Kiss and Tell Scrapbooking

Sketchy Thursdays + Family History Scrapbooking

I've been going though lots of old family photos since becoming addicted to ancestry.com and I made this 9x9 scrapbook page showing  3 generations of my Cuningham family tree based on a Sketchy Thursdays's sketch. 

 

Sketchy Thursdays

 
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The background paper is actually light beige - about the color of the sand but its hard to tell in this image.  With 45 minutes before the deadline - here's my page for this week.  Its spring break week and its harder to get scrapbooking done but this one was super quick.  I didn't have brackets that big so I hand cut the packaging from a Hampton Art Three Bugs in a Rug Stamp It package - it had the instructions for the stamps inside those big brackets.  The vellum stickers are a million years old but I like them on this layout.   I think the patterned paper is Memory Makers and the "Mac" stickers are another Whim So Doodle scrapbook yardsale find - speaking of which - the next scrapbooking yardsale is 4/9/11 - can't wait!

 

More Scrapbooking + Ancestry.com

I've been completely addicted to Ancestry.com this weekend and have almost 200 people in my family tree so far.  My tree is much more detailed than Charlie's but we are finding his relatives too, I'm going to use this page for the section opener for his family in our "People We Love" Ancestry version scrapbook album in my library of memories system.

 

Ancestry.com & Scrapbooking: Proof We Are Irish

My father and grandfather were both geneology enthusiasts.   Both have passed on and I have most of their stuff at my office in file folder boxes.  I started building the family tree yesterday on ancestry.com after seeing Steve Buscemi on "Who Do You Think You Are" and I was able to find a lot of information.  What I'd like to do is to incorporate what my father researched with the photos and stories and instead of having them in boxes of files, I'm planning to put them in 3 ringed notebooks - mostly 8.5x11 sized and interspersing photos and scrapbook pages with the many pages of text that I already have.  I'd like to bring the pages to life and make them more interesting.  I'd like to tell the stories or at least, if the stories aren't there, incorporate my family's story into American and World history.  I started on this project when I was a senior at Eckerd College in 1992, I'm ready to pick up that project again.  But just a little at a time.  I've signed up for a year at Ancestry.com - it was $150 which seems a little pricey, but if I use it a little everyday for a year then it doesn't seem like that much.  I'm planning to print out most of what I do so that after the year I can get out of Ancestry's payment plan and just have my own scrapbook.  I also think it would be fun if some of my family got involved so that it was a family project kind of thing.

Yesterday, I was interested in tracing my materal grandmother's side of the family back to Ireland after a comment my daughter made on St. Patty's Day when she seriously questioned that we were actually Irish - now I've got proof - we are.

 
Here's the first couple of scrapbook pages - it is actually one page - that is a 12x12 scrapbook page that is two sided and one side is a pocket made with machine stitching full of printouts of census records and other random bits I found on my Grandma Grace Flavin Cunningham.  I was looking for our connection to Ireland after my daughter didn't believe me on St. Patrick's Day when I told her we were Irish - now we know exactly how we are Irish.  Too cool.

 
Here's the back pocket side:

 
I actually printed out the family tree from my daugther back to her great-great-great-great grandparents in Ireland and pasted that onto the outside of the pocket and highlighted the Irish born relatives with some Cherry Arte rub-ons.  Other supplies include:  Me and My Big Ideas, 7gypsies, Heidi Grace, K&Company, Crate Paper, Jenni Bowlin, and We R Memory Keepers.  Here are some more details:

 
I'm so excited about bringing our family history to the pages of my current scrapbooks and to document by scrapbooking all the family history photos documents I already have.  I'd like to do this in a way that makes the family history interesting to my kids by finding connections from now to the past.  For example, when I was in Ireland I went to Cork but had no idea thats where our family was from - now I can make a page about that; and my son loves building things and his great-grandfather actually built the building that is now Stetson Law School where Charlie and I both went to school.  I want the family history to be interesting and inviting and entertaining and fun. 

P.S. Of course I'm scrapbooking with scanned images and not putting big stickers over old photos!

