Learn to Stamp and Scrap with Lynn Larson

Scrapbooking Photography Quick Tips

Following are some quick tips from NationalGeographic.com that I thought you might find interesting when taking photos and using them for your scrapbook.

People & Portrait Photography Quick Tips
from NationalGeographic.com

• If you use objects other than your main subject in the foreground, be careful of placement. You don't want to obscure or detract from your subject.
• Every time you hold your camera to your eye, look for leading lines, foreground elements, frames—anything you can use to lend dynamism to your image. Photographs are two dimensional but it helps if they look and feel three dimensional.
• Don't just stand there—sit, squat, lie down. The angle from which you make a photograph can make a dramatic difference.
• When using an electronic flash indoors, move your subject away from walls to prevent harsh shadows.
• A piece of very light orange gel over the face of your electronic flash can warm up the light and give it a more pleasing cast.
• When you first arrive at a new location, make note of any features that strike you. Try to find ways to incorporate them into your composition.
• Be careful if you are using a wide-angle lens to photograph a group. The people at the edges may get distorted.
• If kids want to look through the camera, let them. They will be more relaxed and cooperative. Just watch out for dirty fingers on the lens.
• Anticipate kids' behavior. If they are playing tag, set up near the base, compose your image, and wait for them to come running in.

I hope that you found today's article helpful for your photography needs!  Be sure to stop back tomorrow for a fun little project!

Lynn Larson

Scrapbooking 101: Photos in Your Scrapbook

When you are creating your scrapbook pages, your focal point should be the first thing that people see when they look at your layout.  In most cases, photos are used as the focal point so it is very important to focus the most attention on them when planning your layout.  They do more than attract attention, they give you the power to control how others see your page.  They also set the tone for all your other choices on your pages - paper, journaling and embellishments.  

In the case of the photos above, these sunset photos were taken on different days, but how many sunset photo layouts do you need for the same trip?  In order to have enough photos to create a two-page spread, I took the best photos from different days and used them to create these pages.  My focal point if the image on the left with the neat layered technique.  There aren't embellishments on this page other than the layers used to accent the page.  My main focus was on my photos and translate the feeling as if you were there experiencing them.  When watching a sunset, it is usually very quiet and peaceful without a lot of action going on.  My pages also don't have much going on by way of embellishments so I could keep that feeling of being relaxed and experience the beauty of the sunsets.

It isn't necessary to use all the photos from one event on a layout.  you should choose the photos that give the best overall view of the event, as well as choosing photos that show action as opposed to a still shot.

Cropping and enlarging photos not only creates interest on a page, but it also shows your viewer where to look first.  Here are some tips for cropping your photos:

• Crop the unnecessry edges off the photos
• Do not crop Polaroid snapshots, the chemicals inside can leak and ruin your photos and your page.  Try concealing the photo edges with paper frames over your photos
• Limit the number of shapes you crop your photos into on each layout.  I usually stick to square or rectangular shapes for my pages

When taking your photos, try zooming in on the subject matter tightly.  Sometimes the intimacy of the close up shot is enough to grab the attention of the viewer.  It is really nice to zoom in on a newborn baby's feet or hands, maybe even their eyes for a layout.  At a wedding, get a photo with a close up of the couple's hands with their wedding bands.  These close up photos should not have a lot of background in them. 

More fun ways to shoot your photos and add interest to your pages are:

• taking photos from up above the subject looking down
• from under the subject looking up 
• take a photo with the subject slightly off-center

When laying out photos on your page, be aware of the positioning of the subject in them.  If they are off to the right side, consider positioning that photo on the right side of the page.  Examples of this are shown in the photo above.  As you can see, the pictures on the left layout have images that are over to the left slightly and the images on the right page are slightly over to the right.  The lizard is even facing the center of the page when positioned.  This type of thought in your layout helps bring things together and give a smooth flow to your pages.

Have fun taking your photos and be sure to check back Monday for more Scrapbooking 101 tips!  I have some big events going on this weekend so I should be able to do a couple of quick posts of projects I am working on during that time.  Enjoy this beautiful weather and I will see you back here tomorrow!

