January 2016

Interesting Facts for Birthday Scrapbook Layouts

January 31, 2016 by Carol

Good Morning! It is Sunday so that means I am working on genealogy today. As I was looking for an obituary I had a great thought… You can get great details about someone’s birthday for your scrapbook layout when you look at old newspapers. Now, I am not talking about sitting in a dusty old attic (this could lead to lots of discovery however) I bought a subscription to Newspapers.com to find a relative that I have hit a dead end. In looking at the front page of this newspaper – which in this case is the day the woman died, I discovered that a newspaper in Santa Clara California was just 5¢. You just never know what you will find. I love to look at the old ads. You can find out what the weather was like when you or someone else was born, what day of the week it was and so much more. You can get the information from your local library archives, or I use Newspapers.com so I can look from the comfort of my chair.

If you are interested in genealogy please send me an e-mail and let me know. I would love to assist you any way I can.

In The Snow on Throwback Thursday

January 28, 2016 by Carol

It is “Throwback Thursday” so I thought I would grab a snowball and throw it back about 8 years to a scrapbook page with 3 of my grandchildren and their parents. So you ever look back on old scrapbook pages and think “ugg”? This color pallet is not available anymore and I think it is a good thing. The matting color doesn’t make anything pop and while the blue dies match the ground Audrey is standing on, it isn’t doing anything for me now.These papers actually came in a paperpack with the cardstock.

That is the thing with looking back, I love looking at those precious little faces, the trends and my talent didn’t always go together. And while I might cringe at the colors now, it shows how much different my style is now. It shows your development in the craft. Don’t go back and redo older scrapbook pages, they tell a story about how you as a crafter have grown as well as the family story told on the page itself. There is a companion page that has the journaling on it, I will look for it and post it a bit later for you.

I will tell you though, I still love the way these rub-ons look – rubbed right over the photo itself. It doesn’t detract from the photo like writing on the photo does (you know who you are). Makes me sooo glad pictures are digital now so I can go back and try to remove the writing someone thought was a good idea…not! I also really thought I was clever putting the title on tags… remember when they were all the rage in scrapbooking?

Now it is YOUR turn. Send me pictures of your early scrapbook pages You can also send via text to 801-597-4896 so I can post them on Throwback Thursday.

What Color Do You Want to See?

January 27, 2016 by Carol

There has been a lot of talk lately from customers that say they want more choices in album covers like we have seen in past years – in the photo to the left. So I ask you, my wonderful readers, Are you happy with the album colors we have now or do you
prefer a wider range of colors, and if so, which colors would you like to see?

If you are new to scrapbooking, you can read more about choosing your album size in this post.

I have posted all the current albums in the individual photos – each with a link to the page it can be ordered on. I really want to know which one of what we are selling at this time is your favorite and if none appeal to you, tell me what does. It is only by voicing our opinions we can affect change. Please leave a comment below and tell me what YOU think.

Do You Like Handmade Family Cookbooks?

January 24, 2016 by Carol

Our love of food comes starts in the home very early in life. Maybe we were good babies and ate everything we were fed, but somehow I doubt it. Most of us have special memories surrounding foods, whether it be a holiday standard like green beans with mushroom soup and fried onions on top or what your mother made you when you were sad. Since I reserve Sunday for family centered activities, I am going to be posting our family recipes on Sundays. As we get further into the year, I will be inviting you to make a family cookbook. If you don’t have your own recipes, feel free to use mine!

I will be using Microsoft Word so it will be easy for you to copy and paste onto cards if you desire the recipe. So here is my favorite Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe. It comes straight out of the Betty Crocker Cookbook my mother had when I was a child.

Peanut Butter Cookies

¼ c granulated sugar
¼ c brown sugar
¼ c peanut butter
¼ c shortening
¼ c butter/margarine, softened
1 egg
1 ¼ c all purpose flour
¼ tsp baking soda
½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt

Directions:

Mix sugars, peanut butter, shortening, butter and egg in large bowl. Stir in remaining ingredients. Cover and refrigerate about 2 hours or until firm.
Heat Oven to 375° F
Shape dough into 1 1/4″ balls. Place about 3 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten in a crisscross pattern with fork dipped into sugar. (I think my mom used flour)
Bake nine to ten (9-10) minutes or until golden brown. Cool 5 minutes; remove from cookie sheet. Cool on wire rack.

That’s it. Easy as could be. I hope you enjoy this recipe and the series featured every Sunday. Here is a recipe cards that were posted last year, not done by me, but they give you a good idea of things you can do with the recipes.

Creatively, Carol

How Do You Keep Track of Everything?

