Scraplifting – My Not-so-secret Secret

by Jane Howden

Yes, I admit it, I scraplift – and I do it openly and frequently!  So what exactly is scraplifting?

Scraplifting is using another scrapbooker’s completed layout as a basis for your own.  There are lots of ways to lift a layout or an idea you have seen in a magazine, book or online gallery. You can copy it almost exactly using your own photographs. You can copy a small part of it (for example, the overall design, the color scheme or the use of embellishments).  Maybe you find the title catchy or love the subject idea of the layout.

Most scrapbookers consider it a compliment to be scraplifted. It is perfectly acceptable to scraplift for your own personal scrapbook albums. If you post the layout in an online gallery, be sure to credit the original designer for the inspiration.  Most beginner scrapbookers learn about design elements and page structure by using ideas from others for their own pages.

I do most of my scraplifting when I attend weekend retreats and crop nights.  I want to enjoy the time I have for scrapping, to be able to chat with friends, and–most importantly–to appreciate the downtime I have to relax.  I don’t want to be carting my entire scrap room of supplies along with me, and then sitting there trying to figure out what to do next.  I don’t want to be stressing over a lack of appropriate supplies or mismatched embellishments. By scraplifting I know exactly what I am doing before I get to the event and I can prepare well in advance.

Again, the page on the left is by Doris Sander and the page on the right is by Jane Howden. Can you see the lifted elements? There's a casual frame, two landscape photos on the right, a large heart embellishment at bottom left and a flower at top right.

What’s more, there are techniques I would never have tried on my own if I hadn’t seen them elsewhere. Scrapbooking magazines, books, and online galleries are wonderful resources. The more you learn and apply to your own pages, the better scrapbooker you become.

I enjoy browsing through layouts done by others, looking for ideas and inspiration.  I normally start with a basis from within the original layout and expand upon it, altering it to suit my own style and supplies I have on hand.

While the overall look of your layout may be similar to the original, using your own photographs and different cardstock, patterned papers, and embellishments means you will end up creating a product very much your own.  Once you have scraplifted various styles and ideas from many different sources you will feel more comfortable creating your own satisfying layouts without assistance.

In the layouts shown here, the ones on the left are by Doris Sander and my versions of them are on the right.  Elements from each of Doris’ layouts can clearly be seen in mine however the use of my own photographs, different papers and some movement around of other features of the layout combine to make them my own.

Here's one more example of Jane's scraplift of Doris -- the kind of lift that lets her plan ahead for crops and get lots done without stress.

There is also nothing wrong with scraplifting yourself by using one of your own layouts as inspiration. It’s quick and easy, and you have the added bonus of knowing you already like the page.  Try using the same layout design for two different themes or subjects.  You may not even realize they are the same design, if one is in your Christmas album and the other with your pages of your summer vacation to Disneyland.

If you intend submitting a layout for publication or entering in a contest it is best not to scraplift and submit as your own. There is a fine line between being inspired by another person’s design choice and copying outright.  When it comes to any form of publication, if in doubt – don’t.

Do give credit where credit is due especially if you are posting your layout to a gallery on an online forum.  It’s easy to say a layout by Jenny Smith inspired your page and the original person is sure to feel flattered that you liked their creation.

Doris Sander is a wonderful scrapbooker to lift because all of her compositions are well-constructed, her embellishments are surprising and delightful, and there is such variety to her pages. Her class Scraproom with a View is beginning this week. She also has three self-paced classes available in the GIS store.

You’ve surely got the photos. Perhaps you’ve got the memorabilia, too. But can you easily access those photos? And do you remember the stories that go with them?

At Get It Scrapped! we’re sharing lessons and advice on how to record, store, and present your memories so that they’re accessible. . . like when:

• you want to show friends photos of your trip to France, or
• you want to show your kids something you did with them as toddlers that they don’t remember, or
• your child comes home from school and tells you they need photos to make an illustrated timeline of their life by Thursday!!!

The articles and lessons on this website are organized to reflect the Get It Scrapped! approach to memory keeping, with our core reference materials in the vertical boxes below “Recent Posts.” You can also click on the categories in the right sidebar for lots more supporting articles on those topics and more.

Be sure and subscribe to our feed and keep track of our daily articles full of lessons and advice for getting it scrapped!

by Dina Wakley

What is Art Journaling?

by Leonardo DaVinci

Simply put, an art journal is a journal in which you combine art and words to express yourself. That’s it. It’s not complex, and there really aren’t any rules for art journaling. It’s all about self-expression.

Art journaling has a long-standing artistic tradition. Artists through the centuries have kept notebooks in which they sketched, practiced, experimented, and recorded themselves. Vincent VanGogh kept notebooks (and he used moleskins!). Picasso and DaVinci were two other prolific sketchbook keepers. You are in good company! If you feel like exploring famous and not-so-famous artists’ sketchbooks, go to Artists’ Sketchbooks Online.

