Preserve your families heritage and traits

Here is a fun way to preserve your families heritage and the traits that come with it.

List the traits that make up someone, physical, emotional, ect. Here are a few examples.

Physical Traits:
Scrapbook about a physical trait that is very obvious on one side of your family. My side is our nose, the "lion" nose as it is affectionately called. A cute little nose that slightly resembled a lions nose due to the larger nostrils. I look at pictures of my grandmother and my mother and it is quite obvious where it comes from.


Emotional Traits:
Temper, temper. You always like to think that your children get the best of your qualities, though, that's not always the case. Whenever the children throw a tantrum I giggle, because it is VERY clearly not from my side of the family.

Cute little blurbs about these things will help your children, and their children to see where they got their green thumb, or their love or cooking.

Stamping Techniques

As with all things, practice makes perfect and the more you use your stamps the better your works will turn out.

Here are just a few simple tips to keep in mind when using your stamps:

1. Choose your inks carefully.

There are many types of ink to choose from and this is the most critical step in stamping:

PIGMENT INKS are generally slow drying but some have been made for quick drying. Pigment inks are opaque and are also available in metallic and chalk finishes.

DYE BASED INKS are non-permanent, dry quickly and produce a translucent image.

RAINBOW INK pads offer a variety of colors all on one pad.

RESIST INKS produce a soft watermark type image.

SOLVENT INKS require special cleaners but are able to be used on a variety of surfaces (most papers, glass, tile, leather, wood, and acrylic).

MARKERS allow you to apply color directly offering you a variety of colors and shading.

3. Press or tap the stamp firmly on the pad several times. Make certain not to apply too much pressure or rock the stamp on the pad or you may get ink in areas you do not want.

4. Make sure the stamp is well inked. New stamps often resist the inks evenly at first and need a breaking in period. If you are uncertain, make a test stamp on a scrap piece of paper. After the test reink your stamp.

5. Always stamp on a flat surface.

6. Decide where you want the stamp to go and carefully set the stamp onto your surface. Do NOT readjust the stamp doing so will cause a blurry image.

7. Apply firm even pressure to the stamp. Do NOT rock or slam the stamp onto the surface. Doing so will cause overstamping or blurring of the image.

8. Carefully lift the stamp off of the surface being careful to lift directly upward. Any side to side movement may cause a shadow image.

9. Allow to dry completely before coloring or applying another stamp nearby.

Every stamp and ink is different so a little experimentation before your final project should be done.

Chipboard Album How To's

TIP #1 - How to Bind Chipboard Albums:
There are many ways to bind chipboard albums together after you’ve finished them. Here are a few ideas:
1- Ribbon Binding
2- Scored Edge with Ribbon Binding
3- Binder Rings

TIP #2 - How to Adhere paper to your Chipboard Albums:
Mod Podge - glue is a favorite for the more advanced paper crafter. Simply spread the adhesive using a foam brush to the back side of your paper and then adhere to the chipboard and trim. Be careful not to use too much or your paper will bubble. Dry Adhesive like the Xyron’s Cheetas are easy for any level of paper crafter to use. Simply run adhesive along chipboard or paper and adhere. Use another running adhesive like Tombow’s Mono Adhesive to secure down the edges.

TIP #3 - How to trim the paper to fit the albums letters:

Trick 1 - Simply place your “letter” upside down on the “back” side of your paper, trace with a pencil and then trim along tracing line. This offers the most accurate way to match up paper to chipboard page.

Trick 2 - Adhere paper directly to chipboard and then trim around edge using an x-acto knife. Then sand along edge to create a clean meshed look between the paper and the chipboard.

Make your school morning easier

Even the simplest of tasks can be dauntingly long when your in a rush and your family is in a rush. Sure we all try to pack lunches the night before, but personally, I never remember. Then I forgot that I didn't remember and I can be seen running around the kitchen packing lunches and trying not to forget anything 5 minutes before we have to leave.

The biggest problem I find is everything is everywhere! The fridge, the cupboard beside the stove the pantry and so on and so on. Then the bright idea dawned on me, why don't you take 5 minutes and put everything in ONE place.

