Scraps Of Mind

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No, I’m not suggesting you chop bits off and chuck them in the garbage.

We usually focus on the face of our subject when we take our photos. But have you ever tried taking photos of other parts of the body and using them in your scrapbook layouts?

Try photographing a focal part of your subject’s body, such as a baby’s foot or ear or hand, and building your scrapbook layout design around it.

A photo of a baby’s tiny feet or their hand makes an excellent focal point for a scrapbook layout where you journal your feelings on welcoming a tiny new human being into your family.

Or if you’re doing a digital scrapbook layout, you could blend the whole photo as part of your background and have a focal photo of the part of the body featured on your layout, as I have done with my The Thumb layout.

My family has a tradition of gripping their right thumb their fist and letting it poke through between the two middle fingers. It’s sort of like holding your own hand.

When my daughter was born (she was the first grandchild) and my Mother saw her doing this she was so excited. I wanted to make a layout of this family tradition and by just focusing on my daughter’s hand I was able to tell the story in both pictures and words. I think it was much more effective than if I had just used the full photo as the focal point.

By the way, all elements used in this layout are from the Step by Step Digital Scrapbook Program.

Sometimes you can tell the story so much better through looking at your subject from a different perspective.

And it adds interest to your scrapbook albums too.

So next time you’re looking for a different slant to your scrapbook layout, try taking a photo of your husband’s hand with its wedding ring, or your ear wearing your favorite earrings.

Your son’s injured knee is the perfect photo to illustrate the story of his heroic dive off the monkey bars.

And a photo of your toddler’s ear works perfectly as you tell the story of all the new phrases she is picking up from listening to her siblings or, saints preserve us, from her Mum and Dad.

Photos like these really hone in on the subject matter of your story and make great scrapbooking material.

Other Related Articles:

Learn how to Digital Scrapbook

Scrapbook Journaling with your Handwriting

Top 10 Scrapbook Ideas to Rekindle Your Scrapbooking Inspiration

Learn how to digital scrapbook so you too can make cool projects like this

Click over to Step by Step Digital Scrapbook where you’ll find everything you need to know to get yourself started.

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Wildheart of Wildheart’s Works brings you Texture Tuesday. Wildheart is a Paintshop Pro expert, but I know you’ll enjoy the tips and tricks even if you’re not a PaintShop Pro user. And you’ll find plenty of ideas to help you work with textures in your own program. In fact in this week’s segment she actually converts a Photoshop tutorial to Paint Shop Pro.

This week I wanted to utilize what is promising to be a very useful Web 2.0 application called FriendFeed to search for some sites that offer quality free textures for either commercial or personal use.

One site that I have actually bought software is listed below as well. The name of the site is The Plug In Site. I bought Harry’s Abstract and Mutation software from there at a reasonable price of less than $20 and the customer service they offer is pretty decent. When I placed an order with them it had been from a previous residence and once I got moved in here I emailed them to let them know of the address change and Harold Heim personaly emailed me telling me that my address changed had been noted and my product was being shipped to the new address.

I hope you enjoy this list of links all of which offer very unique textures. I downloaded two texture packs from Designers-Reovlution. I can say that they are very nice vintage textures which can be used for scrapbook pages you want to create to convey a vintage feel.

http://www.designers-revolution.com/2008/07/300-vintage-style-textures-and.html

http://www.graphicxtras.com/products/pspaddons.htm

http://www.designertoday.com/Tutorials/Paint.Shop.Pro/4150/Ruster.Texture.Paint.Shop.Pro.Tutorial.aspx

http://thepluginsite.com/

http://www.lostandtaken.com/

http://www.creativecloseup.com/30-great-free-paper-backgrounds-and-textures

http://wefunction.com/2008/07/function-brushes-subtle-grunge-textures/

http://www.textureking.com/

http://oneodddude.net/FreeTextures.php

http://www.cgtextures.com/

Other Articles You Might Like:

Texture Tuesday -How To Make a Clean Car look Dirty

Scrapbooking Today vs Yesterday

Top 10 Scrapbook Ideas to Rekindle Your Scrapbooking Inspiration

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Last week I wrote about the importance of including journaling on your scrapbook layouts.