You might be thinking, I’m not an artist! Well, I beg to differ. You are an artist, and you can create an art journal without drawing or sketching. In fact, I’m lousy at drawing, so I use collage techniques to express myself. Stamp images, vintage photographs and magazine images make up for the fact I can’t draw.

by Dina Wakley

Why Keep an Art Journal?

I sometimes read comments from people who don’t “get” art journaling. They wonder why people would take a blank book and fill it with images and words. I can’t answer for anyone else, but I feel compelled (creatively and emotionally) to art journal. It nurtures my soul–which sounds “new agey” and abstract, but it’s true.

I’ve kept a regular written journal since I was 9 years old (in fact, I still do). I’m a big believer in the value of keeping a journal. I have 18 volumes on my shelf. Sometimes I would sketch or draw in those journals. I’ve always been drawn to art and, eventually, when I was in my early 30s, I couldn’t keep the art suppressed any longer. I started keeping a visual journal in addition to my regular journal, and it fills a need I have for expression and creativity when words alone just don’t cut it. Plus, it’s just plain old fun.

I think artists (and that means you) all have different reasons for keeping journals. The reasons are very personal and individual, and could include:

• To experiment with art techniques & ideas.
• To get your thoughts & feelings out on paper in a creative way.
• To document your life, your being.
• To enjoy the process of creating.

Think about why you are going to start creating an art journal. And honestly, you don’t have to have any other reason than, “I want to.”

Silencing the Inner Critic

by Dina Wakley

I know how we are when it comes to artistic things. We think we’re not very good. We think we can’t do it. We think everyone else is better than we are.

I want you to check your inner critic at the door for this class. Don’t allow it to give you any doubts about what you’re doing and creating. I want you to chant with me, “There are no mistakes in art journaling. There are no mistakes in art journaling.”

So, there’ll be no self-defeating behavior, and no comparing. Sound good?

Art Journaling 101 with Dina Wakley is an online class that teaches you all you need to get started Art Journaling and loving it. We’ve offered it in self-paced format in the past, but, right now, a live session is gearing up to start March 22nd. Don’t miss this wonderful experience.

by Katrina Kennedy

In this piece, Katrina interviews and features the work of her student, Teri Argo. Katrina’s next class starts March 15th. The Very Basics: How To Use Your Camera.

I’m always amazed by connections made via the internet. I’m amazed when someone you’ve never met feels like you’ve known them forever. Teri Argo is just that person for me! She is a talented photographer and a wonderful person. I hope to meet her soon!

Teri took Your Life: Captured Through The Lens last year. I’ve admired her pages at DesignerDigitals for a long time. I love her family of horses and dogs. She captures them so beautifully!

What camera do you use (okay, I know we know, but tell me more!)?

What did you enjoy most about Your Life: Captured Through The Lens?

How has your photography changed since Your Life: Captured Through the Lens?

What are your photography goals for 2010? or Any Projects for 2010?

consider yourself: where are you from?

Do you think of yourself as coming from a place, a people, or perhaps a culture? It’s probably a mix of all of these things, the combination of DNA, experience, and the purposeful shaping that our elders impart.

“Origins” includes several photos of the land I grew up on.

• who are the people you’re from?
  Think about the people you knew (parents, grandparents, extended family) as well as those you never met. Consider what traits, interests, an even physical qualities your immediate family didn’t share. Just who passed these on?In addition to family, you come out of the community in which you grew up. Take time to think about how things were done in the places you lived and how they’ve shaped your behavior and beliefs.
• what are the places you’re from?
  Move from the micro (your room, your house, your yard) to the macro (your neighborhood, your town, your greater communities, and even your country) and think about what those places have imparted to you — both good and bad. What physical details do you remember? Is there a reason those details come back to you? What did those places demand of you, teach you, and give you?
• what cultures and traditions do you come from?
  Are you a child of the city? Of the mesas? Of an ethnic community? Of a community defined by the work it does? To tease out details and trigger memories, brainstorm around both the small repetitions and the larger repetitions of your earlier life. When did you eat dinner and why? Was it related to family work schedules? Did religion affect how you ate? What happened on weekends? On holidays? What values did your family hold and where did they originate?

priming the engine: ask yourself this

Think about the following quote and then answer the questions that follow.

Home is a place you grow up wanting to leave, and grow old wanting to get back to. – John Ed Pearce

• What did you grow up wanting to leave?
• Why and what are some words that describe this aspect of home you wanted to leave?
• What will you grow old wanting to get back to?
• Why and what are some ways to describe this aspect of home?
• Are there layouts you do about each of these aspects?

