Hello Old Friend

Hello all,

wow its been a long time since I wrote here. Sorry to my followeing readers. Last August I started a 9 to 5 job that included a very long commute. End of story after job, commute, and family time there was no real time to design and blog. Well. That job is not over so I am back, and hopefully here to stay for the time being.

So I hope you all had a great holiday season, and a spectacular new years. Given that its a new year, its time to reflect on what we did last year, and what we want to do differently this year. As scrapbookers and paper crafters, we tend to focus on framing and packaging memories to remember those special moments. So for me this time of year has two agendas; review and plan.

Review what you did last year. Yes we want to make sure we have all our photos, and all the materials of what happened last year, but more importantly I am talking about take stock of what worked for you. what made it hard to do these projects. What do you think you need to improve. Reason I say this is even though we work hard on our layouts, card, and projects, the bottom line is this is suppose to be fun, and relaxing, and give you something special to look forwrd to doing. So lets review ad see what are the snags, disappointments, frustrations, and al out yucky things we dont like. You can do this by makinga list, or just doing a brain dump and fill a page or word document with all the things that you could do with out when making a project.

Next lets take that bad list and look at how do we improve it. Let plan for the coming year, and no i am not saying out list out per month what projects you are going to do. Think of this as more a self evaluation of ok here are the things that make my special time crafting frustrating, and look at how you can spin it around. Would organizing help, do you need better tools, do you need to find a way to take notes on the go when you take photos. Think of what you have in your day to day life whether it be the cell phone or pda in your purse, and how you can use it to help your scrap, or maybe its the local store which has crops that could teach you a new skill.

The bottom line is take stock of hat worked lat year, and how we can make it work this year =)

well have a great January everyone

JEff

Gingerbread and Clowns

Hi all. well we are now in to August and its almost time for Back to school shopping. So as you start to plan for your summer vacation projects and look forward to your Christmas projects, BWScrapbooking would like to introduce you to our newest lines of products. We are proud to announce our Candy Cane Village set under our Holiday Memories line is finally available for our retail clients and partners. Around here at BWScrapbooking, we love the wonderful treats of Christmas Season: gingerbread houses, candy canes, gum drops and more.. These are some of our favorite holiday items. So we took these and made a whole kit based on them. This kit uses golden cookie colors, red and white from candy canes, as well ad the green of your favorite gum drop or lollipop. All paper designs are available in digital and real paper. We also offer a expanded kit, and a set of pre-made layouts that you can use for both printed and multimedia projects. The Digital products can be purchased as downloadable files or on CD.


Also we are pleased to announce our newest designs, Boo's Big Top. This is our new Circus themed set. This set is based on a great trip I had to the circus with my son. I based the designs on the variety of old style designs you can see on the tents, the performers, and even the snacks. Boo's Big Top, like most of our wholesale products you can get Boo's Big Top in both paper and digital versions. We know you will see this kit and related items are great for when you are scrapping about those times when your life a circus. Bithday parties, magic shows, a day at the circus / fair or carnival.

So click on the product images to check out both sets, and we hope you enjoy them as mch as we do.

thanks for your time

Jeff

Remembering our Furry Friends

Hi all,

well today is a sad day at the Werner house. Today we said goodbye to our loyal protector Bubba. Bubba was a 12 year old 80lb white boxer. He was patient with our son, and would eagerly spring to defend my wife and son if he felt there was danger. So now that our furry friend is gone, I sit here thinking what can I do to scrap his story. How I had already planned on doing a my dog page in my sons baby book, but Bubba like so many pets is a family member who has quirks, and history. So given this I decided to figure out some projects and resources to help preserve the memory of this guy. So here are some ideas for creating your pet's project.

A great scrapbook theme is "A Day In The Life of ..." which would include pages about your pet's morning routines, nap time, meal time, play time and favorite toys, and outdoor time. Did you do a regular walk. If so include a map. The key is to flesh out that memory, or activity so you can embrace it down the road.

Another idea is to approach it as you would a baby book. and focus on "the firsts". If you are fortunate enough to get your pet while he or she is still a baby, then create a scrapbook album around the "firsts". Even if you adopted your pet when it was older you can still create some great "first" scrapbook pages. Create a scrapbook page or album around your pet's first bath, coming home, first holidays, first visit to the park, first car ride, etc.

A theme around "pet favorites" is also a fun idea. Take photos and create pages around your pet's favorite activities. For a cat you might include pages on favorite toys and favorite nap places. For a dog, choose photos of favorite outdoor play or playtime with favorite toys.

Lastly try making a word book using their name. Now you can either do a leltter page album, or just design your regular layout pages. Whatever format you choose, the idea will be to build out the book using their name. Now take each letter of their name, and use that letter to define the topic/theme of the layout. For example we have Bubba. We could plan out the pages as follows:

B = Brother to our Boy
U = Unconditional Love
B = Beloved
B = Beautiful
A = Affectionate

Whatever kind of pet you have, you can enjoy creating special scrapbook pages that you will enjoy for years to come!

Thanks for your time

Jeff

Come do the Craftshop Shuffle

Hi all.

