Valentine's Day Tutorial: Coaster Scrapbook

This little coaster scrapbook represents the early years of my relationship with my husband. I've called it Pics From The Vault since the majority of photos have never been shown to our children...until now. 

Many of the photos were taken while we were still dating at the end of 1999 and into 2000. To make them look like Instagram prints, I photographed the originals and downloaded them to my computer. Using Picasa, I cropped the photos into squares, added a black and white filter, along with the Holga-ish filter and printed them at Shutterfly (click here for my Instagram-printing tutorial).

Let's have a look inside:

I purged supplies from my stash, used a coaster book from Maya Road and my trusty Glue Dots®. The love-themed Fancy Pants cardstock and journal pages from BoBunny were purchased a few years ago, so I'm happy to see these finally get used (especially the cardstock with two blue birds). Here's how I made it:

Supplies:

Glue Dots® (Micro, Lines, Ultra-Thin)
Maya Road coaster book
Fancy Pants cardstock
BoBunny journal pages
Basic Grey stickers
Prima flower
StazOn black ink
small hole punch
square photos
white cardstock
paper trimmer

1. Remove chain from coasters and set aside. 

Trim cardstock to fit coasters and attach using Glue Dots Glue Lines®. 

 

2. Punch holes into cardstock for chain.

3. Decorate the coaster book with journal pages, photos and embellishments. 

Adhere decorations to book using Ultra-Thin and Micro Glue Dots®.

4. Ink the edges of the coaster book pages.

5. Type journaling on word processor, print on white cardstock and use paper trimmer to cut the lines into strips. Use Glue Dots Glue Lines® to attach the word strips to the coaster scrapbook.

6. Insert chain back through coaster scrapbook and secure clasp.

After I was done, I excitedly shared this coaster book with my girls and hubby. It feels great to finally document these photos and dig deep into my scrapbooking stash for a little purging.

What supplies have you been holding onto for too long? ~Danielle

Related:

My Instagramed Week in the Life Project

Poll: What is Your Favorite "Green" Scrapbook Company

EcoScrapbook's Top 10 Upcycled Crafts of 2012

Layout A Day: 34 Scrapbook Pages in 29 Days

February was a month full of scrapbooking for me...and 459 scrapbookers from around the world, all participants of Layout a Day. There were 6500+ photos uploaded to our private Flickr gallery and many more supportive comments cheering each other on.

In 29 days, I completed a total of 34 pages. I told 32 stories on 32 layouts and scrapbooked 103 photos. I focused on scrapbooking my early childhood and made connections throughout my entire life.

"Layout A Day: February 2012" Digital Scrapbook Layout

That was my last layout and a collage I made using Picasa. It's a photo of my stack of paper layouts, along with a collage of all my pages.

Most of my layouts were created with eco-friendly scrapbooking products and all other supplies came directly from my scrapbooking stash except for one doily I used on this page (couldn't resist this trend and picked up a pack during a trip to Michaels).

You may view all the layouts I created during the month in my LOAD212 gallery. ~Danielle

Related:

Just a Little Scrapbook Therapy
3 Scrapbook Layouts That Use Paper Scraps
Would you use dryer lint on a scrapbook layout?

Turn a photo collage into a Halloween centerpiece

Have you decorated your pumpkins yet? It's October and there are 29 days until Halloween! My family usually waits until the end of the month to carve our pumpkins and last year we not only did that, but I also incorporated photos, twine and nails into the mix.

Pumpkin Photo Centerpiece

I spotted a similar pumpkin in Camille Dawn's post, Pumpkin Photo Centerpiece Holds Your Autumn Memories, which was featured on the AlphaMom blog. It's not often that I get inspired to change up my pumpkin carving routine, but when I checked out the post, I knew I wanted to hammer some nails into a pumpkin and decorate it with twine and photographs. Seriously, this was truly cool and unique and I had to do it.

Since I didn't want to use original photos on the pumpkin, I created a photo collage in Picasa and printed it off onto recycled cardstock. Here's the collage before I trimmed the photos:

Photo collage created using Picasa.

How do you decorate your pumpkins?

Related:

Digital Scrapbooking with Picasa

Digital Scrapbooking: Camping at the KOA

Attention: Scrapbooking Manufacturers! Tell me you're green!

Digital Scrapbooking with Picasa

If you have ever been scared of digital scrapbooking, 

have no fear, Picasa is here! 

Picasa is Google's free photo-editing software and a useful tool for creating digital scrapbook pages (click here to download).

I've been using Picasa for over a year now and my photos have never been more organized. Slowly, I began experimenting with the collage option and realized that I was becoming a digital scrapbooker. 

Two years ago: Me + Digiscrap = Are you crazy? 

I love my scissors and paper, but finding time to scrapbook with a family isn't always easy, so digital scrapbooking is a must. Plus, I don't want to look like a crazy scrapbook hoarding lady in the future.

Here are a few digital scrapbooking collages I made using Picasa:

"This is the Highway to Hell" 8x8 Digital Scrapbook Page

"Marker Face" 8x10 Digital Scrapbook Page

"A Summer Drive Through Downtown Toledo During Sunset" 8x10 Digital Scrapbook Page

And that's just the basics. I haven't even tried using digital scrapbook paper yet.

If you're new to Picasa or looking for more information on how to scrapbook using the software, check out the following:

• Basic Picasa information from The Daily Digi

• Persnickety Prints shares free Picasa-friendly paper here and video tutorials: "Creating a Digital Scrapbook Page with Google Picasa" Step 1 (installing and basic info), Step 2 (make a 12x12 collage) and Step 3 (adding background paper).

• Visit Clover Lane for digital scrapbook layouts created in Picasa as well as a tutorial on how to download scrapbook paper.

Like the information you see here? Then go like EcoScrapbook on Facebook and get a chance to win some eco-friendly scrapbooking supplies from one of these companies.

Related:

25 eco-friendly & free scrapbooking supplies

We can change how we scrapbook (so we don't look like this in the future)
How many things can I recycle on a scrapbook page?