all of their prompts, but this prompt struck me. As someone who has transcribed interviews before (for my dissertation), transcription is not something I consider to be easy at all. I really want nothing to do with it. Fortunately, the authors are not talking about transcribing a lengthy conversation–just transcribe a conversation the best you can. That’s a relief!

Strategies, not Question Prompts
I reviewed another book about journaling, Stories in Hand, here. The two books do differ. Stories in Hand is really a book of question prompts. Journaling That Matters is a book of strategies. A person could combine the information in both and probably never experience scrapbooker’s journaling block again.

Something for Everyone
I also liked that the strategies in Journaling That Matters are for both event-based scrapbookers and everyday scrapbookers. This book would be great for scrapbookers that are introspective and scrapbookers that are not so introspective.

Worth the Money
If you are experiencing journaling block, download this book. For a few dollars, you will gain a few strategies that can be used over and over again without being repetitive. Happy journaling!
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.

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Scrapbooking Norms: Learning the Rules of Scrapbooking

Posted on 12/15/2010 by Stephanie Medley-Rath

Last Wednesday, I talked about how my respondents rarely acknowledge how others help them with their scrapbooking. This isn’t meant to be a judgment because scrapbookers are like most of us–outside of people winning Oscars and Grammys–in that we fail to recognize how others have helped us along the way.

Scrapbooking Norms
This week, will begin a series of posts about sources of scrapbooking norms, which is one way scrapbookers are helped along the way. In sociology, norms are defined as expectations and rules of behavior. Later, I will discuss some scrapbook norms, but first, I will discuss the various sources of scrapbooking norms.

Where do scrapbookers learn the norms of scrapbooking?

  • The Internet
  • Idea books and magazines
  • Scrapbooking celebrities
  • Scrapbooking classes
  • Industry workers
  • Scrapbooking manufacturers
  • Other sources

Over the next few Wednesday’s I will discuss each of these sources of scrapbooking norms, though there is definitely overlap among these sources. Can you think of any other examples of sources of scrapbooking norms? Feel free to leave a comment.

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Scrapbooking is Sincerity

Posted on 12/14/2010 by Stephanie Medley-Rath

Love this post from Cosmo Cricket. What is the point of scrapbooking? This is one of the main questions I address in my dissertation.
It’s so refreshing reading a post by an industry worker talking about what scrapbooking is about: sincerity. It’s not that industry workers don’t address this issue; it is just rarely so simply stated. Now don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of talk about recording your stories, but that’s kind of intimidating. My story. Why does anyone care about my story? Now sincerity, that is something I can do–and tell my story in the process. Scrapbooking is storytelling, but it is also sincerity. Why do you scrapbook? Leave me a comment below.

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Scrap Happy: Back Up Digital Scrapbook Supplies (File Under Boost Energy)

Posted on 12/13/2010 by Stephanie Medley-Rath
This entry is part 5 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.

Organizing Digital Scrapbook Content
I mainly scrapbook conventionally, using paper, adhesive, and photographs. I do a little digital scrapbooking, too. I find dealing with digital content to be quite challenging. About once a month, I visit Creative Memories’ Project Center to collect digital freebies. I also collect digital freebies that land in my Google Reader or I stumble on when surfing scrapbooking-related websites. For the past two years, I have simply dumped them into folders on my laptop by date published online. This is an easy to way to make sure I don’t download something twice. This is a difficult way to find anything when you actually want to use the element.

A New System
About a month ago, I was home with a sick kid and spent the most of the day and part of the next day organizing digital content (easy to do with a laptop and a sick kid sleeping on your lap). I sorted by brand (e.g., Creative Memories, Ali Edwards, Two Peas in a Bucket), type (e.g., paper, quote, embellishment), and theme (e.g., sports, holidays, nature).

Delete!
I had imported some of this content into my digital scrapbook software several months ago. I started by deleting all of my digital freebies from this software. Then I imported everything by folder I had created on my desktop. I backed up all of my digital content onto a DVD. Last, I deleted the digital content from the folders on my desktop. Be careful. I can do this because it is all in my digital scrapbook software program and it is all backed up elsewhere. Make sure you have a back up before you delete anything.

I Can Now Use My Freebies!
I immediately started using my freebies! I so rarely used them because they were so poorly organized.

A New System for New Downloads
Now that a system is in place, new downloads go into new folders I created. I have set a calendar reminder in Gmail to import and back up any new digital content every three months.

One More Thing
I did not permanently delete anything I had downloaded. I have digital embellishments for things like rugby, which I will probably never use. I have a hard time getting rid of this sort of think permanently. I suggest that if you know you will never use it, delete it. I will probably do this, when I need more memory on my computer.

Your Turn
How do you organize your digital scrapbook supplies? What motivates you to organize your digital content? What prevents you from organizing your digital content? I love to hear from my readers. Please comment below!

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This Week on Scrapworthy Lives: December 11, 2010

Posted on 12/11/2010 by Stephanie Medley-Rath

I am introducing a new feature to Scrapworthy Lives: a collection of the week’s posts. This way if you can only visit once a week (Saturdays), you can click on any of the posts that interest you from the week.

6×6 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. Send me your questions and suggestions. Send me at stephaniemedleyrath at gmail dot com 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.
6. 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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Scrapweb December 10, 2010 Edition

Posted on 12/10/2010 by Stephanie Medley-Rath

It’s slow this week. Most of the posts on the scrapbook websites are related to Ali Edwards’ December Daily project or Tim Holtz’s 12 Tags of Christmas.

This is a very cool use for some of those board books in my kid’s room…well at least a good use for some of them once she outgrows them.

Here is a post from a couple of weeks ago about enjoying and organizing your digital photos.

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B&B Review: Stories in Hand by Jessica Sprague

Posted on 12/09/2010 by Stephanie Medley-Rath
This entry is part 6 of 45 in the series Books & Blogs Review

Every Thursday, I review a book or blog related to scrapbooking.

Stories in Hand by Jessica Sprague
This book can be purchased as a print copy or an electronic copy. I bought the electronic copy. It was quite a bit cheaper this way ($17.95 for the print version and $6.95 for the electronic version). With the electronic version, you can use it both offline or online, however, the offline version also requires a password to view the book.

Stories in Hand is published by Northridge Publishing, which publishes many e-books. The set-up of the e-book is quite nice. You can mark up the e-book and save your spot if you have to close out of the book. You are also allowed to print the book out, which I will be doing as soon as I break down a buy more printer ink.

The book begins by reminding readers to be prepared to record their stories. Whether a person uses a pen and paper, a scrapbook, a computer, or an audio recorder is unimportant, as long as they are prepared in some way to record their stories.

From this reminder, Sprague gets right to the question prompts. This is a book of question prompts. There are scrapbook layouts throughout the book based on some of the question prompts, but this book is about getting people to record their stories. Throughout the book, Sprague directs readers to the web for instructions for the projects featured in the book.

Overall, I am glad I bought the e-book. I am primarily interested in the question prompts and not the layout ideas. I think if I had more interest in the layouts, then I might want the hard copy version. I wish that it was possible to get a list of all the questions in a slightly less pretty format. What I mean, is that it would be great to just get a list of the questions so that way I can just print out the questions and not the layouts. I suppose one reason this is not possible, is that then it would to easy for people to distribute copies of the questions without purchasing the book. Regardless, if you are interested in recording your stories and sometimes experience writer’s or scrapbooker’s block, then this book is for you.

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