Just curious questions....

[Julie DeGuia]

OK so more "I am new to this" questions and just seeing how other people work their digital scrapbooking magic!

First of all (and this would be the same question for paper scrapbookers) with all the one-picture layouts I see, how many pages does it take for you to complete a years worth of pictures? Are you just picking the very best images to scrap and doing nothing with the others? I have so many pictures, and most of the time I will have 5-15 (this is a higher number than I would have had with film as I was more conservative) good images from one event. Doing one-picture layouts (on a consistent basis) is pretty much unthinkable for me!

And for those of you doing a 365 project, besides scrapping a-picture-day, are you also scrapping those times when you have 4-5 pictures of the same event? I understand the concept behind the 365 project but it seems like a lot of extra scrapping to keep up with!

Now double-sided versus single-side layouts. When I paper scrapped, even if I had two different subjects on facing pages, I could generally make them look good together because they shared that nice white background! And since I was limited on the supplies I used, it was ALL about the pictures! With digital, and the adding of so many different kinds of backgrounds and embellishments, it seems like it would be harder to "coordinate" single pages to look good once they are placed side-by-side. How do you do that? Do you know the placement of your layouts when you create them? What happens when you have been hopping around on the time-line doing single-side layouts and then realize two clashing single-side layouts must be placed together!!!?

I haven't searched to see if I can find an answer to this one yet but..... can you upload an image into more that one gallery? For example, the Guest CT contest gallery AND a weekly challenge gallery?

And finally, anyone know where in Maryland Katie Pertiet lives? I grew up there! :-)

Thanks for putting up with all my curiosities!

Julie

[esther_a]

The thing I really like about the 365 projects is that they show how great lots of photos can look on a page and they usually make nice two-page spreads. I prefer to scrap events. Sometimes it's just one photo, sometimes a whole bunch. I prefer to do two-page spreads.
It would depend how many photos you take, but when I'm finished my 2008 layouts I'll have about 30 pages from a holiday (that's one Shutterfly book) and about 110 pages from during the year. I might have to cull because that's too many pages for a shutterfly book!

[LauraBean]

Julie, you're asking great questions! I think you'll find a pretty wide variety of answers. I take a lot of photos; 700-900 a month is typical. I scrap only my favorites, or ones that work in a theme page I might be inspired to do. In any given month, we might only have one or two "events"; I will scrap those with several photos, but in general I am more often just scrapping with my favorite shots of the people I love. I also order prints for a regular photo album, which perhaps relieves me of the need to "keep up." I just don't think that way at all.

I'm doing Project 365 and doing mostly single page layouts for each week. I might reuse some of those photos in other layouts. My son had a birthday last week, and a photo of him was my picture of the day; I used the same photo again in a birthday layout with one other photo. The photos on my Project 365 layouts are pretty small; if I have one I love I am likely to feature it more prominently in another layout.

I never paper scrapped, and I had been digiscrapping for many months before I ever thought of matching facing pages in any way. But if I'm making a book (I have made one, of a trip we took, and plan to make my Project 365 layouts into a book), I will match facing pages. Otherwise, it just doesn't bother me. I don't scrap in any particular order--not chronologically or anything else--so making facing pages match would be just too tedious for me! When I put the layouts in an album (I usually print 8x8 and put in an American Crafts D-ring album in page protectors), if facing pages clash violently, I move pages around to avoid that--but that is pretty rare. My albums are roughly chronological but only roughly; maybe someday I'll try to get them lined up better, but maybe not! I do date just about every single page I do, so I don't think the albums are too confusing.

I hope this helps a little! You'll find your own way as you go along, and that will be the right way for you. I sometimes wonder if I would be doing this differently if I had little children who were changing all the time, if that might motivate me to more carefully capture all those changes, all those new things, and I'd be right there with them on play dates and trips to the park and so on, which just isn't always the case with teenagers! (Honey, can I come along to the coffee shop with you and your friends and take pictures so I can scrap it? I don't think so!)

