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.

5/30/2008

I love my sharp little scissors.

Literally cutting images out of photos is one of my favorite techniques. Cutting away the background allows the image, usually a person, to stand out. With big photos, the background is big too, and so are any distractions in the background.

I have my favorite pair of "Bumblebee" brand cutting scissors. To cut an image out, it is best to keep the scissors relatively still and move and turn the photo. Practice makes perferct. Hair is really hard.

I do not totally cut people out of the photo, but leave some of one side or the bottom of the photo. Otherwise the people seem to be floating on the page, and I have not had a page layout yet for floating people.

I photgraph and cut out a lot of signs for titles and embellishments.