Wednesday, June 17, 2009

postheadericon STYLE: Steampunk

All the details are here.
Just when I think I may have a handle on Fantasy, Grunge, and a host of other styles, along comes "Steampunk". Well, it certainlyt isn't anything new. Monty Python's Flying Circus brought the style to my attention with their amusing bridges between skits. L.Frank Baum worked Steampunk into so many of his Oz books. Tick-Tock, the Tin Man, many of the items described in his books were that style; a combination of invention and art.

On the Etsy craft blog Misty Benson presents adorable Steampunk fairies and other characters in the Wizard of Oz steampunk style. Her prints are SO worth a look.

Some of the designers at the Digital Scrapbook Place have created some Steampunk digital scrapbook kits. I used those by Teresa Loman and Lauren Bavin for the above page as well as elements gleaned from many other kits not specifically designed for Steampunk.

Check out Teresa Loman's Steampunk Challenge.


Tuesday, May 19, 2009

postheadericon Organizing your Photos

Since I wrote the previous 3 articles on heritage, I have been working at organizing my photos and other heritage ephemera. Years ago I taught a class on sorting photos. Loved the ladies who came to the class with big paper bags of old photos. Here was my method.

STEP 1. Dump ALL of the photos in one pile. This may be proceeded days or weeks of gathering photos from nooks and crannies if you don't already have them in one place.

STEP 2. Turn all of the photos FACE DOWN. Oh my, I had a time convincing the ladies to do that. If you don't you will get lost looking at the photos. It always happens. All in good time.

STEP 3. Start sorting the photos by size. Some would gather a stack of random photos and tap them on 2 sides and sort them, making piles of each size and then gather up another handful. Whatever works until you have piles of different sizes and have worked your way through the whole big mess of photos. At this point put each stack in separate baggies (NOT for storage...not safe) and put them aside.

STEP 4. Then take one size at a time and sort into new piles according to things like edges (remember the deckle edge on photos from the 50s?), marks on the back, even if the marks are just roller marks. If the photos are numbered on the back so much the better. The numbers will help put photos from a single roll of film together.

STEP 5. Bag them up again with photos that match on the back in one bag. You may use a LOT of baggies!

STEP 6. NOW take out one batch at a time and look at the fronts. In many cases you will have photos all taken at one time. If you can identify one person or the event or the date from one photo you will be able to figure out some of the other photos, events, people. Label the baggie, then, with a Post-It note stuck to the inside of the baggie and, when possible stack them in a box by date as you sort them.

This is where I was when I discovered ORGANIZED PHOTOS. I had been searching the Internet for "glassine" envelopes for storing my old photos safely. This site not only sells great supplies but has a book with a method for sorting ALL of your photos in just 10 days. Where was that when I was sorting?

So, now all of my photos are sorted and in photo safe boxes, inside archival envelopes with the information written on the outside. Next step will be sorting the negatives. Organized Photos has archival envelopes for them, too.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Since the last few articles have been about heritage I wanted to share this announcement.


Hey everyone!!!
I have the details of the upcoming Heritage Hunting chat and challenge that I will be hosting starting June 2 at Heritage Scrap digital scrapbooking site. This is for anyone interested in finding out about your family history, genealogy, family tree or family stories, and then preserving and presenting it in attractive ways. Usually that would mean a digital scrapbook page but there are other ways too. It is for beginners or experts! It will be a lot of fun too!
If you are not already a member at Heritage Scrap, you will need to register. It is free and you don't give any financial information or anything. Registering is mainly to keep porn freaks and other spammers off the site.
I'd love to see you stop by and check it out even if you decide that its not for you. You never know, you may end up becoming obsessed with it like I am! LOL
Hope to see lots and lots of genealogists, Family Historians, and scrappers participate in this!! (And lots of my family and friends, which is what YOU are!!)
Hugs and prayers,
Vicki aka LisasMom at Heritage Scrap

See you there?