Lynn

Scrapbooking 101: How to Create Progressive Scrapbook Pages

I have been getting some email and comments from some of you asking me about scrapbooking tips and ideas.  Here is a comment that I received from Kivonne:

"Hey Lynn, maybe you could help me...1st off, I enjoy your blog!   Thank you!   2nd, I am not a scrapbooker.   I have a workshop coming up that the hostess wants scrapbooking.   I thought I would do 2 cards and one 6x6 page.   I love how Mary did her pages but I am not a scrapbooker and I am panicing!   Do you have any ideas, pictures on what would be easy for me to use as a 6x6 and progress to 12x12 scrapbook page?   Do you know any great ways to take a card and progress it into a 12x12 scrapbook page?   Thank you so much for your help."

Making a scrapbook page after you are used to making cards is actually an easy transition when you do "progression" scrapbooking.  When I first taught people how to scrapbook, we did a simple card and then blew it up to a 6x6 page.  If you think about it, a 6x6 page is not much larger than a 5 1/2 x 4 1/4" card.  When making your page, you may only have to add another element on your page to help balance out your layout and take up a little bit more of that extra space.

Let me explain how a 12x12 "progressive" layout works.  This is a great way to begin your scrapbooking journey.  You would start off by creating a 6x6 scrapbook page.  Remember to keep it simple since you are creating a 6x6 page.  Here is an older sample of this technique that I pulled out of a "teaching" scrapbook to help explain how this works.  First, let's look at the 6x6 element of the page. 

As you can see, this is a pretty simple layout.  The black layer is the back of the page with the pink on the top, followed by a white photo mat at the top and a patterned strip on the bottom.  The only embellishment is some black grosgrain ribbon to tie it all together.

What next you ask?  Well, it is time to create your 8 1/2 x 11" page.  How do you do that?  You would take your 6x6 page and put it onto an 8 1/2 x 11" piece of paper and create your layout around the 6x6 page.  Take a look at the photo below...

  

You can see that the 6x6 layout was added to the top of the page and then two photo mats were added to to fill up some of the space at the bottom.

Now on to the finished 12 x 12 page...

The 8 1/2 x 11" page is added to a sheet of black 12x12 cardstock.  To the left - again to fill up the space is a journaling area and a title for the page.  This is a very simple layout and an easy page to create.

Here is another example of a 12x12 progressive layout that I create for a swap a couple of years back.

This layout incorporates some White Craft Ink, punched circles, watercoloring and sheer ribbon to add interest while keeping simlicity on the page.

Good luck on the road to beginning your scrapbooking journey.  I hope the progressive scrapbooking technique make it easier and less intimidating for you to create your own 12x12 pages.  This is like taking "baby steps" before you are off and running to scrapbooking.  Get the feel of creating a page, seeing how to balance out your pictures and elements when you have more space on your page and end up with a beautiful page that you created on your own!

Please let me know if you have any questions on this technique or anything else with scrapbooking.

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Scrapbooking 101 (Day Three): Starting your Scrapbook

Now that you learned what basic supplies you need for scrapbooking and have organized your photos, it is time to decide on what type of scrapbook you would like to create.  Some popular themes are:  weddings, a new baby, graduation, prom, school year, sports, friends, family and holidays to name a few.  Another way to chose your scrapbook theme is to think of new beginnings - a new baby, sibling, home, car, school, year, friend, relationship, becoming a teenager, becoming a driver, college, a new love, learning to be a grandparent, etc.

When starting to create the pages in your scrapbooks, try using the following steps:

• Sort your photos into themes or topics and select a set to work on
• Look at your photos and select 2-3 colors of acid-free paper or cardstock that will work well with your photos
• Pick one photo to be the main focus of your page
• If needed, crop your photos (wait to see how they look on the page/layout before cropping).  I now that some people crop their photos in fancy shapes, but I prefer a more streamlined look of square or rectangular photos.  To add interest to a page, I like to layer some of the photos or elements on the page like in the layout below.