My mom’s mom, Grandma Hendrickson, lived in several places throughout my childhood, and I have really great memories of what it was like to hang out at those places with all this big family--my mom had 5 brothers and sisters who all had kids and who loved getting together. * When Great Grandma Krom died, Grandma Hendrickson spent some years cleaning up and living in her mother’s house on Bear Spring Mountain in Shinhopple, NY. There were a couple of summers when Mark and I stayed there with cousins Kim and Chris. Grandma’s boyfriend Ed lived down the road and we fished in his pond and rode in the pony cart he hitched up to two ponies. * Here Kim and I are playing dress up -- how about those clothes! I see cars on the lawn along the driveway and remember my mom’s siblings and even her cousins would show up. And there were lots of children, and we kids played on the hammock, around the yard and woods and upstairs in the house. * Part of me wants to go to this place again, but then I’m not sure it’s the physical place I want to find, it’s that whole experience I’m missing and that can only be revisited in memories.

think about it: quotations on origins

Use these quotes as a springboard to thinking about your origins.

• We cannot escape our origins, however hard we try – James Baldwin
• To forget one’s ancestors is to be a brook without a source, a tree without root – Chinese Proverb
• Nothing is so soothing to our self-esteem as to find our bad traits in our forebears. It seems to absolve us. – Van Wyck Brooks
• Home is a place you grow up wanting to leave, and grow old wanting to get back to.  – John Ed Pearce
• We all grow up with the weight of history on us. Our ancestors dwell in the attics of our brains as they do in the spiraling chains of knowledge hidden in every cell of our bodies. – Shirley Abbott
• I have drunk deep of the waters of my ancestors. – Larry Neal
• Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes—our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking around. – Gilbert Keith Chesterton
• A man finds room in the few square inches of the face for the traits of all his ancestors; for the expression of all his history, and his wants. – - Ralph Waldo Emerson
• You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it’s all right.  ~Maya Angelou
• I want to go home to the dull old town, with the shaded street, and the open square, and the hill, and the flats, and the house I love, and the paths I know – I want to go home” – Paul Kester
• We inherit from our ancestors gifts so often taken for granted. Each of us contains within this inheritance of soul. We are links between the ages, containing past and present expectations, sacred memories and future promise. – Edward Sellner

write it: journaling prompts / starters

I always wished I knew more about (insert ancestor) because _____

The room we spent the most time in at that house was _____

At family gatherings, we always ate _____

I still remember how (insert ancestor)’s home smelled . . .

Everyone says I look like _____

Everyone says I act like _____

The place I’d love to return to is _____

I was (insert ancestor’s name) favorite

My favorite season was _____ because _____

We all had chores growing up and mine was _____

The most unusal thing about visiting (insert ancestor’s name) was _____

On Sunday afternoons, we passed the time by _____

The dinner we most often ate was _____

The work my parents did was _____ and  meant a lot of _____

Come and art with me
LEARN HOW TO ART JOURNAL

I would love to have you join me on an artistic adventure…creating an art journal!

In my online class, Art Journaling 101, we’ll learn–line-upon-line:

• how to prime a page and create backgrounds,
• how to add words and text, and
• how to add collage elements.

interview by Amy Kingsford

GIS Username: cpanther57
Joined: September 2009
Posts: 126
Most Active In: Your Life Thru the Lens and Building Pages
Alum of: Fun Photo Effects, Your Life Thru the Lens, Building Pages
Cheryl’s Blog: Cheryl McCain Photography

Cheryl McCain is a wife, mother, grandmother, chief cook and bottle washer. She and her husband Gene live in Northeastern Ohio where they’ve had more than their share of snow and icicles this winter. Cheryl is an LPN and works per-diem in a Nursing Home. She has 2 sons, 1 daughter and 5 grandsons who range in age from 5 months to 11 years old. Along with her two spoiled-rotten furbabies, Boo and Boss, they are often the subjects of Cheryl’s layouts.

Cheryl is passionate about photography which goes hand-in-hand with her passion for scrapbooking. She is a digital scrapbooker and a designer for her stores, Create Treasured Story Books and Studio 2 Designs, which you can find out more about in the Get the Word Out forum here at GIS. She also designs for The Nifty Boutique. In her free time Cheryl also enjoys reading, cooking, gardening, camping, and watching mushy love story movies, not necessarily in that particular order!

When we caught up to Cheryl to ask her about her scrapbooking, here’s what she had to say!