Sunday, May 17, 2009

postheadericon Heritage - Part#3 - Different Approaches to Heritage Scrapping

How Will YOU Approach Your Family History?
Here are parts #1 and #2
Heritage - Part #1 – How to begin
Heritage - Part #2 – Getting the First Photos Scrapped
It would be best to make a few decisions before you actually begin your next album. I am going to assume you have read and maybe followed the first two articles. If you have, they you have already done an album with the first approach which I call:
“Just The Facts”
“Just the Facts” is not why most of us are scrapping heritage. You want to get the stories out there before they have been forgotten. In my case, I wanted my children and grandchildren to feel what I felt for my grandparents. Now I know that the stories my mother and grandmother told me will die with me if I don’t scrap them, as well. So your next approach might be:
“Story Time”
This is journaling at its best. You might need to spend some time with a word processing system or a notebook and pencil just writing. Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation or grammar…at first. Just write. There are wonderful journals out there that have prompts on each page. Check for:
A Mother’s Legacy – Your Life Story in Your Own Words by Gift Books from Hallmark- ISBN 1404101276
Journal by Artworks International - j5354 ISBN #1-57938-535-4
To My Daughter with Love by Donna Green – Vermillion Press ISBN 1-883746-01-9
Grandmother's Memories, A Keepsake Journal, A Belonging Place for Grandmother's Treasured Memories by New Trends - ISBN-13-978-1-59177-568-3
There are others out there. But these are the ones I have used to keep prompts of my own memories. They are great for writing a page a night before bed, writing on long trips or while waiting for an appointment. I have another book put away that I started with my mother but it was far too late. She just didn’t want to put forth the energy to dredge up the memories. Oh, how I wish I had started sooner when she was more able.
This approach is great with the snapshots in your heritage collection. It is a little harder to connect stories to formal portraits but not at all impossible. My grandmother had a collection of obituaries from the little paper in Nobel County, Indiana, all for relatives of ours. What a source for “gossip” those old obituaries were! I wonder if Grandma kept those hoping one-day I would record the family history.
“Historical”
I stumbled onto this approach through a friend who was a member of the email group, Computer Scrapping at Yahoo Groups. They explore historical times like farming, The Industrial Revolution, the different wars, the dawn of the Auto Industry. They look at a different historical age every few weeks. The members who are designers also design elements around those historical times. The elements go well with vintage and heritage kits.
The approach of connecting your family heritage with historical times can revive your heritage scrapping. For example, as I talked about The Industrial Revolution, I realized how that changed the roofing industry and the company my grandfather owned. Instead of the artisans creating the roofing and cornice elements, they bought expensive machines putting the company into debt that couldn’t survive the Great Depression. I had photos that helped illustrate this. Maybe your family has a farming background, or emigrated from a country facing one of the famines. Looking through historical eyes gives an insight you wouldn’t otherwise have.
“Slice of Life”
I have to admit that this is a new approach to me just since the Simple Scrapbook’s special issue “Slice of Life Scrapbooking” arrived in my mailbox this week.
Look at the things, places, and times of everyday living found in your vintage photos. It may be as important as the old family homestead or as small as a great aunt’s hatpins. Tell the story! How did your Great Aunt use those hatpins? Generations to come may not ever know how important big hats were, let alone that those vicious looking weapons anchored the hats to their hair. Take the photos and tell the stories. There are precious few candid snapshots before the 1930s so you may have to improvise by taking a picture of the home as it is today, using photos of family heirlooms in your possession, or even doing a journaling-only page.
"A Step Beyond"
I recently discovered a heritage scrapbooking site online called Heritage Scrap. In the forums you will find several approaches to albums that may pique your interest. I am currently looking at the Life Books approach doing one ancestor per album and following that person's life in steps. The forum and chat schedules explore each step at their weekly chat (Mondays at 6:00PM PST). The steps are here:
Life Book Sections
Week 1: Cover/Getting started
Week 2: Birth
Week 3: Childhood
Week 4: School Days
Week 5: Parents
Week 6: Siblings
Week 7: Family Memories
Week 8: Hometown/Childhood Home
Week 9: Friends
Week 10: Young Adult
Week 11: Dating/Courting
Week 12: Marriage
Week 13: Home
Week 14: Extended Family/Grandparents/InLaws
Week 15: Kids
Week 16: Kids (cont'd)
Week 17: Jobs/Careers
Week 18: Hobbies/Sports
Week 19: Transportation
Week 20: Medical/Health
Week 21: Faith
Week 22: Holiday Memories/Traditions
Week 23: The Golden Years
Week 24: Grandchildren
Week 25: Pedigree Chart
Other forums explore heritage by country, recipes, treasured antiques, and more.

