Your best work?

Glenna made an interesting comment on a post I wrote the other day

"Some of my best work was done in the early days when I had very little in the way of tools and supplies. Now I seem to be bogged down by "choice" eg..too much."

I only half agree- I've seen her work and she just keeps getting better and better.

But I definitely see her point. I find that I work faster and easier and often find the results more pleasing when I work from my heart and my head rather than some outside influence. I find this quite funny when I think about it- as I am the queen of idea books; see what I mean...


So here's my questions-

• Can you relate to the thoughts of Glenna and myself?
• What resources do you have beyond your own head/heart?
• How do you make the best use of the resources you have and do your best scrapping?
• What resources aren't you using? Any thoughts on what you may do about that, if anything?
  
• What would you do if you were me- sell all the books on trade me (or give them to you)?
• Or find a way to make better use of them (how)?

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Will A - Z

Cool Alphabet Soup By Zoe Pearn
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Buzzy Bee

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Lotsa Letters?

At scrapbook camp (way back in April!) I went through all my supplies finding the various different sets of letters that I had and went through a process where I checked which of my semi-planned pages they would work with and if I could make a decent title with them. At the end of this I did a few things with the left overs;

• Separated out any; G, L, K, S, M, R or W's these are our family initials and may be used as monograms or such like on pages.
• Tried to spell words which if I thought they may be useful I bagged up and put aside hopefully for future use.
• Tried to spell rude words- which I used on a LO about leftover letters.
• Threw them away if I just didn't like them any more (and had no vowels etc leftover).
• Offered them to others if they were still useful but just my thing.
• Or kept them altogether in one bag for any ransom letters (or ransom titles) I may want to make in the future.

I managed to use and purge a whole bunch and it felt great! In my pile of papers I came across a list of other ideas for left over letters.

• Make letters into cool shapes and designs.
• Make a lace paper type background.
• Cut apart, combine, or turn one letter to make another; d to a, d to p, q to b, u to n, n to u, h to r, k to h, z to N, Q to O, A to V, l+c make b or d and so on.
• repaint letters that are different colours but same type for a unified look.
  
• Use as a background or mask.
• Use as monograms on cards or LO's
  
• Use beyond scrapbooking- can you make funky magnets, keyrings, mobile phone tags, badge or broach- maybe even earrings? Personalise a pencil case or zipper pull as a gift for a child.
• Stick a bunch of thicker letter stickers on a block to make a funky background stamp.
  
• Use smaller letters as the first letter in your journalling.
• Use as a border.
• Make an alphabet book.
  
• Use the negative as a frame or fill it with beads or glitter.
• Sell full sets or almost full sets that you know you just won't use- be realistic.
  
• Give them away to fellow scrappers, kids, kindys or preschools.
• Throw them away. Seriously- you are not saving money if you keep some thing you brought in a sale, 5- 3 even only 1 year ago, as part of a bulk purchase, on impulse, because it was cheap or cute, or while on leave from your senses- you are just wasting space- if you haven't used it yet chances are you aren't going to. So I repeat THROW IT AWAY.

Got any other ideas?

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Silver Ferns Vs. The World

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365 2010 Week 25

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MOTAT

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Reminders

Another list. I have a LOT of supplies and tools in my scraproom and I like pretty much all of them- that's why I brought them. Problem is I don't use all of them. There are various reasons for that;

• ease of access- space is at a premium some things are packed away.
  
• increased time to use them
• clean-up
• Forgotten what I have
• Current Scrapping style doesn't lend itself to it
  
• Habit

That last one is probably the key- I reach for the same things over and over again out of habit and it just doesn't occur to me to use things beyond my 'normal' habits. So I wrote a list and every so often when I think of it, feel like it, have a challenging layout to do or just happen to notice my list I will run down it and see what jumps out at me for the project I am working on.