• Add journaling - most people have a hard time when it comes to journaling.  Journaling in a scrapbook is just as important as the photos.  It helps to share the emotion and tell the story.  Ideally, someone that doesn't know you should be able to pick up your scrapbook and understand what your pages are about.  If nothing else, you should include the names of the people who are in your photos as well as the date.  I will get into journaling more in an upcoming post so stay tuned.
• Add embellishments like ribbon and brads on your page.  In the page above, I wanted a more basic page so besides couble matting some of the photos, I added two thin strips of cardstock down the edges of the pages to outline them and focus your eye on the page.  The crossing of the edges of the strips of cardstock echo the layering and crossing over of the photos and other elements on the page.
• Arrange all items on your page to see how you like the layout.  Once you have everything where you like it, adhere the elements to your page and insert it into an acid-free page protector in your album.

Another thing to decide is what size photo album you would like to create.  You can best determine that by looking at how many photos you have to scrapbook of an event.  If you are scrapbooking an event that your child had and you have under 10 photos for that event, you might consider doing a 12x12 album for that child and creating a 2-page layout showcasing that event. 

I like doing my 2-page spreads as left and right pages so you are looking at both pages of the event at the same time.  It makes your scrapbook easier to follow and flow smoothly.  A 12x12 album might seem intimidating, but breaking it down into 2-page layouts for each event can be done easily.  Filling up an album - especially for a child - could be very easy to do when you include more of their special events in that album.  There are always birthdays, holidays, "firsts", sporting or musical events that will quickly fill up your album with 2-page spreads.  I always make it a rule to scrapbook a 2-page layout every time.  I never do just one page of one event and then another page of a separate event.  That tends to make a scrapbook very choppy and not flow smoothly. 

If you have a pile of pictures of an event, a vacation or a wedding for example, you could easily fill an entire 12x12 album working on just that one event.  I actually scrapbooked a whole 12x12 album of my first Stampin' Up! cruise to the Mexican Riviera that I went on with my husband.  It also happened to be our 20th wedding anniversary that year so we celebrated that whole week.  That's right, I said a week.  I had enough photos of that cruise to fill an entire 12x12 album:))

If you have 20 or so photos of an event, you may consider doing an entire 6x6 album.  I usually only use one, maybe two photos per page of a 6x6 album.  It is really important to leave room for some sort of journaling on your layouts so a combination of 3 photos on a 2-page 6x6 spread would give you a nice balance of two photos on one side of your layout and one photo with some journaling on the other page.  You may have to overlap photos a little on your smaller pages (like I did in the photo above).  There is always some part of the photo that can be slightly covered up so watch for that when you are planning your layouts.

I hope that you are gaining some scrapbooking knowledge from my Scrapbooking 101 Series.  If there is anything you would like to see covered, leave me a comment below and I will address it in a future post.

Happy Scrappin'!

Lynn

Scrapbooking 101 (Day Two): Getting Started

Welcome to Day Two of my Scrapbooking 101 series of posts.  Yesterday we talked about things to keep in mind before scrapbooking for the first time.  Today we are going to go over how to get started.

First, you will need some basic supplies.  I would suggest keeping the supplies to a minimum when you start off.  You don't need all the bells and whistles to scrapbook.  Here is what I suggest you start out with:  

• Scrapbook Album with Acid-Free Page Protectors (like our Linen Albums)
• Acid-free Adhesive - like our SNAIL Adhesive
• Acid-free Cardstock or Patterned Paper
• Paper Cutter
• Scissors - for cutting paper and ribbon (like our Paper Snips or Craft and Ribbon Scissors)
• Ruler (I prefer a metal ruler)
• Color Wheel - this is a great tool to help you select colors for your layouts
• A few embellishments - I like to use ribbon or brads.  I especially like white taffeta ribbon and dye it with acid-free ink to match the colors of my layout.