postheadericon Heritage # 2 - Getting the First Photos Scrapped

Scrapbooking Your Heritage Part 2 - Getting the First Photos Scrapped

(Scrapbooking Your Heritage Part 1 - How to Begin is here)

Let’s assume that you have scanned all or most of the photos and documents, archived them safely, and returned those you borrowed. Now you want to share the photos and documents with family.

Whether you decide to share the photos exactly as scanned, or restore them first, you want to get this part finished in a timely manner. Because I had two beautiful leather bound photos books, I chose to create 4” x 6” layouts to fit into the pockets of the albums. The albums also had 2 pages at the back of for CDs or DVDs. One held all of the scanned original photos, and the other had all of the layouts on disk. There are many 4” x 6” albums out there from the Dollar Store to folders at the photo counter to high end like I found on sale quite by accident. If you choose to go that way you will also want all of the mini-layouts to coordinate. I found the 4 x 6 Brag Book Templates by Doris Castle (no longer available) fit the bill perfectly. I also chose to stay with elements from just one kit for consistency. I used my favorite kit for heritage, Vintage Love, also by Doris and also not available at this time.When I started to put the albums together I had over 40 pages done, quickly, with the templates. I turned the 4” x 6” designs upside down or flipped for some pages if the design lent itself to turning. I made the two albums identical, one for my family and one for my brother’s.

If you prefer a square format, check for a Quick Album. Each design could be turned 4 ways and flipped to turn 4 more ways. That makes the purchase of a quick album kit economical and those pages go together so quickly. Below I show just 4 of the layouts I made, all from the same pre-made album page.

I have printed and re-printed square format pages in large 12” x 12”, 8” x 8”. 6” x 6”, and even 3” x3” for a keychain album.
I used the French Country Album by Doris Castle at Studio Girls/Scrapbook Graphics(no longer available). Here are four of the pages.

Saturday, May 16, 2009

postheadericon Heritage-part #1 – How to Begin

First try and identify why you are going back in time to make layouts about your heritage. Why are you scrapping pages and scrapbooks about your ancestors? There may be one overwhelming reason with a deadline, or just curiosity on your own part. I had several reasons and that helped me focus. The reasons changed as I went along and yours may also. I remember my first reason was that I was the only person left alive who had known my grandfather and I didn’t want him to be forgotten. I also was retiring and I knew a lot of facts and stories that did not interest my children now, but might later.


You need to start with what you KNOW. It may be a family tree, or information in your possession. It may be, as in my case, just 9 little sheets of handwritten notes from my grandmother. A gift of Family Tree Maker from a daughter helped me organize the meager information I had at the start. There are many programs out there and most use a GED file format so information can be transferred between researchers. The prices of commercial programs vary greatly, but some have free trials.
GenPro
Family Tree Maker
Great Family Tree

Others have free resources to download.
Free Genealogy Stuff is a great collection of free resources.


