Welcome to my world of the practical scrapbooker

Here is ten years of scrapbooking my photos and memorabilia onto actual paper .....without major art projects or (too) complicated techniques.

I blend traditional paper and "new" digital techniques to tell the stories of my family's fun, travels, and history.

Here are my thoughts as I sort, shop, crop, organize, arrange, journal, and decorate my scrapbook pages.

1/18/2008

Text -- Titles, captions, and "journalling"

The amount of my text on the scrapbook page -- titles, captions, and "journalling" varies from page to page. Text can be placed directly on the scrapbook page or created on separate paper, cropped, then applied to the page. More and more frequently I use the "create it separately" method to create my scrapbook text because that method is more flexible and forgiving.

Text can be created by hand writing, word processing, applying alphabet letters, using stickers or die cuts, photocopying or downloading descriptions, photocopying the message sections of postcards, printing out e-mail, copying letters, painting, embossing, and probably more ways.

My handwriting is almost never lovely enough for me when I use a marker to write a caption. I prefer word processing, especially the ability to try different fonts, colors, wording, spacing, and sizes before I adhere the final version to my scrapbook page.

I use my standard Microsoft Office Word program -- it has so many features useful for scrapbooking -- few of which I ever used while typing my reports for work or school. With word and my color printer I happily can create most of my text.

I use alphabet stickers to create titles or captions only when the stickers are so unique that I can't resist or when I can't easily re-create the style or patterns with Word. My daughter loves Photoshop Elements for creating elaborate titles, but so far I only use it for special photo editing projects.

Scrapbook stores have abundant supplies of cute, touching, witty, elegant, historical, whimsical, and topical captions with matching graphics. Each store often has a different selection. Browsing the selection for inspiration is a favorite pastime.