Wow, simple thought, why did it take so long. Anyways, I now have one bin labelled "Lunch Stuff" With all of the lunch-making essentials: napkins, spoons, thermos, baggies, peanut butter, bread, crackers and other small snacks. So when I last minute have to prepare the lunches it is all there.

Then there is the problem on the refrigerated items, yogurt, fruits, cheese, meats, I have assigned a small bin (with a lid) to these items and put it the fridge. This way they are all together and organized.

Hope this helps everyone!

Love Scrapbooking Ideas

Some of the theme based ideas could be:
-Story Of Our Relationship
-Our First Ten Years Together
-Our Plans For The Next Ten Years
-The Things We Love About Each Other
-Some Of Our Most Memorable Vacations
-Our Song with the lyrics
-Milestones In Our Relationship
-Our Shared Secrets
-Trials And Tribulations We Overcame With Love
-Our Romantic Accounts
-Some Of Our Funny Moments

Five Things You Can Do With Vellum

1. Mat a photo
Just like regular paper, use vellum to highlight a special photo on your page. Layer it with card stock, printed paper, mulberry paper and so on. Tear a vellum mat for extra dimension. If you cut a mat with decorative edge scissors, take care as vellum does crease easily and may leave a white dent or line.

2. Journal on it
Vellum makes a great overlay for journaling over printed paper. You can either send it through your computer's printer (a laser printer works better because it's a drier process, but you can try it on an ink-jet, too gel pens or scrapbooking markers. Be patient and give it time to dry.

3. Use it as tracing paper
Remember when you were little and activity books had tracing paper? Vellum is a grown-up's version. Place a sheet over a handwriting style you admire or a picture or logo you'd like to trace. Watch your hand for smudging.

4. Print a photo on it
Photos can be printed on vellum for an ethereal look. Experiment with placing photos printed on plain or light-colored vellum on different colors of card stock. It makes a very striking look.

5. Change the tone of a patterned paper
Plain colored vellum can make subtle changes to the paper you're layering. Love a certain patterned piece of paper, but the colors are just too bright for your photos? Placing a white or pastel color vellum on top will mute the colors, yet let the design still shine through.

Top 4 Scrapbook Tips

- Alcohol free baby wipes are perfect for cleaning rubber and acrylic stamps
- Place embellishments in odd numbers like three and five for more visual impact
- Test how your stamp will look first. Stamp on a clear inserts or packaging that come with products and move it over your page to test where it would suit best.
- Grab five to seven left out items from your desk and challenge yourself to use them on a quick page.
You’ll be amazed at what you come up with.

'About Me' Challenge

Scrapbooking about myself? No thank you. I have no problem coming up with scrapbooking page ideas for my kids, my family, my ancestors, or our latest vacation, but coming up with pages about myself are a lot more difficult.
If you feel the same way it is pretty common. One of my main reasons was that I did not have any recent pictures of myself. For this I went to my friends, I figured if I had tons of pictures of them they would probably have the same.
A cute way to allow your audience to get to know you ( vs. writing a journaling block) is to try short notes about yourself.
You can try with "I Am" or "I Love" written with bullet points below. For example: "I Am" - Addicted to romance novels - The funniest person I know - Happy in this moment - "I Love" - Rainy Days - Great Laughs - Family Time.
So go ahead and take some ME time. It will be fun.

Scrapbook Creatively

A creative scrapbook does not focus on the scrapbooking traditions, rules and procedures.

All you need is a little creativity! Creativity is the thinking without limitations in creating your scrapbooks.

There are no rules in the scrapbooking. Usually the most creative and free person can make a really unrepeatable piece of art. You must think only about photos, your thoughts, your feelings and how showcase these things altogether in the finest way.

Play around with your pics, notes, words, thoughts

Add a little age to your project

Give age and texture to your scrapbook pages by inking the surface and edges. You will want to add more ink to the edges than the surface by rubbing almost any type of rubber stamping ink pad. Lightly rub the ink pad across the surface of the paper until you have it as dark as you would like it. Remember, you can always add more but you can not take ink off of paper. Add a little at a time.