You may need to file, identify and store photos and documents from the far past. If you are lucky enough to have acquired the originals I urge you to contact an expert. Many counties in the US have wonderful Historical Societies. I actually use the one in the neighboring county because it is more active than one in my own county. Someone there is always ready with new information on products that are available. I use a box that is free of all those known chemicals that can harm papers, photos, tintypes, and old glass photos. They also suggested Glassine envelopes and special separators to hold whatever information I have about each image. There are great archival resources online, as well.
Antiques at About.Com
Storing Photos-Scrapbooking 101
Storing Photos- Archives.Gov

You probably want to start with scanning the photographs and documents, once you have them sorted. Instead, you might have some old family photos a relative has temporarily put into your care. The standards have changed since I started scanning my old photos so I find myself re-scanning them every so often. This makes it difficult if you have borrowed the photos. Whether you are storing or borrowing photos and slides, the Internet is a great resource for scanning.
Digital Photos at Geneology About.Com
Scanning by Roger Halsted


You may prefer to take digital photos of the old images. While I scan photos, I have taken digital photos of all of the family heirlooms in my possession. In either case, you want to make sure you have all digital images, scanned or photographed, stored in the safest way possible. I remember back to some pretty outdated methods. I will pass on advice given to me…"at the rate technology advances, do not think any storage method is forever. Re-store every 1-2 years”. My old black floppies went to 3” disks, to ZIP disks, to CDs and now DVDs. You may loose a bit with every transfer. It is best to acquire the technological know-how to store in a “non-lossy” method right from the start.

Once you have some information and resources, you will be ready to scrapbook some photos and documents. Don’t be surprised if you find new information and need to re-scrap some pages.
Friday, April 24, 2009

There is a new one of my articles at the KB and Friends website. It is called, "I Don't DO Heritage"

The KB website has been redesigned and is simply SMASHING! Also Kathryn and Velma have collaborated on a new kit called Offbeat Artistry. You can find it here.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

postheadericon HAPPY BIRTHDAY DSP!!!

One of the first online places I visited when I looked for scrapbooking on the internet 5 years ago, was The Digital Scrapbook Place (DSP). I joined with the amazing membership number of 891. Amazing then because there were that many members for a site less than a month old, and NOW amazing because the membership has grown to 148,314 as of today, April 1, DSP's 5th birthday.

I have never left DSP and may be one of their longest active members other than the staff of this amazing place. The forums are many and frantically active. The challenges continue to be creative and educational. The tutorial section is filled with help for the beginner to the advanced scrapper. The galleries are filled with breathtaking inspiration from all over the globe. There is a monthly newsletter that continues to give me a thrill of excitement when I see it in my email. Their Club Digital is a bargain monthly assortment of kits, word art, and other scrapping supplies. The friends I have made at DSP are among the best in my life.

The forum known as GT or the Granny Thread, sprang up a couple of years ago growing from a poem posted about grandmothers. It very well may be the largest and most active forum out there. Many of the Grannies are "Grannies in Training" or "Granny Wannabes" and range in age from 16 years old to, oh, near 75 and supportive of each other from homework to health to family issues. Many Grannys have met in real life either meeting for lunch, overnight visits to each other's homes, or attending the same laptop crops in far away cities.

If you have never explored or joined an online community, there is no better place to start.

HAPPY 5th BIRTHDAY, DSP
Monday, March 30, 2009

postheadericon WELCOME

This is a special welcome to everyone visiting here from SS Reflections.Com. SSR has become an Art-Blog Portal and Chatique is listed there.

If you haven't visited SS Reflections, it is an online magazine (E-Zine) devoted to scrapping and stamping arts. All of the articles over the years are archived at the site, including the ones I wrote for almost a year. Now it has loads of Art Blogs listed by "deck". Mine are on the "Digital Deck" and others are on the Stamping Deck, Chapel, Scrapping Deck, etc, so you can find blogs about your particular interests. The Captain, Dawn, has kept the nautical theme to the good ship SS Reflections making this an especially fun site to visit.

