One of the main, if not the main reasons that scrapbooking is such a popular artform is that it provides to us an artfull way of telling our stories with our pictures, our art and our words.

Sometimes telling our story is easy.  Sometimes we can’t think of the words to say to tell our stories.  And sometimes, all we need is a small prompt so that we can begin to tell more of our stories.  Sometimes, when prompted, we remember stories that we had forgotten to tell or didn’t realize that we wanted to tell.

This is especially helpful with the growing trend of remembering to include ourselves in our albums more.

Here are some prompts for journaling.  I recommend getting a small notebook to begin to jot down your thoughts on them.  You never know what might turn into a page or not.  And you can make a fun project by altering a notebook

1. Tell the story of an important turning point in your life when you had to make some kind of choice.  Now think about what might have happened if you had made the other choice.
2. When in your life were you most happy, sad, proud, frightened, content, or serene?
3. Close your eyes and tell everything you hear, smell, taste, and feel–feel with your touch and feel with your feelings
4. What is it like growing up today?
5. Pick an issue that confuses you or that you would like to know more about.  Then freewrite to explore what you DO know about it.
6. What is the worst injustice you notice around you?  How would you take steps to end it?
7. Tell all the groups that you are a member of or part of, from your family to a group of friends to a religious or ethnic group.  How does being a member of these groups affect you?
8. Write out your goals–for the world, for your lifetime, for next year, or for today.  What one step could you take to start you towards achieving that goal?
9. Tell about someone who helped you or made a difference in your life.
10. Get it out of your system.  Write about something that upset or angered you.
11. Tell a dream that you remember . . . or make one up.
12. Describe an object that is very important to you.
13. What would you consider the most splendid thing you ever accomplished?  Remember the small things as well as the more obvious ones.
14. What are the little things in life that make you happy?  What little things can ruin your day?
15. How do different kinds of music affect you?  Are there songs that transport you to a different time or place?  What song means the most to you?

These are just few fun and some serious prompts.  If you don’t want to write down your thoughts the old fashioned way with pen and paper, they make great blogging prompts as well.

Here are a few layouts that I have created that fit in with some of the prompts listed above:

The first is a layout about a new object that is important to me.  My little stuffed animal owl from Starbucks.  He was important to me this year because he was the first Fall thing that I bought or brought out to celebrate my favorite season.

This layout used the title and lyrics to a song that really helped me through a difficult time in my life.

This one is about one of the most importamt people in my life, and the one who I look up to the most, my mother.

And this one came about while thinking about what it was that *I* needed in a friend… specifically to my hubby (who is  the best friend I could have!):

Some of these are light in journaling because what I wanted to say I could say in a few words.  Others are lengthy with hidden journaling because I had a lot to say.  It doesn’t matter as long as you are saying SOMETHING.

I hope these can jumpstart you in telling more of yoru stories

Less is more? Hardly! For pages that make a BIG impact (and often take little time!), check out some of the oversized embellishments that are currently on the market. Monograms, big flowers, 12" long stamps, patterned paper with large patterns….the trick with each of these is to incorporate them into our pages without overwhelming the most important part–the photos and journaling.

Here I had already decided to crop my photos into a circle….and was left with a ton of extra space. The solution? An oversized flower! I folded it in half (actually, less than half) to make it fit within the available space–and was delighted to find that folding it gave it a bit more depth! I added a chipboard flower center and a stem, and bada bing! All I need to do is add journaling and my page is done! (Oh, and YES that is Crate paper! For a chance to win some yummy yummy Crate, join in the fun at our virtual crop next weekend!).

What is your favorite oversized page element? Let us know!

The last couple of months I am trying to give a little extra dimension to my scrapbook projects.
I discovered puffy paint and glitter glue.
Puffy paint comes in little bottles with a small tip, making it easy to write or draw.
I noticed how I slowly replaced my machine stitching with dotted puffy paint borders.
The fun thing about puffy paint is that you can leave it as it is and it already puffs. For an
even more puffy effect you can use your heatgun.
It causes the paint to puff even more.

Just a small tip : Use the heatgun before you add the pictures to your project. If you do have your pictures already glued down, make sure you cover them before using heat.

On this project I cut out some stars and flowers from patterned paper. I adhered some of them with glue dots to create a difference in height. I outlined the stars with puffy paint.

Now for the inside I used glitter glue. I traced borders on the stars and made small dots on the flowers. The flower centers are made with jewels (http://secure.mycart.net/catalogs/catalog.asp?prodid=4945746&showprevnext=1 )

I hope this posts inspires you to do something “different’ with your projects.

The painted background was made with Gesso and acrylic paints.. but that’s another story.

Mireille 

Ok, ladies…fess up!! When was the last time you did a layout about yourself?? I know this is something not alot of people like to do (myself included) but its probably one of the most important things you can do!! Do any of you like to sit back and look through old photos of your parents or grandparents?? Would you like your children to do the same thing?? I think it’s such a fun thing to scrap about myself at this point in my life because my kids won’t remember me "now" when they are old and have children of their own…When I scrapbook layouts about myself and my life as it is "right now" I’m preserving a part of myself that I can share with my children as they get older. I have also found that it can be very theraputic as well…It seems that the layouts I do about myself are the one’s I’m the most emotionally attached to. So, with that, I pose a challenge to all of you to get in front of the camera and not just be behind it….Take your own picture in the mirror or at arms length or with a timer…be silly, be artsy, be emotional, be thoughtful, just try it….You might find you enjoy it!! Don’t forget to include your own handwriting if possible and your age and year….Now hop to it!!

 ~Amanda

Hey everyone!

