Posted by admin on April 10, 2011
I Hope Album
I just gave my daughter an I Hope Album for her birthday. She has several albums so it isn’t uncommon for her to get an album. She opened it and as she looked at the first page she said, “So is this an album about how beautiful I am?” That wasn’t exactly how I’d describe it, but if that is how she sees it I’m happy.
So what is an I Hope Album? The concept was introduced at the Creative Memories Leadership Convention I attended in February (in Cancun, my kind of business travel!) A group of consultants came up with the idea and created pre-designed pages with sayings that express general hopes and dreams we have for our children. The hard part is done for you, the sayings and creative artwork are done, just click and drag in your own pictures. The templates are a free download, and you can even use the free version of StoryBook 3.0 to complete the album. (If you need help downloading these just contact me.)
On the Creative Memories website they share this insight, “One of the greatest gifts a parent can give to a child is an album of hope. It’s the gift of self-assurance and a sense of belonging. It shows children that they have a stable foundation and that they’re part of something larger than themselves. It tells children that they can be strong and believe in their dreams because they have a family backing them.”
Check out this link to view her I Hope Album: http://www.cmphotocenter.com/sbpreview/StorybookPreview.aspx?StorybookID=626557&CustomerID=9414
Dr. Kenneth Condrell put it this way: “I believe photos and scrapbooks might be a parent’s secret weapon. There are few tools out there that are more powerful or effective in helping to raise confident, happy, well-adjusted kids.”
So what are you waiting for? Gather your favorite pictures and complete your I Hope Album today.
If you would like to see all the templates you can print out a worksheet by going to the “My files” section of my website at www.mycmsite.com/debbietroutt.
Debbie Troutt
Your Photo Solutions Friend
Posted by admin on December 26, 2010
Do you have a favorite Christmas ornament you hang every year? If you do I bet there is a story that goes with it.
As we carefully unpack, hang and then repack all those ornaments there are always a special few that tug at us for one reason or another.
The snowman that I painted when I was 3 years old that has one eye that is much bigger than the other because I just had to make it a little bigger.
The ornament I made in kindergarten with my picture in the middle and red yarn around the outside that my daughter insisted was her picture when she was in kindergarten.
The train that Uncle John brought back from Germany one year. Uncle John was alive when we put that ornament on the tree this year, but he is gone now. I’ll pack that away very carefully this year.
So I bet you have a few ornaments that have their own stories. Why not take pictures of those ornaments, put them in a special album, and journal the story or special memory behind them. The album can be handed down to your kids so they can remember and share the stories with their children. Maybe pulling out the album each year can become one of your Christmas traditions. Let your kids take a picture of their favorite ornament and write about why it is their favorite.
It isn’t rocket science, but I made a short video showing the album I use and how easy it can be to create your own Christmas Ornament Album.
View the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2lDTh6eNGg
Posted by admin on November 1, 2010
Creating a System to get scrapbook albums completed – Step 4: Tell
The process is: TRIM, TOSS, TAPE, TELL.
Step 4: Tell
I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Please don’t let that be your excuse for not telling your story!
The final step in this process is TELL. A lot of people get hung up here. Here are the excuses I hear:
“I hate my handwriting.” Get over it. How often do you get a handwritten note in today’s society? We email and text, we chat on facebook, we send online greeting cards. Anything handwritten (no matter how bad you think your writing is) will be meaningful to your family.
“I don’t know what to say.” Relax – it doesn’t have to be an award winning novel.
Try these easy journaling methods:
• Bullet points
• Who, what, when, where, why
• Short captions under pictures
• One intro paragraph/journaling box for a two page spread
“I don’t remember why I took that picture.” I confess, I’ve found that I have a lot more to tell when I’m working on current albums and not near as much when I’m working with older pictures. When I don’t remember the story behind the picture I usually end up with just short captions under the picture even if it just states the obvious, or maybe even just names and dates or titles.
Speaking of titles, I do like to use ABC stickers for title/page headings. I often add those during the TAPE step so that once I get to TELL all I need is my album and pens. (And a cup of coffee and a quiet house in a perfect world.)
Once you reach this step it really is easy to pull out your album and pens and sit down to journal, no mess, just tell your stories!
Posted by admin on July 17, 2010
The process is: TRIM, TOSS, TAPE, TELL.