WELCOME!!!
If you are new to Chatique, let me give you a little tour. Way back to the first 5 entries you will find a little biography of my journey into digital scrapbooking from paper scrapping in the 1950s while in college, using manila paper, rubber cement, greeting cards, and water colors. From then to the present entry you can find technique articles I have done for this blog and KB and Friends as well as links to other technique articles I have written over the years for Doris Castle's newsletter, Scrapbooking.com - (My Archives), and SS Reflections.
Friday, February 13, 2009

postheadericon The Importance of Journaling

My-Florida-Mood.jpg
My Florida Mood
Sometimes you have more to say than photos suggest. In those instances let the journaling BE the page and either take a specific photo to illustrate it, or just use elements from a digital kit. The journaling on this one reads:
When I am in Michigan after November 1, my mood is gray and gloomy. The cold, the sunless skies, dead summer flowers, naked trees...that is what I see when I look out my window. Why WOULDNT I get depressed? Coffee, chocolate, doesn’t help. Lots of windows, outside decks, two sun-rooms do not help. Even my favorite hobbies soon begin to suffer. Only visits with my granddaughters lift my mood.
"Then we jump into the car after Christmas and, within two days, are in sunny, warm Florida. WHAT A DIFFERENCE!!! Flowers, lots of sun, green everywhere. My ailments disappear and my mood gets as sunny as the skies. There are birds everywhere...BIG birds, friendly birds, birds who love to pose for photos. The flowers are in profusion, colors brighter than I have ever seen before, scents no bottle can capture. The trees bear fruit; bananas, oranges, limes, star fruit, mangos. Paradise!!!"

This coffee mug that I use in Florida sums up in a photo what I had to say in my journaling. I hope the loved ones we leave back in the cold, snowy North, understand a little better why we leave them for 4 months every winter. If not now, maybe when they read this as they get older themselves.



In this example there is less journaling but I wanted the story to live on and I am the only person still alive that knows this story.
"All the while my mother was growing up, the family had at least one portrait taken of each family member each year. Her high school graduation coincided with the Great Depression, and that photo was the last taken until Mom and Dad were engaged years later. For Dad’s birthday in May, the month before their wedding, Mom went to a well-known portrait photographer. He was taken with her look and asked her to pose for him, and he would give her a set of portraits free. This was one of the “head shots”. A large copy hung on a bedroom wall back as far as I can remember. A tattered smaller one was in Dad’s wallet until he died at age 89. This and several other poses came to me and I will preserve it for future generations."
So, when you think about stories you heard growing up, think about whether they will die with you, or live because you took the time to tell them.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

postheadericon CHATIQUE 20 - Retro Style

Thanks to Sallie K who looked up the definition in Wikipedia and put this in the forum:

“Retro” can be used to simply mean “old fashioned” or old, functioning much like “timeless” or “classic”. It has also been associated with modernism in the immediate post-war years, encompassing an aesthetic that ranges from tailfins on Cadillacs to ranch houses. Sometimes, it can also suggest an entire outlook on life, for example, social conservatism, home schooling or the embrace of traditional gender roles. “Retro” can also be applied to forms of technological obsolescence, for example, manual typewriters, cash registers, bulky hand-held cell phones, or the resurrection of old computer games. But most commonly, “retro” is used to describe objects and attitudes from the recent past that no longer seem “modern.” It suggests a fundamental shift in the way we relate to the past. Different from more traditional forms of revivalism, “retro” suggests a half ironic, half longing consideration of the recent past. It has been called an “unsentimental nostalgia,” recalling “modern” forms that are no longer current. "Retro" sometimes also refers to the fifties era.
Today it is often used in a positive sense, referring to quirky or attractive products that are no longer available. For example, "Retro fashion" or "Retro Chic" may consist of outdated styles, such as tie-dyed shirts from the 1960s, or poodle skirts from the 1950s. A love of retro objects (things from the past) is called retro-philia.
Retro often reflects a sensibility aligned with camp. Camp is an ironic attitude, an explicit re-introduction of non-dominant forms.”


We can roughly divide design and style by decades: 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, and so on. Those of us who lived through some of those early decades immediately picture elements of those years. You can convey that feel with your choices of color, font, and design elements.

I am giving a variety of font sites but most of them have all of the decades. I just KNOW you will wander around each site…most are free, but those that aren’t will give you an idea of style.