• Fabric tags
• Dymo
• Dye
• Ribbons
• Stamping
• Die cuts
• chipboard
• Tape
  
• paint
• Ice Candy
• Grommets
• Tags
• Collage materials
• Photo corners
• Beads and Micro beads
• Fabric
• Vellum
• Sewing
• Letters
• Stickers
• Rub-ons
• Ink
• Transparency
• Mulberry paper
• Foam alpha stamps
• Foam pattern stamps and corners.
• Embossing dry and heat
• hidden jounalling
• hinges
• metal
• brads and eyelets
  
• Twinkling H20's
• Embellishments (yeah really)
• Buttons
• Patterned paper
• Computer
• Blogged Journalling
• Ink
• Spray (glimmer mist etc)
  
• Craft Robo
• Glitter
• Idea books and magazines
• Directly related Ephemera
• Not directly related Ephemera
• Punches; border and shapes
• Ribbon scraps
  
• Wood
• Journalling cards
• Beads
• Jigsaw alphas
• Safety pins
• Habadashery
• Sequins
• Bling
• Monograms
• Paper scraps
• Dimensional Magic
• pictures (not photos)
• postcards
• No Photos- photoless LO's can be excellent!
  
• Gel Medium
  
• Texture paste
• Doodling
• Coloured Pencils
• Flower soft
• wire
• Metallic rub-ons
• date stamp
• paper clips
  
• Watercolour pencils
• Playing cards
• staples
  
• chalk
• distressing
  

You are welcome to cut and paste the list and add/delete items for your own use. If you have additions add them in the comments- I probably have 'them' too- I just forgot. :-~

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Big Sister

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Jas

Camp day 6

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MS: Sweet Pea

Camp day 5

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Haka

Camp day 5

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Scan

Camp day 5

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365 2010 Week 24

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Thirty

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Little Boy

Camp day 5

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Creative Block?

I didn't make this list it was written by musician Brian Eno and his friend Peter Schmidt. Called Oblique Strategies they were originally intended for musicians to help creativity. You can find out more here. I have included the whole list just because, not all will apply to paper arts.

• A line has two sides
• A very small object -Its centre
• Abandon desire
• Abandon normal instructions
• Accept advice
• Accretion
• Adding on
• Allow an easement (an easement is the abandonment of a stricture)
• Always first steps
• Always give yourself credit for having more than personality
• Always the first steps
• Are there sections? Consider transitions
• Ask people to work against their better judgement
• Ask your body
• Assemble some of the elements in a group and treat the group
• Back up a few steps. What else could you have done?
• Balance the consistency principle with the inconsistency principle
• Be dirty
• Be extravagant
• Be less critical more often
• Breathe more deeply
• Bridges -build -burn
• Call your mother and ask her what to do.
• Cascades
• Change ambiguities to specifics
• Change instrument roles
• Change nothing and continue with immaculate consistency
• Change specifics to ambiguities
• Children's voices -speaking -singing
• Cluster analysis
• Consider different fading systems
• Consider transitions
• Consult other sources -promising -unpromising
• Convert a melodic element into a rhythmic element
• Courage!
• Cut a vital connection
• Decorate, decorate
• Define an area as `safe' and use it as an anchor
• Describe the landscape in which this belongs.
• Destroy nothing; Destroy the most important thing
• Discard an axiom
• Disciplined self-indulgence
• Disconnect from desire
• Discover the recipes you are using and abandon them
• Discover your formulas and abandon them
• Display your talent
• Distorting time
• Do nothing for as long as possible
• Do something boring
• Do something sudden, destructive and unpredictable
• Do the last thing first
• Do the washing up
• Do the words need changing?
• Do we need holes?
• Don't avoid what is easy
• Don't be afraid of things because they're easy to do
• Don't be frightened of cliches
• Don't be frightened to display your talents
• Don't break the silence
• Don't stress one thing more than another
• Emphasize differences
• Emphasize repetitions
• Emphasize the flaws
• Faced with a choice, do both
• Feed the recording back out of the medium
• Feedback recordings into an acoustic situation
• Fill every beat with something
• Find a safe part and use it as an anchor
• First work alone, then work in unusual pairs.
• From nothing to more than nothing
• Get your neck massaged
• Ghost echoes
• Give the game away
• Give way to your worst impulse
• Go outside. Shut the door.
• Go slowly all the way round the outside
• Go to an extreme, move back to a more comfortable place
• How would someone else do it?
• How would you explain this to your parents?
• How would you have done it?
• Humanize something that is free of error.
• Idiot glee
  