Step 3: Tape
If you have completed steps 1 and 2 and come to a Super Saturday or sit down to scrapbook on your own you will be able to quickly complete your pages. This step involves getting out more supplies than the other steps so I like to have a larger chunk of time to work. Ready?
Open your album to your next blank page.
Open your Power Sort Box and dump the pictures off of the top Guide onto your blank page. Now this is the part that throws everyone, you have 10 seconds to arrange them how you want to. Go! Every time I demonstrate this and say, “Okay, you have 10 seconds to get them where you want them,” I get a laugh, or an, “Are you kidding me?” remark. Point being, even if it takes more than 10 seconds to arrange them on the page don’t let it take more than a minute. Your kids aren’t going to look at their albums and say, “Mom, why did you put that picture at the top and not on the left.” They don’t care, they just love seeing the pictures. We waste time worrying about the layout, ask everyone at the table what they think, then move things around 5 or 6 more times. Just get them to fit on the page in a somewhat appealing layout and make sure you leave room for journaling (telling the story behind the pictures).
Once you have them arranged you can pick a paper for the background and find any stickers or embellishments you want to use. Tape the pictures down one at a time on the decorative paper or on the page itself, then add your stickers or other embellishments.
By arranging the pictures first, allowing room to tell the story, then picking the paper and embellishments you keep the focus on the pictures instead of the decorations.
Since you have all your supplies out I suggest saving the journaling for a quiet time later, and just keep taping.
Repeat the process. Take out the next Guide/page in your Power Layout Box, dump onto your next blank page and you have 10 seconds to get them where you want them.
To view a video of this step go to: http://www.youtube.com/user/CMCDebT#p/a/u/0/E-PMpf1r8Ng
Your Photo Solutions Friend,
Debbie Troutt
Posted by admin on July 11, 2010
To review the process is: TRIM, TOSS, TAPE, TELL.
So you have a stack of 150-200 pictures in front of you that you have trimmed/cropped to make your subject the focus, now what?
I will do my best to explain in words, but be sure to check out the video link at the end for a visual aide!
This is another step that doesn’t involve getting all of your supplies out, all you need is a Power Layout Box and Guides. (If you don’t have a Power Layout Box you can use loose scrapbook pages or the cardboard inserts that come with the refill pages and page protectors.)
Arrange the Power Layout Guides/pages out in front of you. You can spread them out on a table or even in a semi-circle around you on the floor.
Take your stack of pictures and start tossing them onto the Guides by event. Do not think of the Guides as pages in your scrapbook, just as a sorting tool. You are trying to get all your pictures that go together back together in case they got separated during the trimming process.
When I do my fall pictures they get tossed onto the Guides something like this:
Pictures from trip to the pumpkin farm on one Guide, pumpkin carving pictures on one Guide, Trick-or-Treating, Thanksgiving, visiting Santa, making Christmas cookies, putting up the Christmas lights, Christmas Eve, Christmas morning, trip to play in the snow, etc.
Continue tossing onto Guides until you’ve gone through the entire stack of pictures.
Next take a look to see if you have any Guides that only have one or two pictures, see if you can combine them with another group. You may also end up making a miscellaneous group that has all the random pictures that you can’t bear to leave out, but that don’t really fit in anywhere else.
Finish this step by stacking up the Guides in chronological order so that the first event from the stack of pictures is on top. If you have a misc. page put it on the bottom of the stack. Place the stack of Guides into your Power Layout Box and you are done with Step 2: Toss and ready to attack Step 3: Tape.
To see a video demonstration of Step 2: Toss go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbTs8w3MpmE
Posted by admin on June 29, 2010
The process is: TRIM, TOSS, TAPE, TELL.
Step 1: Trim
When I first started using this system I would coach customers to wait until they’d printed 3-4 rolls of film. (Yes, that dates how long I’ve been using this system!) Now I suggest printing 100-200 pictures. This may be all the pictures from a vacation, your best pictures from the last 6 months, or even a whole year’s worth of pictures for one of your kids.
Reminder: not every picture has to go in an album, it is okay to only scrapbook the best of the best. In the digital world we take 10 times more pictures than we did before, they are not all album worthy. Before you start this step you will have narrowed down the images and printed just the ones you want to share and celebrate.
Sit down with your stack of pictures and your favorite cropping tools. For me this includes my Personal Trimmer and my Custom Cutting System. Trim, or as we often say, crop, each picture to make it the best picture. Trim off background clutter, the messy kitchen counter, the people you don’t know in the background, but not Grandma’s needlepoint on the wall. You are just trimming to bring the focus to the best part of the picture. If you have edited your images on the computer before you printed them you may find you have less to crop off, you’ve already done some of that digitally.
At least 80% of your pictures should just be trimmed into rectangular shapes. If you come to a picture that screams to be a circle or an oval go ahead and cut it into that shape. Just remember that at this point you don’t know which pictures are going on which pages and you don’t want to have 4 or 5 ovals on one page, it isn’t as pleasing to the eye. One circle or oval on a page with 4-5 rectangles looks very nice, so just try to keep that 80% ratio.
If you like to corner round your pictures wait until you have trimmed the entire stack then go back and round the corners of each picture.
As you are trimming don’t worry about getting the pictures out of order, that will be fixed in the next step.
What’s nice about this step is that all you need is your pictures and cropping tools, no need to get out every bag and scrapbooking supply you own. Trim the pictures then put everything away until you have time to attack Step 2: Toss!
To see a quick video clip of Step 1: Trim go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TfhV37Y12c
Your Photo Solutions Friend,
Debbie Troutt
Posted by admin on June 21, 2010
Creating a System to get scrapbook albums completed
Most of us have several systems and routines we follow to keep our lives somewhat under control. Your morning routine may start with coffee, exercise, checking email, packing lunches, etc. If you have young children I’m sure you have a bedtime routine for them. You probably also have a system for paying your bills, where you put them when they arrive, when you pay them, which ones are a priority.
We have routines and systems for the things we have to get done and the things we want to get done. Do you want to get scrapbook albums done? If so, and if like many of my customers you are feeling overwhelmed and behind, then consider trying out my system for completing albums.
I was shown this system several years ago and have completed several albums and been able to stay current by following these four steps: Trim, Toss, Tape, Tell. (Yes, they are four letter words, but these are good four letter words.)
Over the next few posts I will be breaking each step down and explaining in more detail, but here are the basics:
Trim – Sit down with 100-200 pictures and crop them.
Toss – Basically you are laying your pictures out and dividing them by themes and events, then stacking them up in chronological order. (I’ll have a video clip showing this process.)
Tape – This is when you create your pages. You tape the pictures, paper and embellishments into the album.
Tell – Journal the story behind the pictures.
It really is that easy. TRIM-TOSS-TAPE-TELL- then repeat for each album project. And don’t forget, you get me to help you each step of the way!
Your Photo Solutions Friend
Debbie Troutt
Posted by admin on June 15, 2010
5 tips to get ready for Summer/Vacation picture taking:
1) Upload all your existing pictures from your camera to your computer. Then print AND back them up so you can delete them from your camera. Call me paranoid, but I don’t like to delete them from my camera until I know they are safely on my computer and either backed up to a CD or to a reliable online provider. (www.digital.creativememories.com, Costco, Walgreens, somewhere that isn’t going out of business tomorrow)
2) When you are making your packing list be sure to include your camera charger or extra batteries. Although our camera batteries may seem to last a long time under normal conditions, when we are on vacation and taking a ton of pictures the battery drains much more quickly.
3) Make sure the time and date on your camera are correctly set. If you are traveling to a different time zone you may want to adjust the time on your camera when you arrive. (Learned that one the hard way.) Also, if you will have multiple cameras taking pictures (i.e. Grandma’s camera or another family member’s camera) you will want to make sure the time on the cameras is set the same. If you have a program like Memory Manager it will automatically arrange all the pictures you upload by the exact time. If the time is off on one of the cameras then your pictures won’t automatically be in order.
4) How many pictures can your camera’s memory card hold? Will that be enough? Have a plan for uploading on the road if it is a long trip. You may want to look through the images on your camera every couple of days and delete the blurry ones just in case you start running out of space.
5) If you know you are going to be scrapbooking the trip, especially if you are going to do it digitally, take some pictures that could be used as the background for a page. A close up of the sand at the beach, a sunset, the forest, the campfire, the lake, a view from the balcony, etc.
Your Photo Solutions Friend,
Debbie Troutt
Posted by admin on May 31, 2010
Posted by admin on May 27, 2010
“I Hope” Album
I Hope Album