Here are some tips for getting started:

• Getting organized is the first step on your way to scrapbooking.
• Get all of your photos together and group them by theme or event.
• When you take new photos, take a moment to write down a little bit about the photos in a little notebook or pocket calendar that you keep in your camera bag.  Identify who, what, when, where, how and why.  Then when you are ready to scrapbook, the feeling of the page will be easier to create.  Journaling will be easier to do when you can remember all the details of the photos.
• Go through your old photos and group them by person, by event or by theme.  Ask your friends or family to give you more details about the photos so you can create a good scrapbook page that tells the story and expresses the feelings behind the photos.
• Designate a place to do your scrapbooking.  It is best to have a place that you can keep set up with all of your supplies.  This will save you time when working on your pages.
• Start scrapbooking your photos at a point where you feel most comfortable.  I found that it was less intimidating and not as overwhelming to start with my most recent photos to begin scrapbooking and work your way back in time.  Once you have your first few pages complete, the rest of the pages will become easier to tackle.
• For each 12x12 page, chose about 2-4 photos.  Remember that you don't have to use every photo that you took to tell your story.  Chose only the best photos for your pages.  Use the ones that are well-focused, close up and tell the story the best.
• When working on your layout, it is best to balance out your pages by using the triangle rule.  Place one photo on your page and put the others on the page to create a triangle shape.  Practicing this on a few pages will help you make a more balanced page that comes easily to you.  Below is an example of a the triangle rule when I only had three photos to add to my page.

• Remember that less is better when creating your page.  The photos should be the main focus, not the other items on the page.  This page has subtle colors to go along with the subtle colors of the beach.  There is embossing and paper tearing to add dimension and interest to the page.  The larger, cut out shells are also popped up with Dimensionals to add a little more depth. 

That is a lot of information for one day so stay tuned for more details on beginning your scrapbooking journey tomorrow...  Don't forget that you can leave a comment or ask a question at the end of this post and I will address it in an upcoming Scrapbooking 101 Series post.

Happy Scrappin!

Lynn

Scrapbooking 101 (Day One): Do you want to learn to scrapbook?

Do you have boxes of photos or photos on your computer ready to put in a scrapbook but just don't know where to start?  Scrapbooking is a wonderful way to preserve your photos and document the memories of your family for generations to come.  Scrapbooking makes you feel good and brings out a lot of emotion on your pages through your layouts and your journaling.  People looking at your scrapbook will be able to feel the emotion on your page and almost feel as if they experienced the event themselves through the words in your story.

If you have ever wanted to scrapbook, then my "Scrapbooking 101" series is for you.  I have been asked by a few people over the last couple days about how to scrapbook, what to use in their scrapbooks and also how to begin scrapbooking.  I thought it would be nice to publish a series of posts that share my tips and how I scrapbook with you here on my blog.

Some things to keep in mind before you start scrapbooking for the first time are:

• Great scrapbooks begin with great photos.  Be sure to have good lighting when you are taking photos and get close to your subject.
• When chosing the photos for your scrapbook, be sure to chose the very best photos.  You don't have to use every photo that you took of an event on your scrapbook pages.  Be sure to weed out the photos that are blurry, have people cut off or just are not very good photos.
• Try enlarging your photos and crop them to get the main focus on your page.
• The photos in your scrapbook can be in black and white or sepia toned as well as colored photos.  Black and white or sepia toned photos look incredible in a scrapbook.
• Keep duplicates of your favorite photos and negatives (or CDs) in a place other than in your home.  Like a safe deposit box or at a relatives.
• Add color to your scrapbook pages by using colored papers and embellishments.  Chose colors that coordinate with your photos.  The photo below shows how subtle the colors are in the pictures.  I created my own striped background paper using reinkers and a baby wipe to pick up the colors in the photo and keeping the paper subtle and earthy as well.

• Use only a few embellishments or colors to create your pages.  Too much on a page looks cluttered and takes away from the main focus of your page which should be your photos.
• Make sure you use acid free products on your pages as acid can damage your photos. 
• When you are doing single page layouts, be sure to put them in your album next to a page that compliments the colors and theme so your scrapbook flows properly and is easy to follow.

Each day for the next couple of days, I will add more scrapbooking tips.  If you have any questions about scrapbooking, please leave a comment at the end of this post and I will address your question in one of my posts as well.

See you tomorrow!

Lynn