Well how about this for a scrapbook idea…

Increase the heritage and nostalgia value of your scrapbook layout by including your own handwriting in your journaling!

Now I can hear all the paper scrapbookers saying ” No no no! My handwriting is terrible. I don’t want to ruin my scrapbook layouts by scrawling all over them. And what if I make a mistake? I’ll be ruining my supplies trying to get my writing to look good.”

Meanwhile all the digital scrapbookers are sitting back smugly saying, ” Well I scrap digitally so I can’t use my handwriting (phew, thank heavens for that). The most I can do is use a handwriting font on my computer.”

Well I have the perfect solution for you, whether you’re a digital scrapbooker or a traditional one. Read on.

Why bother with journaling in your own handwriting?

First of all let’s think about why it’s important to journal in your own handwriting anyway.

If you are seeking to leave a legacy for your children in your scrapbook layouts then examples of your handwriting is an important part of that legacy. Unlike with previous generations, we are no longer a society that does very much letter writing. Especially handwritten letters. When we do write a letter we usually do it on the computer, or more likely we’ll just send an email.

But your handwriting is very much a part of who you are. And your children will cherish the few examples they have of it in years to come.

My Mother passed away nine years ago. I still miss her. She wrote herself a short affirmation on a scrap of notepaper which she kept stuck on the fridge.

As you can see it’s a scrappy piece of paper, the writing is fading fast and they’re not even words that she made up herself. But you know what? It’s one of my most treasured possessions.

And that’s how your kids will view examples of your handwriting, which will probably end up being rarities in their own right.

So here’s a fail-safe method for incorporating your handwriting into your scrapbook layouts.

Scan your journaling

You may remember June’s article on scanning objects to use in your digital and hybrid scrapbook layouts. Well the same thing can apply to your journaling.

And the big advantage to doing this is that you can practice writing what you want to say as many times as you like until you’re satisfied with the look of it.

Just write on a sheet of plain white paper (Tip: If you’re worried about keeping your writing straight, put your

paper on top of a sheet of lined paper so you can see the lines through it. You might need to rule over the lines to make them darker.) Write what you want to say and then scan it into your computer.

For those without photo editing software such as Photoshop Elements, you can import the JPG graphic into your Word program (or equivalent wordprocessor) as a picture and resize it to fit your journal tag then print it out. Cut it to size and glue it in place.

If you have a graphics editing program it’s even better. Scan your handwritten journaling into your software and then remove the background using the Magic Wand tool (or whichever is the equivalent in your own software). You now have your handwritten journaling with a transparent background.

You can layer it on a journal tag and resize it to fit the tag as I’ve done here in my You’re the Best layout of my daughter. Or you can put it straight on your scrapbook layout background.

Whichever method you choose, I hope you’ll give some serious consideration to including some examples of your handwriting in your scrapbook layouts. It adds and extra level of personality to them and I believe that it will increase their value to your kids enormously.

What do you think? Do you include you own handwriting in your scrapbook layouts or do you avoid it because you don’t like the way it looks?

If you don’t like your own handwriting, I think this scrapbook idea is well worth giving a try?

Let us know in the comments below how you go about your own journaling, or even whether you do it or not.

Credits for the elements used in my Your’s the Best go to Cheryl Barber’s Etcetera Kit from Scrap Girls.

Other related Articles:

Why Journaling is Important on your Scrapbook Layouts

Top 10 Scrapbook Ideas to Rekindle Your Scrapbooking Inspiration

What’s the Best Software for Digital Scrapbooking

Learn how to digital scrapbook so you too can make cool projects like this.

Just click over to Step by Step Digital Scrapbook where you’ll find everything you need to know to get yourself started.

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