[tdavenport]

For me, it's mostly about stories. So I just use whichever photos help tell the story best whether it's 1-40. Whatever works.

Then at the end of the year, I round up all the layouts and have the family help me decide which ones to include in the book. I think 07 was about 40. I haven't finished all of 08 yet.

I don't really worry about page coordination. i figure it it looks a little chaotic, it's just symbolic of our life.
HTH

Terri

[ejanie]

Hi Julie,
As you go along with your digi scrapping you'll figure out which way works best for you. Not to worry about "getting it right".

I happen do both paper and digi and both are fun. For my 365 project I choose just 7 pics per week and put on a 12x12. Right now I do try to coordinate the background and layout on the facing pages, but who knows if that'll last. I use a lot of Anna Aspnes wonderful templates for doing two page layouts.

I also will scrap events, or people, or whatever separately, and it could be any size (i.e. 12x12, 5x7 etc etc)

Just have fun with it! Good luck!

[wookiegirl]

I just wanted to jump in and recommend Stacy Julian's book The Big Picture, if you haven't read it already. I read it a few years ago, and it was really helpful in starting me on the path to my own system. I now have my own version of the library system she discusses, and it's really working for me. She's also written Photo Freedom, which is more recent and goes into lots of detail about using her approach.

[dugarner]

I rarely, if ever, do one-picture layouts. It would be cost-prohibitive for me. I typically fit 5-10 pictures on a page. If I have one amazing photo that summarizes an event, I might do one picture on a page and two or three on the facing page. For me, this is a carryover from paper scrapping, where it would have been unbelievably expensive to use all that product on a page with one picture. I also want to see my pictures; I don't print the ones that don't get in a scrapbook, so that's my one chance to let them shine.

I am only scrapping my one picture a day for 365, and I might do a summary of the "big events" in a family book, but I won't start scrapping that until January 2010. My kids' birthdays, Christmas, Thanksgiving, vacations . . . they will all go in a family book.

I always make two-page spreads. The pictures are similar themes, and similar colors. I don't like the imbalance of two single pages next to each other, but that's a totally personal opinion. But what I mean by single pages is completely different color schemes, background paper, etc. I always work on a 24X12 template and make the two pages go together. I always choose enough photos to do two pages at a time. It just looks more symmetrical to me.

I'm from Maryland, too, I grew up in Annapolis, went to college in Annapolis (Navy) and College Park. My family is still there, I make it back 2-3 times a year. Welcome from a fellow Maryland-er!

Sarah

[allmine]

Originally Posted by LauraBean

I sometimes wonder if I would be doing this differently if I had little children who were changing all the time, if that might motivate me to more carefully capture all those changes, all those new things, and I'd be right there with them on play dates and trips to the park and so on, which just isn't always the case with teenagers! (Honey, can I come along to the coffee shop with you and your friends and take pictures so I can scrap it? I don't think so!)

Oh, Laura, you made me laugh ... so true with teenagers! And I agree, Julie, you'll find your way. I rarely make 1 photo pages ... I just have too many photos and I also love to look at them all. I have started taking the photos that I don't use on pages, but want to see (odd ball photos you might say) and working them together on page(s) with maybe a date/description. Basically photo album style. That way they get printed and we can look at them as well. I put these pages right in with my other pages.

[teeleedee]

Hi Julie,

When it comes to scrapping, I just scrap the pictures that talk to me. Most layouts I do have one photo, but not all. I go through my iphoto and search for a photo or photos to scrap. I could be scrapping a photo from 2004 one day and the next 2009. I don't do anything in order. When it comes to printing my layouts. I print all my layouts in a Shutterfly Book. I prefer 8x8 because I find it's a nice size to handle. When I get about 45 to 50 layouts done I print a book, again there could be 2004, 2006 or 2009 photos in this book. I make sure I include a date somewhere small on the page, so when people are looking through they can see the year. Here are two examples of the covers I do for these books. I call the book Memories Vol .... and I put the year I printed the book, because most likely that was the year I created the layouts. I've only done one theme book and that was a trip to New York City. I loved the way it turn out. I would like to do more theme books. I hope this makes sense



Tara

[Chris]

Hi and welcome Julie, I live in Maryland and was wondering where you used to live?