 

Signs of Spring - Another Sketchy Thursdays Inspired Scrapbook Layout

I have missed one or two of the Sketch Thursdays challenges recently so I realized it was Wednesday and I didn't want to miss it again.  I made this page about Signs of Spring really quick so I can go watch Survivor.  I was inspired by the sketch but also by my recent updating of my Library of Memories storage binders (so these pictures are from 2008) and by our recent trips to the beach and last night to Seminole Lake Park to feed the baby ducklings and bunnies and turtles.  The journaling outlines how we do the same types of things every spring.

 

Supplies:  We R Memory Keepers, American Crafts, K&Company. 

Scrapbooking Pocket Page for School Work: Scrapbooking by Numbers: 6 Photos

 
I was going through photo from the last couple years and found a bunch of my daughter reading and writing - she is in 1st grade now so over the past couple of years she has gone from reciting the alphabet to reading books and writing just about any emotion she has and she is a list maker!  She makes lists of just about everything from her weekend plans to chores to helping with the grocery list.  I incorporated a machine stitched pocket and included several papers that she's written lately including her spelling test words and her 10 reasons why she wants me to buy her the Ikea play kitchen.  This page is going into Allison's School of Life Album in my Library of Memories system.

 

Pass-A-Grille Beach Baby & Scrapbooking by Numbers: 7 Photos

Ok one more layout about Pass-A-Grille Beach and then I'm probably done for a while, it will be interesting to let the kids age a bit and then revisit this favorite beach place in my scrapbooking, it will be cool to see how the kids have grown up against the backdrop of the same place.  

 
  And of course I'll be uploading this one to the Flickr Group Scrapbooking by Numbers: 7 Photos Group, here's a peek of what you'll find there:

 

More Pass-A-Grille Scrapbooking & Scrapbooking by Numbers: 8 Photos

 
I have been pulling pictures from different years but all from the same place:  Pass-a-Grille Beach, this layout features 8 photos of my son at different ages at this awesome place.  I did little bits of journaling around the layout and also included a printed out history of this beloved beach.  This layout is going in our "Places We Love" album and in a few more years, I'll make another page like this so I will be able to see my son growing up on this beach.  We have many memories of this place and I also foresee doing some journaling heavy 8.5x11 pages which will supplement these photo heavy pages. 

Here are some more details:

 

Would you like to see more layouts with 8 photos on a page?  Check out the Scrapbooking by Numbers: 8 Photos  Flickr Group - Here's a peek at the 8 photos on a page scrapbook layouts that what you'll find there:

 

Lucky: One Year Ago - No Line at the Zip Line at Blizzard Beach

(Link to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQHkXbaB0oU in case that Flash Box doesn't work for you ).

We got extremely lucky last year at Blizzard Beach - the park was almost empty and the Disney Photographers were in training so I got about a bazillion pictures of Allison Zip Lining - and she must have done this a bazillion times because there was no line - at all!  I took this video of her then - getting the hang of uploading my camera videos to You Tube as my online back up system. 

Lucky to Live Near the Beach & What to do with Iphone and Camera Videos & "Motion Scrapbooking"

I made this video this past weekend at sunset at beautiful Pass-A-Grille Beach - and as the saying goes "If you are lucky enough to live by the sea, then you are lucky enough."  We are very lucky indeed.  Check it out:

 

Here is the link if that doesn't work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ss98n0WTiY

It occurs to me that my children's voices are so completely adorable and scrapbooks don't capture that.  And I want to capture what they say and how cute they are saying it and I don't want to lose this stuff - meaning my videos - but I don't have a system in place for backing them up and saving them.

Izzy Hyman on the Paperclipping Roundtable Podcast talks a lot about "motion scrapbooking" and I would love to learn more - actually, I would love to just be spoon fed an easy way to deal with my videos.  I don't really want to know the intracacies of video editing.  My husband actually has some professional video editing software and he knows how to use it but has so far just used it for work, not for home videos, and for whatever reason, I can't get "making home videos into movies we could play on tv" on his "Honey Do" list. 

