Ruby's Scrap Blog

So it's all over then for another year. Well, my cheque book will be happy anyway.

I'm busy putting together the Scrapfusion sale, which needs to be ready for Monday. I love January sales! I was making a little album for a friend's birthday and created a few papers and embellishments for it. They make a nice minikit, but I can't sell it through Scrapfusion because I used retail products as the basis for some of the things I created. But I *can* give it away, so if you like it, help yourself to a copy!

Click here to download this free minikit

Oh, nearly forgot. There's a new website on the way for all you people who make scrapbooks and scrapbook products for other people or as your way of making a living. Professional scrapbookers need materials, information and a community to bounce ideas off, and one is on the way. I'll tell you more about ProScrappers later, I'm very excited about it.

Back to work now, see you soon.

Ruby

I got my Manufacturer's membership to the NSA through! Spent a very pleasant afternoon yesterday having a good old poke around their member website, v cool. I found the resources very useful, despite there being a heavy US bias, and I reckon it's easily worth the $20 a year.

NSA is open to membership worldwide, (which is good because my site is all about European scrapbooking) and should really be called the World not National Scrapbooking Association.

I made a freebie kit for NSA members, as a little gift. If you're a member or join the NSA you can have a copy. What do you think? I had to add a webserver to cope with the downloads, it's nearly 400Mb!

Wanna get a copy of this kit?

I thought I'd also give 10% off all purchases at Scrapfusion to anyone who joins the NSA. Makes $20 look very good value IMHO :-)

Scrapfusion goes live tomorrow!

Hooray! Oh, and EEK!! as well because there is still so much to do. How can it be that you spend ten hours a day for six months building, tweaking, improving, installing, decorating, designing and generally working your buns off, and with less than 24 hours to go you still aren't even nearly ready for launch?

Well, I'll be up late tonight and hopefully we'll be ready come breakfast time (but it won't be a midnight launch, well not midnight TONIGHT anyway) :-)

If you get a minute, drop by and see how the site is shaping up. There are now over 50 products online (and I have more to add... another job for the to-do list), and we're getting walkby traffic from goodness knows where - I nearly had a heart attack when I loggd on to find over 70 people on the website this morning!

Let me know what you think, it's not too late to change anything (well actually it is, but I will do it anyway if needs be)!

http://www.scrapfusion.com

So you're thinking of making a scrapbook? I've been there, I understand. Maybe you're a crafty type, who has seen the glorious scrumptious , strokable scrapbooking supplies in the store and wondered what excuse there could be for buying some . Or maybe you have a gazillion photos ' stored' in boxes gathering dust and you're thinking there must be a better way to preserve your memories and enjoy them every day.

But whatever the reason you're thinking about scrapbooking, you're here now. Welcome :-)

When I was where you are now I was both photo hoarder and wannabee stuff stasher. I love paper, stickers, glitzy bits, ribbons... The only thing stopping me from opening a store was that I would have to sell the stock and not get to keep it for myself! And I had photos from my youth, photos inherited from family, photos of my kids, pets, house, car, vacations, friends... Photos everywhere. Oh, and I was given a really fabulous digital camera for Christmas, which was only making things worse.

I'd been making cards for a while, and I realised that a lot of the stuff I already had I could use to make ways of displaying my photos. I kept seeing more and more glorious, gottahaveit stuff on craft websites and in stores, and I realised there were plenty of reasons to start scrapbooking and absolutely none not to.

So I gave it a go. Well, it didn't take long to become 100% addicted. I adore making albums and I adore sharing them with friends and family. Never had a hobby that so universally attracts admiration from others, and that's a big bonus too! Best of all, I know that the albums I make will be enjoyed by my kids' kids, and theirs, and on and on. Something I create today will outlive me by many years and with it part of me will live on too. Not many hobbies can make that promise!

OK, so what do you need to do get started?

First job, and probably the biggest, is to find and sort all your photos. Break it up into chunks to make it easier. There are as many different ways to organise your snaps as there are people scrapbooking, so take your time and find the one that works best for you.

First, collect together all your photos. ALL of them. Grab every photo album, shoebox, old forgotten frame from the attic and bring them all together in one place. You will need some space for this, a dining room floor or other space that doesn't get constant traffic is ideal.

Now it's time to sort. You may decide to start with a chronological sort. Put all your photos into decades or years (depending on whether you actually know when they were taken, or just roughly). You could use banker's boxes to keep the piles separated if you have a big heap of photos. Just keep going til every picture you can find is in a pile according to it's date.

Alternatively, you could sort by topic. A pile for your kids, a pile for vacations, etc. It's worth going through and putting all related pictures together so that all your photos of your Bermuda holiday 1999 are together and not mixed up with your St Lucia vacation 2002, for example. This attention will pay off big time later. Remember the longer it is since a photo was taken the less you will remember about it, so sort early and sort often.

OK, so now you have sorted the photos, what next?

Well, the next step is to start scrapping. But will you decide to go down the traditional (scissors and glue) route, or will you take the plunge into the incredible world of digital scrapbooking (using your PC to create your albums)? Or maybe, you are a Hybrid Scrapper by nature, and want a little of both?

Take a look at Scrapfusion for more information on digital and hybrid scrapping, and links to some great online traditional scrapbooking websites. Whichever variety of scrapping you decide to try, SCRAP ON!