I'm sorry I'm of no help when it comes to scrapping - I don't follow a routine and just do things as the mood hits me.

[Denise Gormish]

I am paper to digital convert. But, many of my habits from paper have crossed over to digital.

With paper I did some single photos layout and some multi photo layouts. I think more a latter, though, since I take a lot of photos. It totally depended on the event and the story I wanted to tell. That's all the same with digital. With paper, I did about 120 layouts to cover a whole calendar year. With digital I did 80 pages to cover January-June of last year. So, just a little bit more digital.

When I paper scrapped I did almost all single layout. How they look next to each other on the page never bothered me. And I'm a pretty organized/perfectionist person. Same for digital. I don't worry too much about them being next to each and do almost all singles. When I did my big 80 page Shutterfly book I did move the pages around so the two pages next to each other weren't completely jarring, but that's sort of like in paper when you move the layout around in the page protectors.

I am doing the 365 project. A lot of those photos are singles that really don't need a layout on their own. I'm just scrap them into that project but not otherwise. Other things like I trip to Lake Tahoe has many photos/stories so I will scrap that all regularly. Will I repeat a photo? Maybe. Whatever works for the layout!

You can only upload to one gallery. All your layouts will appear in your personal gallery, though, no matter of which gallery it was uploaded.

[mungerre]

I'm a paper to digital convert. Actually, a stamping to paper scrapping to digital to be exact, so my paper pages were more like a stamping project then a scrapbook. That took way too long though, which is why I'm so behind!

Anything that's going in a book has a corresponding page with similar colors and a layout that compliments. I even pick left/right side of the page based on the layouts. Of course, I have twins and so I have been sort of trained to always do one and then the other.

However, I love making really nice single photo artsy type pages - These I print off singly and not as a book and then hang them up at work. Not archival quality really, but for less than a dollar I can have new artwork fairly often and it satisfies my need for creating a page that I love without worrying if I'm going to be able to make a corresponding one.

[Jen D]

Oh my goodness... I'm nothing like these girls. I can't brake the chronological order obsession! I make one 12 X12 family album every year. I prefer to have my pages printed and then I put it into an American Heritage album with page protectors. My kids like to go through them... and a shutterfly album wouldn't stand a change in my house!

Then I do a 12 X12 for the first two years of each of my kids. There is so much change in that time period and so many things I like to journal about. Once they hit 2 I start making 8X8. I also put those in American Heritage Albums and I can usually fit two years of layouts in those.

So, I have my large family album running all year and then for layouts that are specific to one child I put that layout in their album. The great thing about digital is that I am saving my all time favorites to print again for when they graduate = ) Digi I don't have to do double duty!!

I would say I take about 500 + pictures a month. Not every photo makes it in a scrapbook page but every note worthy story does =) My family albums at year end are usually 80-100 pages each. I typically do 20-30 layouts per kid.

Oh and I am doing the 365 project this year. I plan to make that an 8X8 and put that in an American Heritage Album too!

I used to be super anal about my pages matching... more so with paper. If I do make a shutterfly book the pages always go together. But, digi has pulled me away from being so crazy about it! However, I would say about 85% of my layouts are double pages. I never did a single page in my life until I started digi scrapping. I rarely do a page with one picture... mostly because of money... but also because I can never eliminate the other pictures! I generally put 3-10 pictures on a page.

Whew... right now you are thinking... this girl can talk!!!!

HTH!!!

[Julie DeGuia]

I grew up (all 18 years) in Gaithersburg (now officially Montgomery Village).

Interesting responses. I am with Jen in the chronological obsession area! I am VERY picky about my pages being in order. And, since I used Creative Memories albums where you scrap directly on the album page, there have been several occasions where pictures were removed from a page and put in the proper page sequence! Well at least I won't have the problem of tearing pictures off a page, but there is still the issue of them looking "OK" next to eachother. I'll have to work on that. So Tara's response obviously made me feel a bit "off" not believing that anyone would actually be OK with such chaos in their pages! Chronologically speaking. (kidding of course!)

