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Volume 2, Issue 3, Apr 6, 2006 |
Editor: Katrina Haney |
| Playground News | Product News | Designer News | Regular Features | Feature Articles |
| Playground Happenings Current Challenges Membership Info Kit & Kaboodle Club Special Coupons Crops and Chats Subscriptions Advertise With Us Join Our Staff |
New Products Featured Products Coaches Picks Slap-n-Scraps™ CompuScraps™ EZ Scrap Templates Member Products New Kit & Kaboodle |
Featured
Designer New Designers Cathie Alesia Ross |
Kat's Korner Featured Layouts Resources Tips and Tricks Quote of the Week |
Heritage Scrapbooking Internet Resources for Heritage Scrapbooking Preserving Memories through Scrapbooking |
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The following coupons are valid until midnight, Sunday March 22nd, 2006 ez203-10 ez203-15 ez203-20 (minimum $20 order) (Coupons Good from Mon, April 10th to Sun, April 17th.) |
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CROPS & CHATS |
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Come join us in our Chat Room for our regular crops and chats. More are being planned so be sure to keep checking (All times are EST) |
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Digital Scrapbook Magazine
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The staff at Scrapbooker's Playground is thrilled to announce the return of our fun and informative eZine, Giggles and Grins. Each issue you will bring you helpful articles, coupons, glimpses of new products and much more. For the time being, Giggles and Grins will be published on an irregular basis every 2 to 3 weeks. We are looking for staff to join us so we can make this a weekly publication. If you are interested, please write to us. It is our aim to provide the same quality of service in our eZine that you have come to expect from the Scrapbooker's Playground site. Please feel free to contact us with comments or suggestions at comments@scrapbookersplayground.com If you missed any of our newsletters, you can find them in our Newsletter Archives. In This Issue... This Issue of Giggles and Grins is focused on the theme of heritage scrapping. We will be featuring many of our products that are designed for or would be good for scrapping those heritage photos. We will also be sharing with you some tips and information to help you get started on your heritage projects. |
Kat, Pam and Tina -
Your Playground Coaches
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What's New at the Playground?
One Year Anniversary. It hardly seems possible we have been here a year already but we have. We have made so many new friends and had such a good time. We want to celebrate by by giving something to all of you From Friday, March31st at midnight EST, through Sunday, April 9th at midnight EST, you are invited to come help us celebrate our 1 Year Anniversary. First. we are having a storewide sale!
Receive 30% off everything in the store except CDs, classes and
memberships. Don't miss this fantastic opportunity to collect
your favorites at a great price! No minimum purchase required! See you at the Celebration!
Newsletter Archives. In case you missed any of our informative newsletters, you can find them in our Archives. Sales and specials may not be valid, but you can still read the articles. Tutorial Section. We have begun compiling a Tutorial Section. Learn how to make vellum, work with quick pages and templates, and more. New topics will be added regularly. Please let us know if there is a specific topic you would like to see covered..
In Case you missed it last time....
Customer Rewards Program. We have long realized that we have many loyal
customers, who come back week after week and make purchases that
help support our designers. We have decided that those of you
who support us should be rewarded, and so we have developed the
following Customer Rewards Program to do just that. New Commercial Category. Did you know that we have a lot of products that allow for commercial use? No? Well neither did a lot of other people. That's why we have made a new category for placing products that allow for commercial use in some way. Maybe you are a kit designer looking for great clip art to add into your kits. Maybe you are an album maker, doing printed layouts for others. Maybe you are a designer of candy bar wrappers, or need graphics for some other craft. Whatever your line is, we have the graphics to help you do it, and now you can find them even more easily. Just check out the new Commercial Use Category. New Slap-n-Scraps™ Product Line. Quick Pages have always been around, but we have given them a catchy new name and a whole lot of pizzazz! If you are looking for a great way to make beautiful pages, even whole albums, quickly and easily, check out this category at SBP. |
Click on the images to go to Product Page
or go right or go to this
Category Page
Slap-n-Scraps are our version of Quick Pages, because you just slap your photos on them, add some journaling, and they are scrapped, quick as a wink ;) Stop by and see our wonderful new line.
