Monthly Archives: August 2016

Aug31

Book Making

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Book Making

Over the winter, I attended Lain Ehmann’s Truth Scrap scrapinar. One of my favorite classes of the day was Andrea Chebeleu’s class on creating an art journal using old hard cover books.

Using old hard cover books? As in wrecking a book? How could I?

It’s easier to do if it’s a book you don’t care about, so I headed to Goodwill to find something with a nice cover that I would be okay with destroying.

Whoever said Goodwill was cheap was lying. Next time, I’m heading for the used book bin at the library, or even the remainders table at the book store.

The book I ended up using was one by Nick Hornby, Funny Girl. Not having read it yet, I did read it, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I do like his writing!

And then I started taking it apart. In Andrea’s class, she uses an old hymnal, and all the pages are sewn together into groups called folios, and then into a supporting piece that holds all the folios together. Most modern books aren’t made that way, being put together with a great deal of glue instead. It’s possible to cut through that glue when taking apart a book since the glue is flexible, but it is a little fiddly, for lack of a better word.

As I was taking it apart, I kept debating about what I would use it for. Travel journal? Not going any place anytime soon. At least not for long enough to warrant this many pages. Art journal? I’ve already got a couple things I can use for that. I kept going back to the book title. Funny Girl. I can be funny in an ironic, punny way, but I’m not that funny. My grandmother however? Now she could tell a funny story. And she had a great laugh. I miss hearing her laugh.

Plus, the book itself was originally divided into sections with titles that I could repurpose: funny girl, comedy playhouse, the fourth series. Those are all themes that I could use to flesh out a story about my grandmother.

That’s the plan at any rate. I added a few themed double sided papers that made me think of my grandmother to further the theme along. Take a look at some of the base pages:

funny girl page1||noexcusescrapbooking.com

coloring book and phone book pages

funny girl page2||noexcusescrapbooking.com

old note paper and graph paper sketch

funny girl page3||noexcusescrapbooking.com

stenciled page and recycled mail

funny girl page4||noexcusescrapbooking.com

scrapbook paper and reclaimed book page

It’s going to be fun to work on this with my mother’s help this fall.

If anyone would like me to make a book for them, drop a comment below. I’d be glad to make one to order.

Aug24

Changing My Mind

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Changing My Mind

This may come as a surprise to you, but I couldn’t resist starting a new Project Life album.

I know I said I was overwhelmed and tired of it. I know I said I felt trapped and uninspired while doing it. But I think that was the exhausting job talking.

I’ve finally gotten an answer re: the job, and I will not be teaching next year. Most of me is really happy about that. But I will miss having to talk and think about science on a regular basis. I’m so glad to have done it, simply because it reminded me of just how much I love science.

So, since I will not have to create the curricula for any science courses this year, I’m feeling amazingly light-hearted. Free even! And that makes me want to do Project Life again.

This year should look much different than last year, with no exchange student, a different job (what, I don’t know yet), and one kid in middle school and one in high school.

I bought an album over the weekend, and used the cards I had on hand to create an opening page. I’ll be going through July photos and getting those printed up this week. I’ll update this on a monthly basis. When I do something that seems interesting, I’ll share it with you.

I’m feeling really good about changing my mind.

opening page 2016||noexcusescrapbooking.com

All ready to go. Should I round all the corners?

Aug18

Color Me Done!

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Color Me Done!

Yesterday’s color inspiration from Design Seeds was just what the doctor ordered. The colors and the composition were so inspiring they helped me use some not very good photos in a fun way. Just in case you didn’t see yesterday’s post, this is the color palette I started with.

And this is what I made:

recipe for disaster||noexcusescrapbooking.com

The ferns from the photo inspired the green spoons and whisks along the bottom. One of my goals for the year is to use my silhouette portrait more. I love how easy it is to use. Another goal I have for the year is to use up more of my stash, and to get rid of things that are mostly used up. Like letter stickers.

I think the title came out really well. And it made my husband snort-laugh when he saw it this morning. Since that’s the kind of reaction I was aiming for, I’m calling this layout a win.

How about you? Are you inspired by this photo or color palette at all? What are you going to do with it?

Aug17

Color Me Inspired

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Color Me Inspired

If you are ever in need of a color boost, you have to check out Design Seeds. They take gorgeous photos and create color palettes based on them. Sounds simple, doesn’t it?

It is but it isn’t. The owner goes through a fairly involved process which requires a lot more skills than using the color picker in Photoshop. She ends up creating some very lovely palettes that are super useful for any kind of design project, including scrapbooking.

Case in point: I’ve got a series of photos I want to use to make a layout. I wasn’t sure about how I wanted to start it. Enter a quick browse through Design Seeds.

design seeds || color served

This palette is perfect. It’s got the browns from my photos, and the greens and whites will make for some great contrast. Plus, green is the favorite color of the kid involved. I can even use the composition of the photo to inspire the form of the page design.

Excuse me, I’m going to go make a page now. I’ll be back tomorrow with the result!

Aug10

A Quotable Life: Catching Your Family in the Act

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A Quotable Life: Catching Your Family in the Act

One of the things that I have always loved is the way people say things. If you’re paying attention, you’ll find the people around you saying things that are funny or profound or just wonderfully phrased all the time. As a writer, I’ve been saving these quotes for a long time, since they’re wonderful windows into character creation.

As a documenter, aka a scrapbooker, saving these quotes are a great way to capture the personality and interactions of your family. (And friends too, but we’ll talk about them at a later point.)The things people say show you how they look at the world, how they think, and how they interact with others.

However, you can’t always immediately stop what you’re doing to go create a scrapbook page when one of your family members says something memorable. What am I saying? You almost never can do that! So what do you do?

You take notes.

There are a bunch of ways you can take notes, depending on your circumstances. A scrap of paper and pencil will work in a pinch. Having a notebook in your purse or stashed around the house for just such moments is handy. Your smart phone is helpful too, since you can jot notes or even dictate them there. I’ve found Facebook and Twitter helpful for capturing moments too, and screen shots of text messages and chats are great as well.

If  you’re not careful, though, those notes will just sit there. If you’re like me at all, you may even forget to date them, so you don’t even remember how old someone was when they made that memorable quote. Try to remember to date them when you jot them down. Don’t be like me!

Do try to turn those quotes into pages though.

ethan in his own words||noexcusescrapbooking.com

You’ll be glad you did.