• Imagine the music as a moving chain or caterpillar
• Imagine the music as a series of disconnected events
• In total darkness, or in a very large room, very quietly
• Infinitesimal gradations
• Instead of changing the thing, change the world around it.
• Intentions -credibility of -nobility of -humility of
• Into the impossible
• Is it finished?
• Is something missing?
• Is the intonation correct?
• Is the style right?
• Is the tuning appropriate?
• Is the tuning intonation correct?
• Is there something missing?
• It is quite possible (after all)
• It is simply a matter or work
• Just carry on
• Left channel, right channel, centre channel
• List the qualities it has. List those you'd like.
• Listen in total darkness, or in a very large room, very quietly
• Listen to the quiet voice
• Look at a very small object, look at its centre
• Look at the order in which you do things
• Look closely at the most embarrassing details and amplify.
• Lost in useless territory
• Lowest common denominator check -single beat -single note -single riff
• Magnify the most difficult details
• Make a blank valuable by putting it in an excquisite frame
• Make a sudden, destructive unpredictable action; incorporate
• Make an exhaustive list of everything you might do and do the last thing on the list
• Make it more sensual
• Make what's perfect more human
• Mechanize something idiosyncratic
• Move towards the unimportant
• Mute and continue
• Not building a wall but making a brick
• Once the search has begun, something will be found
• Only a part, not the whole
• Only one element of each kind
• Overtly resist change
• Pae White's non-blank graphic metacard
• Pay attention to distractions
• Picture of a man spotlighted
• Put in earplugs
• Question the heroic approach
• Remember those quiet evenings
• Remove a restriction
• Remove ambiguities and convert to specifics
• Remove specifics and convert to ambiguities
• Remove the middle, extend the edges
• Repetition is a form of change
• Retrace your steps
• Revaluation (a warm feeling)
• Reverse
• Short circuit (example; a man eating peas with the idea that they will improve his virility shovels them straight into his lap)
• Shut the door and listen from outside
• Simple subtraction
• Simply a matter of work
• Slow preparation, fast execution
• Spectrum analysis
• State the problem in words as simply as possible
• Steal a solution.
• Take a break
• Take away as much mystery as possible. What is left?
• Take away the elements in order of apparent non-importance
• Take away the important parts
• Tape your mouth
• The inconsistency principle
• The most important thing is the thing most easily forgotten
• The tape is now the music
• Think - inside the work -outside the work
• Think of the radio
• Tidy up
• Towards the insignificant
• Trust in the you of now
• Try faking it
• Turn it upside down
• Twist the spine
• Use "unqualified" people.
• Use an old idea
• Use an unacceptable color
• Use cliches
• Use fewer notes
• Use filters
• Use something nearby as a model
• Use your own ideas
• Voice your suspicions
• Water
• What are the sections sections of? Imagine a caterpillar moving
• What context would look right?
• What do you do? Now, what do you do best?
• What else is this like?
• What is the reality of the situation?
• What is the simplest solution?
• What mistakes did you make last time?
• What most recently impressed you? How is it similar? What can you learn from it? What could you take from it?
• What to increase? What to reduce? What to maintain?
• What were the branch points in the evolution of this entity
• What were you really thinking about just now? Incorporate
• What would make this really successful?
• What would your closest friend do?
• What wouldn't you do?
• When is it for? Who is it for?
• Where is the edge?
• Which parts can be grouped?
• Who would make this really successful?
• Work at a different speed
• Would anyone want it?
• You are an engineer
• You can only make one dot at a time
• You don't have to be ashamed of using your own ideas
• Your mistake was a hidden intention

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Love You

Camp day 5

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X-Rated

I can't show the whole LO on this one- It's not quite finished because there is more space and there are always more letters and let's face it some of the words are not family viewing...

