Kym can attest to this since it was at her house that I got introduced to CM - I WOULD NOT CUT MY OWN PICTURES. I made the consultant do it for me. It hurt me to 'deface' them, pictures are very valuable to me & I thought I was 'hurting' them by cropping them. It took me a while to get over. But get over it, I did!
Also, I am NOT
1) use all the pictures that mean something to ME - maybe it doesn't mean something to everyone but the story that goes along with it is important to our family history
2) I find a central theme & color in the pictures I'm putting on a page & I go with that.
3) Don't try & be something you aren't. I'm NOT going to be all creative & go crazy with the adorable ribbons & brads & glitters & other amazing stuff that is out there. My pages include paper, stickers, titles (sometimes hand written & sometimes with stickers) and journaling to tell the story of the pictures & to document who is in them. That's what is important to me. I can 'dress up' the page but sometimes I really think it becomes more about the 'dressing up' than it does about the pictures. And the pictures are WHY I'm doing this.
My albums/pages have gotten better/more creative as the years have passed & I would really only encourage someone to do something within their comfort zone - even if it's not MY comfort zone! I have a customer who makes AMAZING pages but it's way too much for me to tackle. It would take me weeks to finish anything (and sometimes it takes her a long time) and I would stress myself out over it. I find that the pages I get the most compliments on are the ones that I thought were 'missing' something or that I didn't do a good enough job on it...strange...
I have one customer who wants to go back and REDO entire albums because she doesn't like that they aren't as "good" as her current ones - but to me that just reflects how far she has come in her hobby & I think it's a fantastic testament to the thought, care & work she has put into her albums. I wouldn't go back and redo anything - it's all a learning process - you can look at the size of my first album compared to my recent ones & WOW - those albums are TINY. But now, I'm more 'skilled' at what I'm doing or the products have improved or I've taken some risks and done new things...I think that's so much fun to go back and see that! Imagine if you went back and re-colored pages in your coloring books because as you got older you colored better? I think it's so precious to see how you have grown & the lessons you have learned from your 'learning' years.
I could go on and on about Creative Memories & scrapbooking in general. But the bottom line is - it's for you & you need to do what you feel comfortable with! If that means digital albums versus "traditional" scrapbooking then that is what it means! If it means less snazzy pages because you don't love paper or stickers the way I do, then that's reflecting YOU & not what others are doing! The one thing I cannot stop repeating though is you did not take all these wonderful, expressive, personal pictures to put them in a box under your bed OR leave them as files lost on your computer. Celebrate them! Show them off! Showcase who you are!
6 comments:
Thank you for this. I may have to try it out. I have a cheapie kit that Kevin bought for me because I suggested I wanted to try this when Matthew was born (probably not the best time to start come to think of it...) But since we are between children and no plans for another for at least a year, this might be a good time. The lull between babies,lol! I will check out your creative memories site ASAP - I saw a couple of things in the mailing piece I received recently!
My suggestion - start with organizing your pictures & decide which way you want to go first. I do a Yearly album for Matias & I and several smaller albums detailing our travels. Now with the addition of the Fellow I'm having a hard time deciding how to organize my albums - I can tell you that we have WAY too many pictures for his first year to fit in just one album so I have to figure out what I'm doing before I do it or else we'll be in major overwhelmed mode!
My photos are miraculously well organized - they are all in albums in order mostly of the events that happened all the way back to my child hood - I am THAT anal retentive!
SO that will not be a problem - the problem will be extracting photos from said albums thus changing the set structure of an album and fearfully cutting up said pictures to make the albums (which I know will look beautiful once I am done so I will keep that cutting the pictures thing out of my mind - I am like you - pictures are too precious to be cut... Weird.) Heh, are there picture frame "Sets" you can do this with? I would love a crafty picture frame as much as an album!
I sent you an email about our fantastic new Everyday Easel display :)
Ok for someone who isn't "artsy" your albums ROCK!! And in my personal opinion alway's have :) (Since I had the prevlidge of seeing them from the begining!)
Well thank you :) I do *try* to have them reflect us & at least not try and be something I'm not & I think that helps with them! With that said, I got "stuck" on a page Saturday night & it took me like an hour to even pick the frigging paper I wanted to use!
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