So by event, I think I meant something a bit different. I just meant that basically anytime I want to take a picture (even if it just one of my kids doing something funny or showing off a new gymnastics move or lost tooth) there end up being MANY pictures. I mean, I did an entire layout of my son eating Fun Dip! It just seams like the pages will pile up very quickly. With film, I only took so many pictures and not as often and was "stuck" with the ones that were developed. And even then some don't turn out so good or are blurry so the number of pages were limited by that. With digital there are endless possibilities! and it seems endless pictures!!!

Our big event last year was a trip to Jamaica and I'm not even touching that one with photoshop... it is going directly into a Shutterfly template album!

Julie

PS.. Laura - if you get a REALLY long zoom lens you can get those pictures of your teenage kids! :-)

[LauraBean]

Originally Posted by Julie DeGuia

PS.. Laura - if you get a REALLY long zoom lens you can get those pictures of your teenage kids! :-)

LOL--the image of me outside the coffee shop with a huge zoom lens just cracked me up!

[Denise Gormish]

Julia,

One thing that may help you is that I have found with digital I can get more pictures on a page. It is so much easier to resize them. You do not have to order special sizes before having them printed. You just resize them the way you want them as you are designing the page. I have several layouts with 9+ photos on them. I even have one 1-page layout with 25 photos on it!

There are lots of templates sold here at DD that get many pictures on one page.

[dugarner]

Julie,

I had one friend from Gaithersburg---it was a brief friendship, but fun while it lasted! (That sounds bad, it was a girl I was friends with during college. We went separate ways after college and never kept in touch.)

I am the same way with events. When I'm taking pictures, I might have 15 good shots of, say, my son playing with his truck. I'll pick 5-10 good ones, and do a spread. I do like repetition in layouts. So yes, you're right, I have more good pictures with digital than I did with film, because you can fire off 200 to get those good 20!

Even though my pages could pile up, I keep my family book at about 60-70 pages. The photos languishing on my computer are going to have to be printed and slipped in an archival album with no embellishment. My husband really wants to see the pictures that don't make it in the books.

I do everything strictly chronologically. That used to drive me crazy when I did paper scrapping, because I used albums that weren't top loading, I couldn't move the pages around.

Sarah

[bluelemur01]

hi Julie,
I've been doing a lot of 1-photo LO's; I usually pick my VERY faves to scrap. Then I print out my "other favorite photos " that didn't make it into the scrapbook pages, print them at Shutterfly or MPix, and load them into a standard album & just handwrite some journaling next to them (I get the albums where you can write notes.) It's totally sloppy compared to my "fancy" scrapbooks, but at least that way I get all my pics in.

I don't worry TOO much about sequence; as long as I have dates (or people's ages) on the page, I put them in an order that looks good and is PRETTY appropriate by year.

I also don't worry about having pages "match" side by side. I'm excited that I even HAVE scrapbook pages, and it doesn't bother me that I don't have that many 2 page LO's.

Your photos are lovely and it's nice to see your LO's here in the gallery!

[sewmom]

Julie,
I have been doing each week as a single page, with each month using the same layout and elements. I add an occasional 2 page spread of special events that can not be represented by 1 picture. I picked a 1 page spread for each week becasue I print with Shutterfly and they have a 100 page max. If I used 2 pages * 52 weeks the book would be too big even with NO extra "special" pages added.
Hope this helps

[cheska99]

Such a good discussion you've sparked here! I will just add that if you look i your favorite magazines, you will see that it's only occasionally that facing pages are coordinated. When you have no coordination between your facing pages, I'm convinced that your viewer understands that intuitively and immediately and just focuses on one page at a time.

[LisaD]

I am a traditional paper, hybrid and digital scrapbooker.