Camp day 5

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Salt Dough

Camp day 5

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365 2010 Week 23

Must be hump month. I really wasn't motivated to get this week done, hence the late delivery. By the end of June I'll be on the downhill side of this years project. While it has been easier to put together this year sometimes I lament the lack of details. It has made me a lot more economical with my words though.

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Puhoi

Camp day 5

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Adore Will

Camp day 5

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Funny Dude

Camp day 5

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Ideas for Stamping

I wrote this list for myself a while back and thought it might be nice to share. Most scrapbookers have a fairly generous stash of stamps many (most) of which we don't use or use enough. It's a really cost effective way to add to your page without spending much of your hard earned dollars. It sometimes just takes a little time and extra effort and clean-up.

Stamp a;

• border or frame
• background
• title
• embellishment or decoration
• picture
• monogram
• tag
• pattern
• letter repeated to make a decorative shape.

Stamp with;

• foam stamps
• rubber stamps
• acrylic stamps
  
• potatoes
• bubble wrap
• corrugated card
• bottle caps and other found items
• leaves
• scrunched up paper
• a doily or through a doily
• hot glue on wood to make a pattern let dry and stamp.
• foam
• fabric and lace
• corks
• paint
• ink
  
• bleach
• condensed milk (then heat it with your heat gun)
• your fingers
• a fork
• a toy (think car wheels and all sorts)
• wire

Stamp on;

• a photo
• a button
• tags
• fabric
• transparency
• vellum
• card
• paper
• ribbons
  
• twill

Make a stamp rubbing

cut out and mount a stamped image

'Colour in' a stamp with chalk

Mask an area or areas and stamp over them.

Create your own postage stamps with ink stamps.

Heat emboss a stamped image. Take it a step further and emboss in clear and then blend ink over it for a resist look.

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Gap

Camp day 5

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Farked

Camp day 5

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Cheeky Girls

Camp day 5

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Kieran 11

Camp day 5

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Photo Processing

Digital photography is both a joy and a curse. While I wouldn't want to return to the days of carefully picking and choosing my shots so that I could make a 36 shot film last long and be economical. There was a certain joy in the ease of taking the photos and then dropping the film off to be processed and getting your photos back. I was generally fairly happy with the results of my photography too so that was a bonus.

Now at the end of any given week I have something like 350-450 photos taken (add another 300-400 in the winter sports season). I will generally reduce this down to 150ish once I get rid of all the double ups and blurry 2 year old racing around shots.

Then I pick 7 photos for our 365 page for the week.

Decide which I want to blog so our family and friends can see what we've been up to.

Decide which I want to scrap.

Decide which of those I want to digitally scrap and which I want to get printed.

And of those that I want to get printed...

• which I want to enlarge or shrink (I often print two photos to one 6x4).
• which need to be 'fixed'. I don't do too much of this mainly because our camera is idiot proof, I am not an idiot and I also think photos should be representative of real life.
• how I am likely to want to scrap them.

If there's heaps of good photos from one event-

• how many will I scrap.
• do I want them to all be the same size?
• If not what size will they be.

Once I have that sorted I may need/want to

• Convert to B & W or Sepia
• Add text.
• Add digital brushes
• Add digital stitching
  
• Crop the photos closer
  
• or into circles.
• Add a digital frame.
• Do some sort of 'photoshop action' on the photo -to change the tone or colour for a funky effect or different mood.

Because the above is the last step in the process these things, which could really add some to my scrapbook pages, rarely get done- as it's so much easier to chuck them in the too print folder and get on with it all.

