Another Trip Documented

After completing the title for our trip to Yellowstone Mount Rushmore, I decided to finish up my scrapbook pages for that trip. We went on this trip way back in 2000 and I've had photos attached to pages for quite some time but never added any journaling or memorabilia to them making them more than a little boring to look at. I won't say they are the best pages I've ever done (they aren't) but they are done and I am content with them.
These pages make a second completed chapter in what will eventually become "Our Trips with Grandparents" album and that is pretty exciting to me. I have also decided to add 8 pages to my LOAD count (even though I finished more pages than that I feel like I really only completed these 8. Either way I am happy they are done and in our Places We Go album (Vol 2).

LOAD week 3

Still hard at work organizing digi stuff but took the time to work through the LOAD assignments for this week.

Homework Assignment: Be a detective in your own scrapbooking. Think about the kinds of pages you’re creating, and the kinds of pages you’d LIKE to create. Since taking Library of Memories(LOM),now known as Finding Photo Freedom (FPF) for the past few years I enjoy scrapbooking SO much more than ever before. I've taken some design classes and found the style I like and for the most part I stick with it. I still like to try different things now and again but know the look I like for my scrapping pages.
Layout Assignment: Create a layout in the way that you “normally” scrapbook, whatever that is. Here is one I whipped out this morning using items from Jessica Sprague.

I am so beautiful, originally uploaded by Trish Nonaka.

Photo Assignment: It’s self-portrait day! I know you hate it – we all do. Find a way to get a photo of yourself—mirror, selftimer, a kid.

More Digi Organizing

I spent the day working through a small number of photos today and documenting my digital workflow system. Basically this just means the steps you go through once you upload your photos from your camera until you produce a physical page to place into your album and everything that happens in between! Since everyone's equipment, software, objectives are different I won't bore you with the details of my workflow. If you are curious or need something to get you started on yours just contact me and I am happy to share it with you.

I am finding the learning curve with ACDSee to be a bit frustrating as I am anxious to make strides with my digi pix like I have with my traditional photos. Patti came to work with/help me again today and I am SO grateful! Its always nice to have some one sitting with you as you mumble about batch processing the IPTC and if that is even possible with your program (which it isn't! Grrr!) and especially if they don't look oddly at you while you do. And in this case, she even knows what that means and can help me figure it out! (Pretty awesome considering she doesn't use the same software and is a MAC person!)

Here's a look at my LOM closet last year and this year.

Scrapbooking Update

Yes occassionally I blog about my scrapbooking progress here as well as my art. Today is one of those days. You might notice a new "blinkie" on the side bar that looks like this:



My friend Patti and I have been hard at work on our photos and using our LOM system to its utmost. Even if you know nothing about the method you will still understand that in 3 days I:
- emptied 9 storage binders of photos from 1981-2005
- created over 20 more pages for albums
- created one complete album of Randy's adventure in Hokkaido
- staged an additional 20 plus pages for an upcoming class we plan to take the end of this month

- and placed all the remaining photos into categories (4 drawers total; all labelled and organized so yes, I can put my fingers on a particular photo in just a few minutes time!) That means that EVERY UNSCRAPPED printed photo I have in my stash is now living in the sum total of only 4 drawers measuring 4x6x18in. And every one of those has room to spare. Essentially, I am caught up!

That was last week....
This week brings me back to the blinkie. The photos that I mention above are all printed photos. I still have GOBS of digi pictures on my hard drive. I've found I rarely print individual photos these days and only print out complete layouts all ready to place into my albums. That is the general rule and yes there are exceptions. But I digress...

Since the majority of my scrapping and photo keeping is now digital, I invested in ACDSee (an organizational tool) and just completed a class on the program. I've been BUSY adding all my digi supplies to the catalog, adding/organizing/deleting folders and files, etc. I cannot wait to use this system in the near future (hopefully this doesn't confuse you but I have mine set up the same as my LOM system). I still need to work through my photos (Previously used PSE8 to organize them but didn't like that much...LOVE it for editing but organizing.)

I also moved all my scans of my artwork over to ACDSee to organize those as well.
Hopefully I will get all this work done, get a nice workflow going and will be posting here more regularly than I have been recently. Just didn't want you to think I left the planet!