Meet Arvita Mott - Featured Designer
By Katrina Haney
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It is especially fitting to honor Arvita during our Anniversary Celebration, as she has been with us just about from the start. We have seen designers come and go, and we are very happy to have Arvita still with us. While she has a range of styles, I especially like her whimsical designs, such as her Woopsie Daisy kit, shown here. Arvita first tried her hand at digital scrapbooking after being encouraged to do so by a friend, who had come across some sites, and thought Arvita had what it took. Initially, Arvita laughed, not taking it very seriously. But the seed was planted, as they say, and as she shopped for her own digital products, she became more and more enamored of the idea of bringing her own unique style to the genre. Eventually she took the plunge and began selling her own digital products, a decision which she has never regretted. Arvita crafting skills encompass more than
scrapbooking. Among her other hobbies Arvita also likes to do
stamping, painting and making personalized cards. Of her
scrapbooking craft, Arvita says, “I combine digital and paper a
lot, draw what I want to add and print it, cut it out and add it
to the page.”
Arvita also enjoys giving back to her
community, and she offers free designing for non profit
organizations.
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Musings From the Editor
by Katrina Haney
As you probably know by now, I have lately been very involved in scrapping old photos of my family. I am also doing genealogical research, and I have found some family history that is just fascinating. I never would have thought it possible, but it turns out I have ancestors among the earliest puritan immigrants, ancestors who were among the founding fathers of several New England towns, including Dover and Hampton N.H. William Hilton, the brother of my 12th Great Grandfather, Edward, even came over in the Fortune, the 2nd ship to arrive, the year after the Mayflower.
Town records are revealing amazing stories to me about my ancestors and the way they lived. Mundane things are recorded about them, and I am finding this all fascinating. Eventually, some of them moved westward, and were among the first settlers of other towns along the way, in places like Iowa and Colorado. Watching this saga unfold has provided me no end of fascination.
All of this has made me acutely aware of how much my own descendents will want to know if my life, and has given me more insight as to what to leave them besides a bunch of photos where I'm smiling and trying not to hate that my picture is being taken.
Now I am planning on writing up all the stories of my life, all the little things I remember of my childhood, of my marriages, of my hopes and dreams, and of my disappointments. Because I know that one day, someone with my blood will want to know, the way I want to know.
All of this is also making me examine ways I can preserve this history I am discovering in more of a scrapbook way. I am looking for ways to journal all of this in an artistic and interesting manner, rather than just printing out pages of text. A lot of ideas have come to mind, and soon I will be starting a series here on scrapping without photos, covering things like heritage information, as well as more personal things like memories, poetry and other writings, and just personal thoughts. Watch for it to start soon.
Click on the image to go to Page
We are very please to announce the addition of Cathie Alesia to our cast of designers and also to our staff. You will find Cathie's amazing creations in her store at SBP, but also you will find her layouts being offered as SBP Playground products, especially Slap-n-Scrap Quick Pages and Albums. Cathie has been making layouts with our designer's products for many months now, and we are excited to have her become a a more integral part of our team. Welcome Cathie.
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Check out More of Cathie's Latest Products |
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| Cathie's Frolic Kit | Cathie's HarlieKin's Mini Album |
Cathie's
Beautiful Blues Kit |
Cathie's Orange Marmalade Kit |
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Heritage Scrapbooking
by Tina Williams
Creating scrapbook pages about our ancestors is as important as remembering to include pictures and stories about us. If you're one of the few lucky people to have a treasured family album from 3 or 4 generations ago you already understand the importance. But if you don't own such and item, think a moment how interesting it would be to catch a glimpse into your great-great grandmother's life. What were her hopes, her dreams? Her favorite recipe? What toy did she treasure? All these are things we want to know about our ancestors. Start scrapping as much of these memories about yourself today and collecting the stories from the past before they slip away forever.