I have photos organised in multiple folders in various parts of my computer waiting for their turn to move through some or other part of this process. (this means that they are also taking up valuable hard drive space as they are generally duplicates on my system).

At one point I actually planned pages with sketches and scraplift's etc before I decided what to print- but it took way too long for me to get around t scrapping the photos that I had either forgotten what I meant despite my notes, changed my style or just lost the enthusiasm for the page I was scraplifting.

Then there's the uploading and dealing with temperamental online photo processing software.

As you can imagine thanks to digital technology I spend way more time 'processing photos' than I did before and it cuts into my scrapping time. :-(

In my ideal world I own a professional quality photo printer that can print borderless up to 12 x 12. So I can plan, print and scrap all in one go. I do have a photo printer (an hp photosmart 130) but it only prints 6 x 4's and lets face it baby at home printer quality is about 30% when you compare with a good photo processor- even the kiosk at The Warehouse with it's glossy icky paper is better. (If you still print glossy- try matte for a while I'm willing to bet you'll love it and won't go back).

I spend fairly reasonable amounts of money and time and space recording and keeping my families stories with words and photos on scrapbook pages- I want my photos to be worthy of that expenditure and not let the whole process down.

Some days I'm tempted to just print all the photos I like as 6x4's and chuck them in standard photo albums and just pull out and scrap what I like. But variety is the spice of life and I do like a spicy life. :-) So I'm open for your ideas and tips on what works for you when it comes to dealing with your digital photos. How much time do you spend?- Have you streamlined your process over time? Have you had any great epiphany's as you've dealt with this issue?

Oh yeah I get the obvious one- take less photos and scrap less too- well, wash your mouth out!

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1st Flight

Camp day 5

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Misc Inspiration

In my pile of papers and miscellaneous stuff that I am sorting were these pictures that I saved for scrapping inspiration:

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365 2010 Week 22

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B is for Best

Camp day 5

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Love

With out a doubt my favourite page from camp....

I spent a truckload of time and played around with a bunch of techniques. It's one of the thickest heaviest pages I have ever done. Above painted Chipboard covered in Tim Holtz clear crackle, also used on the section below. Yummy, yummy texture

Below text stamped with versa mark and then embossed with clear UTE. The swirl is a mask which has been inked over with Tim's Distress Ink (I think vintage photo and fired brick)


I layered chipboard on the base and then papered over it to get the dimension and layers. I also inked the edges to get more depth.

More ink and crackle...

Finally add my hot guy....

Sweet!
Camp day 4

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I Hate Mo-vember

Camp day 4
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When Will Went To Hospital

Here is a little story which I literally threw together Monday afternoon and night in time for the photobook special on Snapfish.

Snapfish is a notoriously crap printer of photobooks only rivaled in their crapness by Harvey Norman who I will never ever ever use again unless the books are FREE or they are paying me! The thing is that both places are nameless faceless corporates who care only for your money and don't give a flyin' F@#% for your carefully crafted projects. They hideously overcharge for postage as well. But the options are limited in NZ and the prices can be skyhigh- so you take what you get. I had wanted to finish my Week in the Life and print at the same time but my motivation was zero and tiredness at 100% by the end of the day so it just didn't happen- I am also getting the Soapbox derby book printed in this order as well so will be interesting to see what it's like as well.

Each of these pages are 8x8 in in real life. You will see that I have left generally an inch of white space around my graphics to try and ensure that nothing will be lost off the edges or in the binding. Even with that HUGE margin I am not confident. I make all my pages as one whole .jpg and then chose the whole photo on the page option at Snapfish. The layout and text choices in their photobook program are WAY too limiting and frustrating for this chickee to waste her time and money on.

Digital supply credits are at the end.

Digital Credits: Frames by Danielle Thompson- Kitchy Digitals @ Jessica Sprague, Everything else (Owls etc) By Nancy Kubo @ Little Dreamer Designs (some items have been recoloured).
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