Josh's magnificent photobook

This was an incredible labour of love. First Ian collected all his favourite photos of his son Josh, soon to turn 18. We were very fortunate that Ian's mother offered us a shoebox of photos or it would have been a very small collection. There were 200 odd photos, some in albums, that had to be scanned, photoshopped and reprinted. Mostly the photoshopping was to reduce some of the pictures (to 80% or 50% depending on the room available). Very quick in Adobe Photoshop Elements. Then the photos had to be cropped and scrapped into a 60 page album. I mainly used coloured cardstock with some pattered papers and rubber/acrylic stamping here and there. The journalling was all done on the computer. Wish I'd thought to use the Xyron sticker maker at the start - would have saved a lot of time! Used at least 75 metres of double sided tape sticking it all down. I experimented with doodled borders using coordinating coloured textas, ink pens and my new Signo gel pen in white. One page went overboard and had to be redone (better to stick to the paler of the white pens) but overall it was successful.

I'm a very slow scrapper but it sped up towards the end. There were four or five nights of staying up and not going to bed til 6am or so. Lucky my wonderful husband minded the babies those mornings I slept it.

The key to doing an album, I think, is to try 'grid' pages where you have nine photos or 16 photos on one page, but you substitute patterned papers or embellishments or titles and journalling in some of the spaces to break it up. Also to stick to a colour theme and just a few rubber stamps which you can reuse in different ways, using different colours. I found recyled or chocolate brown papers were the best to use on pages where the colours clashed a bit. You can then jazz it up a bit with coloured ink embellishments / titling / patterend papers. I also found a 'storyboard' plan was very useful with rough sketches and notes for each page.

The printer scanned in the pages and had it bound in beautiful blue leather binding by a retired book binder with gold lettering and a box case. It was expensive but worth it. A cheaper way would have been to do an A4 sized album that I could have scanned myself as there are hundreds of companies who do photobooks now. Maybe for his daughter's album.

First Mothers Day 2008

This is last year's Mothers Day but probably the first time I scrapped a proper 12" X 12" page. I experimented with my own writing plus rubber stamps and included a tiny stencil of a pregnant lady - me. Angus was not quite born yet. I also tried distressing the circle photos and love the frame effect of that. The green paper with the pink flower petals I loved so much I bought several sheets of it. I remember I used to feel terrified when starting out that the page would be a disaster and the paper wasted. Now I don't worry - this comes with confidence and lovely repositionable double sided tape. It's a challenge fitting in multiple photos. I've learned to do it even better so the page doesn't look too busy. I really must do this year's soon. Mum's waiting for it.

Baby journal gift

I made this little journal for one of the expecting mothers in my mothers group. I had a pile of little exercise books I'd bought for about two cents each and just covered the outside with a combination of some pretty paper, recyled paper dividers, ribbon and printed a little image on the front of a vintage pram - love anything vintage and sneak it in wherever I can. I really love the pastel bluey-green ice colour for baby boys at the moment. I'll be using lots of that in Angus' album when I get around to starting it. Soon... On the inside back page I stuck a vellum envelope and stamped the words 'Baby' and 'notes and tags' in coordinating colours. I even had some little tags I popped in to prompt some her to write in some thoughts when the baby is born. Things like how she felt, first impressions and so on. I hope she thinks it's pretty too but not too pretty to write in!