If fonts are threatening to take over your computer I urge you to get the FREE program, The Font Thing. http://www.download.com/The-Font-Thi...-10038296.html
(If enough people request it I can do a tutorial on using that program in a Chatique soon.)

When you are checking out the fonts for a particular retro decade, don't forget to look at the "Wingdings" or fonts with designs or little drawings in place of the letters. I have a "florals1" and "florals2" I use a lot ( http://www.flyerstarter.com/free-fonts/f/Florals1.html ), and a "Darrian's Frames" ( http://www.fontspace.com/darrian-lynx/darrians-frames ) that also sees a lot of use. I also use some wingdings at huge resolution to make coloring pages for my granddaughters.

http://www.fontscape.com/explore?7CM has the fonts arranged from Medieval to the computer age, Pop-Art; Op Art.

1910s – World War I, the introduction of the automobile. The Gibson Girl was the ideal, with her long hair done up, high necked blouses with hug sleeves, tiny waist, dress to the floor, high shoes…showing ankle only if being a bit naughty. The colors are muted. I think that is due to all photos we have of that period are black and white or sepia. Fonts to use are the more formal, “Spenserian” fancy like the font, Beautiful. Check these fonts for ideas. http://www.letterheadfonts.com/fonts/billhead.shtml Expensive, but a good overview of the feel of the era.

1920s – Typefaces characteristic of the Art Deco period of the 1920s. Reminiscent of the Jazz Age or Roaring Twenties, the era of Prohibition, flappers, the Charleston, bakelite, and penicillin.
http://www.fontscape.com/explore?7SW
http://www.fontage.com/artdeco.html
http://www.free-fonts.com/font/1920.html


1930s – Type designs typical of the 1930s, the age of the Great Depression, Swing music, Walt Disney cartoons, and frozen foods. The flamboyant American period influenced by the glamour of Hollywood.
http://www.fontage.com/broadway.html
http://www.myfonts.com/browse/keyword/1930s/


1940s - The patriotism and sacrifice of the war years! Red, white, and blue work well.
http://www.fontstock.net/search/0/1940's%20Christmas.html


1950s – MUSIC, teens as a separate group, full skirts, Pink and Charcoal Black, the Atomic symbol and other curved figures, chrome, formica. Type designs typical of the beat culture and jazz era of the later fifties. The atomic age of the 1950s.
http://www.andynortnik.com/free-retro-fonts.htm
http://www.andynortnik.com/clipart_1.htm
http://www.fontscape.com/explore?7EG

1960s – Typefaces reminiscent of the swinging 1960s, the psychedelic era of hippies, bellbottoms, lava lamps, pop music, the Beatles, and free love. Colors I remember are Avacado green and burnt orange. Also, the combination of tourquoise, brown and yellow. Tie-dye, psychedelic flowers and beads. Must not forget the beatnik in the late 60s with the long straight hair, heavy eye makeup, white lips, and ever-present beret hat. Loden-green and black were staple clothing colors then.
http://www.fontscape.com/explore?6MJ
Thursday, January 29, 2009

postheadericon A Heritage Win



Anyone who hangs out at Meryl Bartho's Heritage Chat on Wednesday nights at The Digital Scrapbook Place knows I rarely miss that chat, for almost 5 years, now. Lately, I haven't been able to do many heritage layouts, but I attend just the same.

Finally yesterday morning I did one for her current challenge, Glamorous. The layout was in my mind and Meryl had the perfect elements for the layout. Within an hour or so it was in the Heritage gallery.

Last night it won the weekly secret vote of those attending the chat. I was, as the Aussies say, Chuffed! Meryl had some nice comments about it but I was doubly surprised when I started getting congratulations. Meryl had nominated the layout for The Hall of Fame at DSP. I was dancing around. That was a first for me.

Then I also heard that a layout of mine was on the list of "100 Most Viewed Layouts". Not one I would have guessed at all. I wonder what lists they will come up with next.