Over the years, though, I have taken a lot of videos with my camera and iphone but I haven't dont' much with them and I don't want to lose them.  I thought I'd start uploading them to You Tube and linking them here  as a way to back them up in the clouds. 

I need help figuring out what to do with my videos - please leave a comment letting me know what you do with your  home videos?

Go Fly A Kite - Scrapbooking by Numbers: 6 Photos & a Scrapbooking Challenge!

March in Florida is blissful. Looking back through my pictures from other years during March I notice how often we fly kites and go to the beach in March.  I might have included some of those old photos if my Library of Memories storage binders were in better shape, but I decided to just scrapbook what I had available and ready right now and used these photos I took a couple weekends ago on this layout.

 

Products:  Dear Lizzy by American Crafts & October Afternoon.

Go join the Scrapbooking by Numbers Flickr Group for more inspiration and ideas for getting 6 photos on a scrapbook layout.  Here's the link:  Click Here for the Scrapbooking by Numbers Flickr Group: 6 Photos.  Here's a little preview of what you will see at Flickr:

 

Here's the link to the Scrapbooking by Numbers - 6 photos Slide Show: http://www.flickr.com/groups/1356158@N21/pool/show/.

Scrapbooking Challenge:  Scrapbook 6 photos on one layout feature photos showing what you love to do in the Spring.  Upload your layout to the Flickr Group and leave a link in the comments here on my blog. 

Homework (8.5x11 Scrapbook Pocket Page)

 
After school homework routine at the office this fall.  I used the self timer on my point and shoot to get myself in the photos and I made the photo grid with Picasa and stitched the orange patterened paper so that it is a pocket and I've used it to store some current home work and notes and pictures and such.

Here is the Flickr Scrapbooking by Numbers 10+ Photos slideshow:

 

Scrapbook Challenge:  Create a layout with more than 10 photos on one page and include a pocket so you can add memorabilia to the page, then go upload your page to the Flickr Group Scrapbooking by Numbers: 10+ Photos - - click here for the link to Flickr - and please leave a comment with the link to your page here.

 

Scrapbooking by Numbers: 4 Photos

 
I'm going through some of my of Library of Memories Storage Binders - these photos are from January 2009, I think that its fun to scrapbook photos I just took but then when they get to be a few months old they seem stale; but let a few years pass and they seem fresh again - because I then have the perspective of time passing and can look at them in retrospect and often see things  and make connections to things that are going on in life right now.  For example, this doll is still my daughter's favorite; I sold those cowboy boots she's wearing on ebay, and Ally's got a girl playdate with my aunt soon and she's super excited about it.  Also, I'm 30 pounds skinnier now than I was in that picture above. 

So here's another 12x12 scrapbook page featuring 4 photos - I find making pages with four photos is very easy. What is your favorite number of photos to scrapbook on a page?

Scrapbooking Places We Love: Pass-a-Grille Beach

Its March and the weather is absolutely beautiful here in Florida.  It seems wrong to be inside when it is this lovely outside.  I've been spending as much time as possible outdoors - and have been taking the kids to the beach and to our local favorite places to go.  We live minutes from St. Pete Beach and one of our favorite beach places to go is Pass-a-grille; we went there last weekend but this page features pictures from March 2009.  I'm planning to do several pages about Pass-a-grille since I have a ton of pictures and several stories to tell about this adorable tiny beach town.  I'm thinking of this page as a section opener in my album. 

 
I made this while listening to the Paperclipping Roundtable's Podcast Episode #51 Location, Location, Location with Julie Fei-Fan Balzer & Liz Ness & Noell Hyman.  The funny thing was that the panelists on the show were saying how they don't take photos out and about around town where they live, I love to play tourist and don't feel at all inhibited about taking a zillion photos in my town.  This one is going into my "Places We Love" Album in my Stacy Julian style Library of Memories.

 

Jenny - Pocket Scrapbook Page

 
Coordinations + sand paper + patterned paper + Jenni Bowlin butterflies + machine stitching + K&Company Tags + ribbon + American Crafts Stickers: