Creating Keepsakes Blog

Show Us Your Blue-Ribbon Layouts

In the fabulous September 2010 issue of Creating Keepsakes, we showed you how to add flair to your everyday layouts using products with a farm, garden, homespun, and amusement-park theme. No matter if the only animal encounter you’re likely to have this year is with your pet Chihuahua or if you have the brownest thumb in the ‘burbs, these types of  “country fair” products can enhance any layout you can imagine!

Just take a look at this fun layout from Dream Team member Suzy Plantamura taken straight from page 82 of our September issue.

Here, Suzy used the saying “two peas in a pod” to jump-start her adorable layout about her daughter’s friendship with the family dog, Mayzie. Garden-themed product from Cosmo Cricket was a perfect choice for her fanciful layout!

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Upload Your Layouts to Win!

I know the sights and sounds of the fair have kicked your imagination into high gear! So it’s time to upload your fair-themed pages to the project gallery at Club CK with the tag “Blue-Ribbon Page” before September 30, 2010. (Learn how to upload your layouts here. Note: You will need to be logged in to upload; create your FREE account on Club CK here.) Then leave a comment below with the URL link to your layout posted in the Club CK gallery; for example, your comment could look like this: “My layout is posted here: http://clubcreatingkeepsakes.com/media/p/31086.aspx.” You could be one of the five random scrapbookers chosen to win a selection of products featured in our “Fair Days” article.

To see the products and to find more layout inspiration, check out the article on page 79 of the September 2010 issue of Creating Keepsakes!

Happy scrapping!

—Kim Jackson, senior editor

Scavenger Hunt: September 2010

Hello scrappers! It’s that time of year again when school bells ring and kids bring out the textbooks. In case you were feeling left out of all the fun, here’s a little quiz for you grown-ups. Quiz guidelines: Read through the September 2010 issue of Creating Keespakes and find the answers to the questions below. E-mail your answers to the address below, and two lucky winners will receive the following products from Die Cuts with a View, K&Company, and KI Memories.

You may begin!

1. What’s the topic of this issue’s “Product Review”?

2. Name one tip taught in “Photo Field Trips.”

3. What’s the title of the first layout in “Tips & Tricks”?

4. Who designed the layouts in “Make the Most of Leftovers”?

5. What’s one back-to-school gift you can make with your scrapbook supplies, as seen in the “Back to School in Style” article?

6. Who created the layout on the cover? Hint: Check the Table of Contents.

7. Name one type of fair-themed product you can use on your layouts, as seen in the article by Kim Jackson.

8. How many layouts are there with 10 or more photos in this issue? Hint: Check the Index.

9. If you were to make a layout based on the theme of the “Seasonal Solutions” column, what would it be about?

10. How many photos can you fit on a layout using the sketch from “CK Sketches”?

E-mail your answers to ckblog@creatingkeepsakes.com by midnight MST on Monday, September 6, 2010. Be sure to put “September scavenger hunt” in the subject line. Remember to include your name in the e-mail. We’ll choose two winners by random drawing from the correct responses and post them on the Giveaways tab on or around Tuesday, September 7, 2010. Be sure to check the Giveaways tab; if your name is posted, follow the instructions so you can collect your prize.

Happy hunting!

—Dorathy Gilchrist, associate editor

Weekly Warm-Up: Make Creative, Easy Photo Corners

Photo corners used to be a functional way to attach your photos to your scrapbook layouts. Now, they’re also a way to add a bit of style. Using supplies you already have in your scrap supply stash, you can create custom photo corners with ease. Here are a few ideas you can try today.

Creative Photo Corner #1: Brad Meets Bling

Place a series of glitter-topped brads around your photo’s corner. Idea by Piradee Talvanna; Photo by Brittany Beattie. Appeared in the Creating Keepsakes magazine September 2010 issue.

Creative Photo Corner #2: Border Strip Meets Scissors

Cut small triangles from a scalloped border strip and adhere them as your photo corners. Idea and photo by Brittany Beattie. Appeared in the Creating Keepsakes magazine September 2010 issue.

Creative Photo Corner #3: Button Meets Ribbon

Fold a leftover ribbon scrap into a V, and add a coordinating button. Idea and photo by Megan Hoeppner. Appeared in the Creating Keepsakes magazine special issue Super-Fast Pages with 4×6 Photos, Volume 2.

These are just a few examples of fun and easy photo corners you can create with supplies you have on hand. Try dressing up your next scrapbook layout with handmade photo corners. Then share your creations at our online gallery. (You’ll need to create a free account in order to post.) After you post it, leave a comment with the URL of your page on this article, so other scrapbookers can easily find your creative photo-corner ideas.

Happy creating!

—Jennafer Martin, editor-in-chief

Guest Blogger: Autumn Baldwin

Hello all! My name is  Autumn Baldwin, and I’m here to talk about the ever-versatile wallet-size photo. I love using wallets so much that I wrote an article for the September 2010 issue of Creating Keepsakes, where I showcased five ways to use wallet-size prints on scrapbook pages. Because printed wallets usually come in a pair, today I want to share some of my favorite ways to use the extra wallets that don’t end up on your scrapbook pages. Here are a few ideas:

1. Give extra wallets to your children along with some of your excess scrapbooking supplies, and then let them create right along with you one afternoon. My oldest son Jackson had a great time making this layout about him and his baby brother, James.

2. Personalize a child’s favorite book, a new school notebook, or a binder with a recent wallet-size photo of him or her. This way, everyone can tell at a glance whom the item belongs to, which is a definite plus when you have multiple children with similar items.

3. Use wallet prints to make very simple, small chipboard albums. I made one for each member of my family using just wallet photos and triangles of patterned paper, and then I hung them from a mirror in my living room.

4. Use a wallet print to “date” a picture or writing sample from a child. I like to save a couple of drawings a year from each child, like this one where my two year old was convinced he’s been writing the letter A over and over. In the years to come, it’s going to be fun to see what he looked like at the time he drew this picture.

5. Use wallet prints to create a memory/matching game with people in the family. You can use either matching sets of wallet photos, as my sister Brittany Perkins did in this memory game for the cousins, or two different photos of the same person to make a match.

6. Make personalized “ability cards” for your children (think baseball cards or Pokemon cards). Use a wallet-size print to make a card for each—simply add a small label that details the child’s powers, points, or statistics. My son Carter can’t wait to use his very own “Carterrific” card next time he plays Pokemon with his friends.

“Orange You Cute?” by Jody Wenke, as seen in the September 2010 issue of Creating Keepsakes

But you don’t need to stop here—wallet prints work for all kinds of projects. I was inspired by this layout from Jody Wenke in the September 2010 issue of Creating Keepsakes to make a wall hanging for my son’s bedroom. Jody’s grid-like layout inspired me to steal a card sleeve from my son’s Pokemon collection. Wallet-size photos fit perfectly in card sleeves, which naturally break the full page into a clean grid.

“T” by Autumn Baldwin. Supplies: Patterned paper: Pebbles, Making Memories, and We R Memory Keepers; Ribbon: Berwick Offray; Rickrack: May Arts; Letters and tag: Making Memories; Punch: Fiskars Americas; Other: Adhesive, monogram, staples, and tab.

Using the card sleeve makes the page come together quickly because you don’t have to worry about the entire page design at once—you really have only to design one rectangle at a time. I used six photos from a recent photo shoot, leaving three more spots to fill.

I opened up my file of paper scraps and found papers that worked well with the pictures to fill my three extra spots. To quickly embellish the extra squares, I added other elements, such as translucent white tags, rickrack, a border punched from patterned paper, and a tab with the date on it. I finished with a sheer ribbon placed through the binder holes, and then I used binder clips to attach it to a square of lightweight pressboard I happened to have at home. It could be clipped to a clipboard just as easily. I can hang the clipboard on a couple of nails in my son’s room for him to enjoy. When he gets tired of it, I can use the pressboard for another project and add the card sleeve into one of my three-ring scrapbook binders.

This project was so easy, and it ended up looking so clean and organized that I think I’ll steal a few more card sleeves from my kids to use in my scrapbooks. It’s the perfect way to include lots of extra pictures from an event or multiple portraits from a photo shoot, as I did. It would also be a great way to store one wallet from each year’s school portraits to show progression over the years.

I hope you’ll give the wallet size a try the next time you’re printing out photos. I think you’ll love using them as much as I do. Have a great weekend!

—Autumn

P.S. Don’t miss Free Font Friday. This week, you can download the CK Carli font for free here.

CK & Me

Can you feel that? There’s a slight chill in the air, reminding us that fall is right around the corner. With the changing seasons, we thought we’d change up this month’s “CK & Me” a bit. Rather than finding three incredible pages and the scrapbook layouts that inspired those pages, you’ll see two incredible pages that were each inspired by a single layout found in the September 2010 issue of Creating Keepsakes. I’m doing this to show you just how inspiring and versatile a single design can be. And the single (and stunning) design I’ll be talking about this month is this one from Jamie Harper.

Our first featured “CK & Me” guest is Telah Wrenn. She loved how Jamie lined up her 4″ x 6″ photos and rounded their corners. Didn’t Telah do an impressive job of taking Jamie’s lead and coming up with something completely different and completely fabulous? Nicely done, Telah!

Summer Mobley also found an aspect of Jamie’s photos unique. If you look closely at her layout, there are tiny holes poked in the corners of her images that act as unique photo corners. Summer adored this idea and incorporated it into her beautiful scrapbook page. She didn’t have a paper piercer, so she used an ice pick, creating slightly larger holes. Way to be resourceful, Summer!

As our talented “CK & Me” guests’ pages illustrate, you can take a page design and make it your own in so many ways. Have fun finding multiple inspiration points in your favorite layouts, and see just how many unique pages you can create from a single design.

Hey, while you’re at it, why not send one (or more) of those pages our way for possible inclusion in a future “CK & Me” spotlight. Not only will you receive a free Creating Keepsakes special issue, but you’ll also receive our brand new “CK & Me” button (shown here) to use on your blog, gallery, etc. Send your pages to letters@creatingkeepsakes.com with “CK & Me” in the subject line. Please include an image of your page and the issue and page number of the layout it was inspired by.

But wait, before you get to creating and submitting, we hope you’ll take a minute to congratulate this month’s featured scrapbookers on a job well done.

Cheers!
Megan Hoeppner, creative editor