January 20, 2016 by Carol

Trying to keep track of everything going on in your life, along with your kids lives can be a daunting challenge. Our smartphones are great but do you ever wish you could see everything at once, like in the days before smartphones ruled our lives? There is something to be said for “writing it down”, it helps commit things to memory. It actually helps to see time laid out in front of you. Maybe you think planners are boring compared to the techie manner of keeping your calendar. I would like to share with you the planner Close to my Heart debuted last month.

You can build your planner they way it works for you. With a beautiful hardcover black album with gold foil design. 9⅜” × 8¼” × 1½”; 1″ 3-ring. The binder is even covered inside with photo safe paper. Close to my Heart has reduced the price of the 2016 page pack from ~~$15.95~~ down to $4.95! They even have page protectors that fit in this binder so you could use the special Picture My Life cards. These cards are great for recording birthdays and special occasions that you can use year after year. Click here to order yours today!

Leave a comment and tell me what you think of our new Close to my Heart planner system.

A Funny Thing Happened When I Began to Shred

January 19, 2016 by Carol

With the beginning of a new year comes that clean out bug… and so I decided I could use that spot in the garage that held past tax envelopes .. like 1995! But a funny thing happened when I opened the envelope and started looking at all the supporting documents. I found dates! I knew I was only going to scan the tax document itself – I can’t truly toss them from my life as there is something about the Ghost of IRS Passed that seems to linger in the back of my mind. Anyway as I was saying. I found dates. I found a check for a trip to Gold Beach for my youngest son’s basketball camp. I remember doing a scrapbook page about his camp, but I had never dated the layout or journaling. Now I have a clue as to when the camp was held and can add that to the page.

You never know where you will find details to help your scrapbooking and memory keeping. . Keep an open mind and your eyes wide open for hints that will complete the story you are trying to tell. Another hint is to date the back of your scrapbook pages so you can see your progress and style over the years.

Carol

Organization in the New Year

January 2, 2016 by Carol

Do your photos look like this? — Pile of old black and white family photographs on a table

If you are like me your computer is full of photos, maybe even 2 or 3 copies of the same photograph. I have a goal for this year that you might want to tag along with and that is to organize the photos in your computer (s). I have never been very dilligent when it comes to labeling my photos – thinking there is plenty of time to do that later. Well, since I just found and labeled Christmas 2010 I find that thinking flawed. So as I plan and begin to get all my photographs sorted, I thought I would take you along for the ride. Please leave comments below if you think it is a good idea, have a suggestion about how I am doing it – I don’t think of everything, and if so inclined, work on yours along with me. I will set aside 15 minutes each day to sort photos. Life is busy and it is easy to get lost in old photographs. As you may know, I am a traditional scrapbooker, but I will also upload some pictures for Studio J Digital Photographs, which can simply be added to an album when printed.

I truly believe all photos should be backed up to the web, because of a failed external drive and not having a clue what pictures I may have lost. However, Cloud storage got me where I am today – lots of clouds with no sort of organization. Making sure your storage on your computer is available is really the first step. I found lots of unused storage on mine. You will want to download all your photos from the various clouds you have them stored in. After we clean up the copies so there is just one of each, labeled and tagged, I will upload the entire lot to Amazon because as a Prime member, you have unlimited storage of photos.

Here are the first steps to an organized set of photos:

Write down all the clouds you have photos on – we will use this later
Starting with the pictures that are currently stored on your computer. (In my case, I have 2 computers and 3 external drives.) I am using my laptop as “home base” as it is the easiest to use while watching tv with the family or not just sitting at my desk.
Create a few main files, Mine are listed as “People 1/1/2016,Misc Pics 1-1-2016 and Craft 1-1-2016.” These will be further sorted later, but this is my first step. Duplicates are easier to find if in the same folders.
Spend 15 minutes to sort pictures on your computer into these files. I suggest setting a timer since it is easy to get lost in this process.
After your 15 minutes are up, Take a look in each folder, do you see duplicates yet? If so, delete one of the photos after making sure your information like date picture taken, or tags have been added to the picture you are keeping. Also delete any blurry pictures if you can’t identify what it was you were trying to take a picture of.

This step will keep you busy until next Saturday morning when we will start dealing with the clouds. If your weather is really cold, this is a great way to still make good use of your time.

Happy New Year 2016!

January 1, 2016 by Carol

I would like to wish you all a Very Happy New Year! I have lots of wonderful things coming in 2016 and I can’t wait to share them with you. My Goal for this year is a blog post every day, projects, sketches, and specials. So come on back when the sun comes up and see what I have for you.