Getting started can be a daunting task, so start slowly and take your time. Call family members and ask them if they have old photos that you can scan. Then follow through. Show up with scanner in tow and start scanning the pictures. Be sure to take the time to carefully record all information that you and the owner of the pictures know. I use a spread sheet to keep track of my photos. I have a column for the photo where I place a thumbnail, and the rest of the columns are for text, and they include Who, What, When, Where and Anything else. I try to fill these in as much as possible. I add stories about the pictures if someone has one, or if I have a personal memory about the person or the picture.
When you ask family members about pictures, don't forget other types of memorabilia. Take a digital camera for items that can not be scanned. Items to consider preserving are: birth and death certificates, marriage and baptism licenses, old letters, cards, invitations, newspaper clippings, military records, census records and immigration records, as well as things like buttons, hat pins, medals, jewelry, toys, recipes, and so on. For bulky items such as pins and medals, you can place them on a black or white piece of paper before you snap your picture to help make removing the background easier.
You can also search the internet for related photos to include. Maybe your ancestors were pioneers and they moved west. Do you know what trail they took? Include a map of the trail and perhaps a clipart of a covered wagon. Find a list of common items pioneers would have taken with them. All these items are an important part of your family history, and generations to come will enjoy looking at them.
Don't forget to include the not so happy items along with the happy ones. Did your cousin go to prison? Include it. It "might" just explain why he then spent the rest of his life devoted to teaching young children the importance of living a good and honorable life. A person's death is as important as their birth. It completes the cycle of life and brings the story to a close. I assure you that taking the time to research your family and then scrapping these items will bring your ancestors alive for you and for the future generations of your children..
Scrapbooker's Playground Membership
Click on the images to go to Page
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Get a Scrapbooker's Playground Membership and gain access to hundreds of quality images over the next 12 months, especially designed for scrapbooking, cardmaking and other graphical crafts. Clipart, kits, elements, all sorts of things. All original, and many even allowing commercial use (be sure to read the conditions) and all not found anywhere else. Members also get 25% off their purchases at the playground, and many other great things are planned for the future. Sign up Now! |
Internet Resources for Heritage Scrapbooking
by Tina Williams
Getting Started
The first thing you should do is begin to assemble all your photos, documents and memorabilia. Begin organizing them in some way, either on paper, in a word document, or by use of a genealogy program. There are several of these available:
Searching for Old Photos
Some online websites for finding old family pictures are:
Get Help from your family
Ask family members for if they have photos that they will allow you to scan.
Don't forget those "other" items that are to big or bulky for your regular scrapbook page. Take a picture of them and include the picture on your page, ideas include:
- Photo of wedding dress
- Photo of house
- Photo of church where married
- Photo of military medals
- Photo of jewelry including rings, earrings, or pins.
- Recipes
Non-Photo materials
Also don't forget those old documents
- Letters
- Birth announcements and certificates
- Marriage license
- Death records
- Military records
- Invitations
- Cards
- School files
- Maps
- Newspaper Clippings
- Bible Pages
- Immigration Records
- Census Data
Some online sources for records and documents include:
- Marriage/Birth/Death/Divorce Records from Ancestry.com
- Maps
- Atlas
- Newspaper Archive
- The Olden Times
- Family Search
- The Genealogy Home Page
- Genealogy Gateway
- The UGN Web Project
- Roots Web
Also don't forget to get those stories from family members. Interview more than one relative about the same event. You will get 2 very different stories. Tell the story from both points of view or weave them together with your own memories or ideas.