• I started paper scrapbooking in 1996 with a group of women from our Church. I continued paper scrapbooking until about 2001 when I found digital scrapbooking, and now I’m totally digital. I do, however, LOVE to work on altered projects.
• Most of my layouts are of or about my grandchildren. I did, though, recently begin an album about myself. I’m going to have an album printed for each of my children about my life before I was their mother. I scrapbook as often as I possibly can—usually in my upstairs scraproom/office that was once a spare bedroom.
• I don’t think I have one particular style, I love making changes and trying new techniques.
• Since I’m a digital scrapbooker, my stash holds Photoshop CS3, Fotofusion, tons of my own kits, as well as the ever-growing digital supplies I’m buying from Designer Digitals.
• My wish list would definitely include: 1. Saving money to take MORE classes here at GIS; 2. A housekeeper and chef so I’d have even MORE time to scrap (won’t happen in MY lifetime), and 3. Perhaps a bigger and faster laptop so I could scrap while watching TV with hubby (and I doubt that’ll happen either). But a gal can wish, can’t she?
• I want to learn to use Adobe Illustrator. I’m currently taking a class for it but still have a ways to go before I’ll master it.
• I’d have to say that I get my inspiration from nature.  I LOVE my flowers and even using them to design with. I’m a “natural” colors gal.
• I love ALL the classes I’m taking at GIS but if I have to choose just one, I’d have to say it’s Debbie’s “Building Pages” class.  I’ve learned soooo much from that class and even see layouts in a different way now.
• Choosing just one layout as my favorite was really hard. But if I have to choose just one, it would have to be the layout I did of Aiden, my 2^nd youngest grandson, “Innocence in the Eyes of a Child.” I absolutely loved this particular lesson of Debbie’s and the kit I chose to use went so very well with the photo, which truly portrays innocence in children

Thanks Cheryl for giving us a peek into your life, I know that I certainly enjoyed learning all about you and I’m sure the rest of this bunch is excited as well!

by Debbie Hodge

The straight line is a basic element of design. This post shows you how to use it on your scrapbook pages to guide the eye and set tone.

Use horizontal lines to guide the eye across a page.

Connect the two sides of a two-page layout with horizontal lines as in “Rock My Soul” below. In addition to the wide dotted strips running across the middle of the page, note the stitching at bottom and top. Horizontal strips run across the top and bottom of “Corn Maze.” Another one runs through the middle. NOTE: The eye will connect breaks in lines, moving the eye across missing spots, here where the strip runs behind a photo.

Use line to influence mood.

Vertical lines evoke a more dynamic mood than horizontal lines. “Doing It” uses narrow strips of vertically striped paper to convey the idea of movement and to add energy to the page. There’s more, though. The vertical band of photos creates a line. And, what’s more, the viewers eye make the jump to connect the two separate strips of striped paper–calling upon the viewer to make this jump gets them more actively involved in viewing the page.

The horizontally-striped paper on “We Burn Wood” contributes to a  more resful and cozy feeling that totally supports page subject.

Consistency of line width and angle contribute to mood. A pattern in which stripes are all of equal width is the most calming configuration. Variations in stripe width, regularity of pattern, and even angle can all up the energy that a striped pattern conveys. While “Savor Autumn” features horizontal lines that should be restful, their bold colors, varying widths and angles add excitement.

Some ideas for getting lines onto your page.

• Use striped patterned papers.
• Arrange “stuff” in a line. Consider buttons, brads, stickers, beads, chipboard shapes, and whatever else in your stash appeals to you. Notice the vertical line of buttons on “Hayseeds” that functions a border.
• Arrange photos in a row or column.
• Sew some lines — or use rub-ons.
• Make your own highly-charged striped paper by cutting strips of paper in varying widths and angles, and gluing them to a card stock base (as on “Savor Autumn” above). Weave or intersect strips at right angles for a home-made plaid. Turn it 45 degrees for a diagonal plaid.

note: registration includes this class PLUS one self-paced class from the Get It Scrapped! series

If you’ve begun spring cleaning . . .

or if you’re looking for some enticement to start the process . . .

Start making home-inspired scrapbook pages in Scraproom with a View with Doris Sander, designer for American Crafts and Jenni Bowlin Studios (where she is also Director of Marketing).

In this month-long online class starting Monday, March 8th, Doris is providing a guided tour through her home and yours, in search of ephemera, inspiration, and journaling ideas. Eight lessons include original and surprising techniques as well as a peek into Doris’ creative process and a “use it now” challenge. The fresh ideas in this class are guaranteed (seriously, money-back guaranteed) to get you inspired and motivated to create at a new level.

BONUS. Register by end-of-day March 8th and receive your choice of one of these self-paced classes: Scrapbooking Events, Scrapbooking Everyday Life, or Scrapbooking Travel and Vacation—just tell us your preference in the Paypal notes when you register. For $25 you receive Scraproom With a View AND one other self-paced class. Awesome deal!

Sign up today, and give yourself something creative to think on while you’re getting your home ready for a new season.