Credits
So...here is my new "Flair" at DSP.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

postheadericon A Vacation from the Vacation


We had only been in Florida for a week when I left for a laptop-crop (meeting of digital scrappers) in Salt Lake City. It was a rare chance to meet a dear cyber-friend from Oman. There were 17 of us at the crop, many who had never met before, but all friends from a digital scrapbooking web site (The Digital Scrapbook Place - DSP).

First off, I am 70 years old. To go off alone on an adventure like this amazed me. I had never seen the rugged mountains of the West except from the air on the way to California twice. I had met, in person, only two of the 17 ladies. As it turned out, every lady was exactly as they present themselves in the forums. No real surprises except how comfortable we were together from the first minute.

Ten of us met Friday night for dinner...a LATE dinner for me since I had skipped 2 time zones. Really late for the member and her children from Oman, by way of Trinidad. Their internal clocks must be really messed up.

Saturday was the 12-hour laptop-crop at the hotel in a meeting room. Most of us actually got something scrapped, but there was more talking and snacking than scrapping.
Fran, my roommate, corralled a "stranger" in the hallway during the scrap and invited her to join us to see what it was all about. She had looked SO like she belonged to our little group, especially toting a laptop. She had actually been attending a baby shower next door. It turned out that she is the author of Dear Myrtle, one of the premier heritage websites on the Internet. Many of us knew her from the blog and loved meeting her in person. If you look at my list of favorite web-sites, "Dear Myrtle" is the second one listed.


I will save the rest of the 5 days in SLC for the next entry.
Thursday, January 15, 2009

postheadericon Some Words About Bonds Among Scrappers

For the last year or two I have been writing about digital scrapping for Kathryn Balint's KB and Friends newsletter and blog. Kathryn's focus has shifted to her newer venture at the CropMom site. The KB and Friends site is secondary, now. I will spend some of my time in Florida becoming familiar and comfortable with CropMom and I hope to teach scrapping with that site to some of the senior groups down here and, perhaps, do some other work for Kathryn if I can find a niche in her new venture.

I have also been writing monthly for Stamping and Scrapping Reflections on-line magazine. Alas, that has become the victim of the volatile economy. The staff has decided to stop publication after the March issue. I, myself, had taken a leave of absence for personal issues but I was ready to return. Now, ???

So, I am a retiree once again. I'm taking advantage of the freedom of this situation with a journey from my winter home in Florida to Salt Lake City to meet with about 30 dear friends, most from the Granny Forum at The Digital Scrapbook Place. One of the ladies was to be in the Caribbean for the holidays from her home in Oman. On the way home she is taking a side trip with her children to SLC and the rest of us decided to take this opportunity to meet her face-to-face at a DSP-sponsored Laptop Crop. Yes, I WILL be taking photos and posting here.

Crops, laptop, or paper, are a tradition among scrappers. My first was in 1998 with 25 or so Michigan Scrappers...before digital. The MIscrappers group held crops for 12 hours at a time and the hours just flew by. Our host was usually The Sticker Store and More in Southgate, Michigan. When the store initiated the Great Lakes Mega Meet the MIscrappers were working volunteers. Soon the, now huge, convention outgrew the MIscrappers and the ladies scattered to other places and other ventures. Every year a few get together here and there to renew some very strong bonds.

Digital scrapping and Internet connections with other scrappers, makes getting together a little more difficult, but certainly not impossible. My virtual homes are The Digital Scrapbok Place, with over 143,000 members, and The Digital Scrapbook Artisan Guild. At any given time you will find someone logged on to the forums, galleries, or chat rooms. With members from all over the world this is great when you can't sleep. It reminds me of the song, It's Five O'Clock Somewhere.

I will try to locate some old photos from the old crops and add them to this blog entry.

About Me

Forty Years of Scrapping

Long before it was popular, I was trying to decorate arrangements of photos and sentimental items. Here I want to share some of my personal history and more important, some ideas I have gleaned from more than 40 years of scrapping.

lauraloub

lauraloub
A granny with a camera and a computer

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