Preserving Memories Through Scrapbooking
By Emad Fakhoury
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Hidden away at home, you may have a cupboard or drawer full of irreplaceable photos of your children, parents, old friends, grandparents and great grandparents. More than likely there will be a stack of 100 year-old sepia pics of elaborately costumed, austere relatives whose names and family associations have long been forgotten. There is no way you could ever throw them away - but what do you do with them? You have a constant nagging feeling that you really should save them for future generations – create a link to the past that your children, grandchildren and great grandchildren can treasure. You may have heard of a new craze called ‘scrapbooking’ which does just that. But it’s as much about preserving today’s memories for future generations as it is about preserving our past. ‘Scrapbooking’ is more than just organising photos. It's about displaying them attractively, preserving other interesting bits & bobs like concert programs, tickets, newspaper articles and, most importantly, ‘journaling’ so that in years to come anyone who looks at your scrapbook will know who you are and where you were when the photographs were taken. You are capturing and storing a little piece of history about yourself, your life and your family. Scrapbookers can now go one step further in their efforts to preserve their memories. New digital print technology has dramatically reduced the cost of printing one off bound books. This means you can design and edit your own photographic books using digital pics, scanned images, captions and text and have it professionally printed and bound at a fraction of the price it would have once cost. A new website called cherishworld.co.uk offers free downloadable software that allows you to create photobooks on your computer using your own digital and scanned photographs or images, add text captions and journaling. You then send this to cherish via the web and they will send you back a professionally printed, bound book of your family history and memories in your own choice of cover styles and colours. And it’s not expensive – no more than many off-the-shelf photo albums. Cherish can also print personal greeting cards, calendars and posters providing even more ways to make the most of your family pics. Everything you need to know is available on the web – so get scrapbooking and be a part of making our generation the most documented and remembered in history.
Emad Fakhoury Runs Cherish a digital photograph printing service. That produces Personalised photobooks, Personalised Greetings Cards and much more... |
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Quotes of the Week
• Preserving Old Newspapers - Since newspapers are made of highly acidic paper and deteriorate so quickly, you should always photocopy the information you want from them onto acid-free paper. You can then store the original paper in an acid-free box, or mount clippings in an archival scrapbook. Clippings could also be stored in acid-free file folders, interleaved with acid-free paper. If you want to frame the clipping, you should frame the acid-free copy rather than the original clipping.
• Unrolling Brittle Documents - Often when paper objects have been stored rolled for many years, they become quite brittle. In order to safely unroll your certificate, moisture needs to be restored to the document (known as humidification). Placing your document in a humid environment for several hours should make it more flexible, allowing you to carefully unroll and flatten it. Watch out for ink on the document that might bleed (don't humidify it if the ink will run). You may have to experiment with the level of humidity and the amount of time you leave the document exposed; monitor to make sure it does not get saturated. Attempt to carefully unroll the document while it is still humid; do not proceed if it resists or begins to crack or tear. You could then flatten it by placing the document between two pieces of blotting paper, and then place a heavy object on top for a few days.
From
Document and
Photo Preservation FAQ
by Linda L. Beyea
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Each issue we will feature the layouts that have caught our eye for one reason or another. If you would like your layouts to be featured here, please bring them to our attention and we will have a look. Layouts must include elements from kits made by SBP designers, and must be uploaded to the SBP Gallery. Credit for kits must be given in the gallery, and a link to the kit must be provided. If your layout is chosen for inclusion in Giggles and Grins you will win $5 in playground credits. Honorable mentions will win $2 in Playground Credits. Layouts by our layout team are eligible for consideration, as are layouts by our designers made with other designer's kits. Winners must contact us (support@scrapbookersplayground.com) to claim your prize, unless we absolutely know who you are. Gallery names and the names used in our Store may not be same. Send your layout links to us at layout_submissions@scrapbookersplayground.com
This week's featured layout winner is Monica Crosato (cipolla) (see her gallery here ) Monica just recently joined our team, and we are very pleased to have her. She lives in Italy, and her layouts are just beautiful, even if I can't read her journaling :)
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We are also very please to announce the addition of our first male designer, Ross of Digital in Dezign. Ross just has one product int he store right now, but layouts made from it have already won an honorable mention. We look forward to more great things from Ross.
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Here are a few great resources: |
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Contact us @ comments@scrapbookersplayground.com
Editor : Katrina Haney
Staff Writer:
Tina Williams
Contributing Writer: Emad Fakhoury