So I thought I’d do a little post about the Visual Triangle. If you’ve never heard of it, you’ll be thanking me by the end of this post, because it will make your pages SO much better and more organized too! First off, I want you to understand what it is. When you are compiling a page, you want the eye to be led in a certain way. What do you want the focus to be on the page? in what "order" do you want the eye to move? Do you want the main focus to be the picture, then move to the flower bunch in the corner, then back up to the title? Or the Title, then the picture, then the embelishments?

When we are creating our pages, we need to keep in mind what we want our focus to be on. Make that the highest priority on your pages.  Place it on the page in a spot that you’ll be able to add things around it to complete the visual triangle. Once you’ve done that, you want to bring the eye to the second most important piece. Is that going to be your title, a smaller group of pics, or something else? place them somewhere on your page so that the eye will follow a natural line to that second object from the first primary piece.

Once you’ve done that, what the third thing you want noticed? take into account where this is placed. You want it opposite of the other two. (thus completing the "triangle") again, you want the natural line for the eye to follow from the second piece, and lead you back to the first piece.

Here’s an example:

Ok-I want you to pay attention to what your eye does when you first see this page. Notice how I wanted the picture to be the main item. Now from that picture, i wanted the eye to follow through to the title and bunch of flowers right below it. Then I want the eye to floow up to the bird and the branch. Then once the eye got there, it went back to the picture. 

THis is something that isn’t easily accomplished. It takes practice and getting used to to finally just "do it" without thinking. Keep in mind some key pointers are to always use "3’s". If you group whatever you’re using into groups of 3’s, your project will already be more balanced and more organized.

Go ahead….. give it a try and post your pages in the comments section when you’re done! Let’s give a lot of inspiration going!

oh- and this LO was done with out October kit… isn’t it fabulous?!?!?!

Amber

The Nook is on the lookout for 2-3 new designers to work with items that we get in at the store. From time to time we have product donations to help us show off new items, and sometimes Pam likes to feature certain products.

-Term is 4 months with the opportunity to extend into a second term
-Designers receieve a 25% discount to the store
-Designers receive a bio on our DT page, behind the scenes info + product to play with

-Designers are expected to be active on the Message Board & Gallery with a minimum # of 300 posts per month
-Designers are also expected to post to the blog once per month

It is a pretty light work load. Basically, just show up, have fun and create a few times. Designers usually receive 4 -5 product lines to design with during the course of a term, usually in 2 shipments, give or take. It is a very flexible position.

If you are interested in this position, please post to this thread with your name, location & link to your gallery.
Also - try swinging by the introduction thread if you are new to our site - and introduce yourself. We like getting to know new people - designers or not!
Our designers will be purusing the gallery, and message board, over the next few weeks to give suggestions on which designers might be a good fit. We’ll be watching you…

We will be hosting a Virtual Crop on November 2-4:th, and that would be a great time for you to come play with us and let us get to know you better! (I am assuming you’ll already know us pretty well by then, though.*hint hint*)

Designers will be announced on November 5:th, at the same time that VC winners are announced.

See you at the message board!
/Zarah

Hi all.

 Well this months challenge for the feature designer for the blog was

to use flowers in a cool and interesting way.

I was completely over whelmed by how many of you entered and

each and every page that you guys did was amazing! i loved

them all. This is why choosing a winner is sooooo hard. But in

the end i had to and in the end i chose FANNY!!!

Why did i chose her? her page really stood out. i can only

imagine how long it took her to cut them all out and figure

out where they were going to go and in what order!

This is what she had to say about her page!

 I always wanted to do a layout with LOTS of flowers,

and when I saw this photo of my son at the pond in our

park, I knew I had the perfect pic.

I chose a neutral background, no patterned paper, to

make the flowers really stand out.
I used the following Quickutz dies:

REV-0017 (Revolution)
RS-0102 Leaf (Single die)
RS-0101 Leaf (Single die)
I also used the medium Retro Flower punch from Paper Shapers.

I die-cut the flowers from two shades of red Bazzill.

The leaves were cut from patterned green paper,

some We R Memory Makers scraps I had left, I saved the “inside”

of the RS-0102 Leaves to make stems for some of the flowers.

I then combined the different flowers, for example, I used the

smaller flower from the Revolution die on the Retro Flower.

I also used a small circle punch to give extra depth to

some of the flowers. At some places, I decided to use 3D glue dots.

The title is cut with two Revolution alphabets, Washington and Blossom.

For the word “summer”, I cut each letter twice, once from red

cardstock and once from the same green pattered paper used

for the leaves. Then I glued the green letters in place, before

cutting off portions of the red letters and simply gluing them

on top of the green ones – so you see, it’s not that complicated!

 A little tricky, but not impossible!

The word “time” is cut from black cardstock to match

the stripes in Jacob’s t-shirt.

Well, that’s about it. Any questions, just fire away

and I’ll try to answer them!

 ***********

 Again thankyou guys for taking part and look out for the next feature designer contest that goes up on the 14th!!!

 Wendy xxx

And if your like me, you give little cards and gifts to your nieces and those nearest and dearest to your heart!  This year I discovered the newest Halloween line by Reminisce, it’s soooo FUNKY and FUN!  Here’s the cards that I created for them . . .

One day while shopping at our local craft store, I saw these witches hats and thought that they would be really cute to stuff full of candy and mail off to my nieces in New Jersey.  And although this isn’t a card, LO or altered project, they were just too cute not to share.

And although I specifically bought this line to make cards, I decided to use my leftovers to create this LO of our little weiner dog, lil Dude from Halloween last year!  I’m still undecided as to what he’ll be this year . . . any suggestions???

 Thanks for peeking!  Gina