I don't know exactly why I don't scrapbook. Maybe it's the black cloud of a perpetually unfinished project hanging over my head. It's just not fun for me; I feel like it's overkill. I'd rather just look through a photo album with no embellishment. I am missing the embellishment gene, which makes it hard for me to tell jokes longer than a one-liner. (Two peanuts walked into a bar and one was a-salted.) And scrapbooks seem to need embellishment. It's like scrapbooking is so permanent and I don't want to mess up and say something dorky that will be passed on for generations. I want it to be timeless and witty, and that just seems so formal. Much like the eight years we spent observing young parents and what not do, I've seen a lot of scrapbooks that turned me off of that craft genre (and subsequently saved me a bunch of money). Highly embellished three-dimensional pages with cutesy fonts and themes, seven pictures, and a paragraph longer than the original event it chronicled.
This past Christmas I put my scrapbook aversion aside and put together a photo book (I used Costco's website) for my parents and in-laws. It had only photos, and after seeing the beautiful one my sister-in-law did I realized that captions are for other people's sake and are indeed helpful. Next year.
I thought about going to the craft store and finding the requisite cute papers and rivets and stickers to do this page for the birthday gift, but first I turned to my pal Google and discovered digital scrapbooking. There are lots of available page templates along the lines of The Cutest Blog on the Block blog templates, and I even started putting one together until it got complicated with registration, membership, and printing. So I went back to the first idea and logged onto the Costco photo center to have prints made (a rarity when compared to how many pictures I take). I noticed that one size option was 8"x8", so it got my wheels turning.
I wound up using Photoshop (stick to what you know!) and this image of a thank-you note from my friend Liz, which I scanned a couple years ago.
You may remember it from our baby announcement...
Gosh she looks different now. Anyway, here is my "scrapbook page"...
Happy birthday, Reid!
3 comments:
As a Creative Memories consultant I would send you to my web site and use the free download of our software for your easy digital book. www.mycmsite.com/sites/nancyjedwards
The page you completed is beautiful. Glad you gave it a try.
First off, what a great idea Reid's Momma had. I think that would be a super gift for anyone. I do have to say though that this is where again, you and I really are similar. I think less is more, especially with pictures. I love the looking at my grandparents photo albums and seeing how stark they were, they just seem really clean and un cluttered. I do like seeing other people's scrapbooks though, I think it's a neat craft. Just not one for me. And like you, boy has it saved me a ton of money over the years...
I do love your finished product though, very fresh and very you... Good job.
It's beautiful, Anne- couldn't be more perfect..... Thank you so much!
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