BWScrapbooking has joined the 2009 Craft Shop Shuffle. The shuffle is a "searching" game that leads you from one craft shop to another in order to find and register DAISY, our disco bird at each shop visited. The goal is to locate all of the birds.

Everyone who achieves this goal is automatically registered to win the grand prize picked especially for each different shuffle. In addition, anyone who locates at least half of the birds will be placed in a drawing for one of the gift certificates provided by the participating shops. So make sure to check out all of BWScrapbooking, as well as the other sites listed on http://www.craftshopshuffle.com

good luck and happy hunting

Check out ScrapTime to see our Real Papers

Hello all,

One of our favorite Scrapbooking shows (online or tv) is Scraptime out of Canada. The show is produced several times a week by host Christine Urias. Christine is a SAHM mom, who has been scrapbooking since the summer of 2004. She works at a local LSS, the Fresh Collective on Queen St. W. in Toronto, where she sells her handmade cards and teaches stamping!! When asked why she does the show, she says "I love to be in the know of new products and techniques, and I want to share this information with everyone who is interested".

So you might ask why am I telling you about this? Well Christine besides offering great tips and reviews on paper scrapbooking, altered projects, and stamping, has just reviewed some of BWScrapbooking's Rela Paper Packs. So please check out the video below, and if you are avid blog reader, make sure to check out her site http://www.scraptime.ca.

So without further delay...here is Chrisitne!!

Scrap Time - Ep. 372 - BW Scrapbooking from Mark Giles on Vimeo.

Ways to Help You Storytell.

Hello all you scrappers.

As I have been scrapping my sons baby book, I have had to do some serious thinking to remember info about the event. This got me wondering how you can maybe take notes when you take photos to help the journaling and scrapbooking process down the road. So here are so easy ideas that you can use to get more info for your pages.

Go Old School Use a Memopad/Notepad

One of the old tried and true methods used by old newspaper reporter is as they took photos they would right down notes for captioning, and also to help flesh out their article later on. You can find these at your local office supply store, or even your local drugstore, or dollar store. You can fund some small enough to fit in your camera case or purse. This way its with you whenever you snap that picture.

Go digital us a a Recorder, PDA, or Even Your Cellphone

lugging around a pad and taking out a pen/pencil seem a little too much. No problem, Let technology help you out. Digital recorders are so small now a days, some can attach to your keep chain. Simply click the record button and tel yourself some notes the date, and your good to go. Writers have been telling themselves notes for years to help their creative process.

Dont want to add another item to your keychain, well how about your PDA if you check out the programs you will find most Palms, blackberries, and even Ipod touch have notes programs, and most have freebie voice recorder apps that you can download. simply jot down the date whats going on and your good to go.

Oh you dont have a pda... Well how bout your cell phone. we all have free voice mail. just call you phone and leave yourself a message. most cell services allow you at least 30 seconds to leave a message. Thats plenty of time to mention whats going on, and no need to mention the date or time because you can get that info when you check your messages. Best of all no need to buy tool or electronics.

Well I hope these ideas will help you out when you are out and about taking your pictures this summer. So go out have fun and remember wirte down some notes so you are all set when you sit down and scrap.

thanks for your time

Jeff

Looking to The Past

Hi all, and a happy June to you.

I found this wonderful video through one of the scrap groups I belong to. The video shows in a very Andy Rooney sort of way, an old scrapbook this man's grandmother created. Its old and brittle, but just shows how wonderful it is to get the little nuggets of info about our loved ones.



The thing about Jim's video is its exactly what I am going through. as my grandparents passed away I was able to get their old photos and mementos. Unfortunately they are not organized like Jim's grandmother did, but I have a great starting point.

So What Can Modern Day Scrappers Do?

The biggest question I think he raises is what to do with thee old albums and photo collections. I think as digital, hybrid, and even a traditional paper scrapbooker, can breath new life into these old albums and photos. We have a wonderful set of tools that can help use take what our ancestors have done, and bring them back to life. Think about it. With current technology that is accessible to the average consumer, we can easily scan photos, notes, report card, newspapers, even whole pages can be scanned or photographed and turned in to a computer file.

Once the document is digitized we have a variety of solutions to work with our old documents. you can take the scans and print them at home or at your local store and use them as we do our modern day digital photos.

We can keep them digital and you can color correct, and enhancements to bring them back to their former glory. Then using photo book vendors like photobooksetc.com and make new albums using these cherished memories that you can keep yourself, or make duplicates of for many family members.

So you say paper is no longer your thing? Well take those enhanced digital images, and use sites like scrapblog.com , you can take your old images and make high tech layouts complete with music and effects, that can give these old memories a layer of modern style that the original subjects could never have imagined.

So What Does this Mean?

The bottom line is no matter how old your family memories are you can bring them up to date. Granted this is not a quick easy task and depending on the quality of the photos this might take some effort. Depending on your skills with a graphics program, or the tools your computer comes with, you can revive images and documents from brittle decaying paper to fresh crisp clear images that allow you to experience what your relatives did from day to day.

Thanks for your time

Jeff