My deal - is I scrap single, double, sometimes triple or quadruple page layouts - whatever works for the material I'm scrapping. I tend to scrap "everyday" moments more than the special event moments. I also do varied sizes 12x12, 8.5x11 (portrait & landscape), & 8x8. And they are all housed in the same D-ring binder. And photos that I haven't scrapped, get put into those 6 up sleaves and put into the same D-ring binder. I do try to keep it as chronological as I can, but I'm not going to freak out if it's not either. I also don't freak if the two facing pages in the album don't "match" or if they "clash" because they weren't a double spread. (My paper pages don't usually have a white background - colored cardstock and PP tend to be my norm - although I've done 5 white backgrounds in the past 2 mo. - a first). I figure if you're looking at it, you'll see that they are different pages. I feel no pressure to scrap anything and am free to do what I'm in the mood to do (unless of course I have a gift album that needs to be completed ).
I'll try to get a pic of my album uploaded.

I also keep my albums seperated. I have an album/s (obviously some are on their 2nd or 3rd) for myself, DS, DD, DS, us as a family, my husband's side of the family, my side of the family, and a misc. album - friends, places, flowers, dh & myself... I found this to be just a natural evolution in the scrap progression for myself. I then found out that Stacey Julian does the same thing or very similar and teaches a class at Big Picture Scrapbook and has a book out. (I really want to read the book and glean some tips from her - but haven't yet).

As for photo placement or embellie placement, whether it's traditional or digital I find it to be the same. (of course, digi is easier to actually "cut" your papers and see how they look - because you can always undo). I get an idea, play, examine, and then cut. For paper, once cut I have to work with the cut pieces, even if it wasn't quite right. Digi has lots of extra points there.

I'm not doing the 365, as I don't have time to keep up with the extra photos and scrapping, but I see it as a great way to document the everyday and best of all an excellent way to hone your photography skills.

It's great to read through how others do things, but it all comes down to what will make you happy and work for you. Above all else, have fun.

Good luck.

[oswegograd]

[QUOTE=Julie DeGuia;134972]
I am with Jen in the chronological obsession area! I am VERY picky about my pages being in order. And, since I used Creative Memories albums where you scrap directly on the album page, there have been several occasions where pictures were removed from a page and put in the proper page sequence! Well at least I won't have the problem of tearing pictures off a page, but there is still the issue of them looking "OK" next to eachother. I'll have to work on that. So Tara's response obviously made me feel a bit "off" not believing that anyone would actually be OK with such chaos in their pages! Chronologically speaking. QUOTE]


I'm a huge chronology whore...can't stand things being out of order. And, I'm still holding on to my paper scrapping tendancies of putting several photos on a page to make it more cost effective. That being said, I usually had four albums each year while paper scrapping. I'm very new to digital, but I suspect that I'll just continue to have multiple albums to represent each year. I do have little kids, and I can't imagine trying to cull through the countless photos I take of them! (And why should I when digi-scrapping is so much less expensive by comparison?!) I will say that now that I'm into digi, I'm far less concerned with doing two page layouts. I still like the balance and cohesion in an album, but I'd rather focus on having a layout that I really like instead of forcing it into two pages. I think that doing things digitally is helping me to let go of some of my obsessive tendancies, but chronology definitely isn't one of them!

[hawsumb]

I don't have anything to contribute to the chronological discussion, but just wanted to say hi from Maryland! I'm going to school in Baltimore and lived in Wheaton/Glemont for a while (Montgomery County.)

[sawdust]

Wow what a nice discussion!! I am a convert from paper scrapping...never to look back either...I growl when DS wants some paper scrapping done for him!!! I am also a newbie...wanting to absorb all I can!

I am not a chronological scrapper. Never have been. It doesn't bother me to mix any type of pages with one another either, although, I do like to see the ones that coordinate. So I guess I am just open to whatever. But personally I love the way your mind will be jolted by looking at one memory to another. It so often will spark a memory about which none of the pages pertain...and that is fun for me!

Thanks to everyone for all the information on digi you are sharing. I really appreciate it!