Fun Cutting Tools

I love my Jumbo Custom Cutting System Patterns for making quick, traditional scrapbook pages! With one simple cut, I get a neat border, plus a piece to add to another page. Two pages from one piece of paper!


I have been working on Jacob's toddler pages... really enjoying my trip down memory lane! Here is a page I love, using the circle that was left over when I cut a border for another page, using the Jumbo Circle Pattern.

Now, when I started out with that red circle all by itself, it looked a little too much like a Japanese flag!

So, I decided to cut it up, and shift things around a bit. I started with one straight cut off of one side... no need to be exact.
I then made a second cut of of the larger piece. Again, just eyeballing things.
I took those 3 pieces and arranged them so that all the straight edges and corners were against the outside of the page.
I added a photo mat, 3 pictures, some fun embellishments, and some title stickers. {Using a Power Palette ensures that everything matches, and really cuts down on time!} I think it turned out pretty cute, and only took about 10 minutes!

You could do the same thing with any of the cutting patterns. {Good news! Through June 30th, 2011, all of our top cutting tools are on sale for 20% off!}

Easy Power Layouts

Abbie often asks me if we can do something together. She also noticed that while our family scrapbooks are "almost" caught up, her own scrapbook hasn't been updated since she was about 5 years old. So, for her birthday, I gave her a new album and some supplies. Yesterday, she was excited to work on her album. I intended to start her out right, so I led her through the Power Layouts technique!

Power Layouts is a method that is used to pre-plan an album using a sort of assembly-line process. It is one of my favorite speed techniques. When I am making a custom album for a client, I always start the project by doing Power Layouts for the whole book. When I am working on my own projects, I do the same. I have a number of customers who are very successful with keeping up on their albums because they have learned to make use of Power Layouts!

Step One: First you choose the photos you are going to use. It doesn't have to be every picture in a stack. We went into Abbie's Power Sort Box and picked out photos from the first several months of 2004. She immediately rejected any picture in her pile that didn't include her! The point is to narrow it down so that you are using the best pictures to represent an event. I try to keep in mind that each page will typically include 2-5 pictures. I also tend to limit most events to no more than two pages. Also, some photos won't fit into an event category, but are still worthy of going into an album. Go ahead and choose them, too!

Step Two: The next step is to lay out planning pages to start the Power Layout process. I use a combination of scrapbook pages and Power Layout Guides that come with the Power Layouts Kit. The white pages, above, represent scrapbook pages. The grey can be another scrapbook page, or a Power Layout Guide. The guides are nice because when it comes time to assemble the pages, you will only be attaching paper and pictures to the actual scrapbook page... with Guides, you won't make the mistake of attaching your layout to a filler page. I also lay out the planning pages so that I have my first page of the book, and then a series of two-page spreads.

Now, this step can take up a bit of room. But it is adaptable to whatever space you have available. You can do Power Layouts on an empty table, or across several tables. You can lay out pages in small batches using up the space you have, going through all of the following steps, then repeat the process. In my custom albums, I used lay out 90 pages on the floor, snaking around the house from the entry to the living room, to the dining room, and back again to the entry!

Step Three: The third step is to deal out all the photos onto the pages and Layout Guides. This is a quick process that gives you an overview of your album! At this point you will see if you have too many pictures for one layout, and how many two-page spreads you might need. You will also eliminate some pictures as you see that they may be redundant, or not as good as some others you have.

I like to have two-page spreads... so in this step, I can see if some of my layouts fall that way or not. I usually scrapbook chronologically, but I will rearrange the order of my pages, if necessary, to get my layouts to fall into two-page spreads. I also see if I have random photos that will group together into topical layouts. For instance, last year I had photos from three separate snow days. It made more sense to group them all into one snow layout. Power Layouts has the advantage of giving you that big-picture view of your scrapbook so that you can group photos in a way that is most efficient for the flow of the book.

Step Four: The fourth step is to crop, or trim, all the pictures that have been dealt out onto the planning pages, and to make a preliminary arrangement of the layout on the page. My preference is to group the photos close together, leaving open areas around the page for journaling, embellishments, and titles. I did notice that once I started printing digital photos, my need to crop my pictures was dramatically reduced. But these older pictures needed some help to remove background clutter and focus in on the subject. If you have any memorabilia, this would be the step to add that, as well.

Step Five: Now the fun begins! In step five, we start to choose the papers that will go with each page. Sheets of scrapbook paper can be left whole, or cut down to make it go further. You can stop with choosing the background paper, or also go ahead and choose the mats, journal boxes, stickers, and other embellishments that will go on the page. Those items will be be dealt out onto the pages, ready for the assembly step.

Step Six: In Step Six, you are basically done with Power Layouts! You stack up the planned pages, with the first page on top and the last page on the bottom. You can then store them in the box that comes with the Power Layouts Kit. Some people do this step at home, then just bring their Power Layouts Box with them to a workshop and assemble their pages. I have other croppers who do Power Layouts on 6 or 8 pages, complete the pages, then do Power Layouts again. Some like to do a batch of Power Layouts at my workshops, then do their assembly at home. It is all about what works for you!

Step Seven: This is the time to be creative and play! The first steps of Power Layouts are where a lot of decision-making is done and less creativity is needed. In this final step, you are assembling the pages, and adding decorative touches. You will pull out the first page from the Power Layouts Box, adhere it and complete it, turn it over, and then continue on with the next layout in your box. It is great because if you just have a few minutes, you can pick up where you left off and complete a page. Some people say they don't have room to scrapbook, or don't want to pull everything out... well, with this step all you need is your Power Layouts Box, and adhesive!

Abbie did great! We spent about 15 minutes on the Power Layouts. Less than 3 hours later, she had TWELVE completed pages!!! Are you ready to try some Power Layouts for yourself???

10 Minute Makeover... with a Virtual Twist!

I am always encouraged by The Nester at Nesting Place! I love her ideas, her soothing, classy style, and the way she breaks down decorating to simple steps. In fact, her great "how to" posts inspired me to start my own blog (not that I compare myself to her in any way!)! Recently, she did a series called "10 minutes to a room you'll love" which gave great ideas for quickly making over a room like the family room, master bedroom, bathroom, or kitchen. Today, she invited readers to share a link to show off their own makeover, so this is my contribution to the "linky party"!

I decided to make over our entry area. And, because I can never do just one thing at a time... you know, one project overlaps into another... and then several spots are torn apart at once... I actually ended up getting the entry 90% done, made some changes to the family room, and got my office area (actually the formal living room) about 60% done! I will show off the entry today. I am also going to show you something really fun I did to make sure I would like the changes before I actually moved furniture!!!

Entry Makeover

Here is the before... not very soothing or welcoming. In fact, I think it is a pretty chaotic way to greet ourselves and our guests when we come in the front door. And, it was unfinished, never pulled together since we moved in this past September. The area is actually quite large, so it was a big, empty space, other than the disheveled shelves.

I moved out the bookshelves and replaced them with this gorgeous antique trunk. Now, this is a tailor's trunk that is meant to stand upright. I decided to turn it on its side. This photo makes it look kind of small, but it is really a very substantial piece! The plant was a gift from a friend. She brought it over at Christmas because it was taking over their house. It certainly doesn't take over this large space!


The trunk and the plant sit opposite the front door. That is where the bookshelves used to be. See how they were the first thing you would see as you walked in? See how much room there is? I think the trunk and plant are much more restful and welcoming. See the curtain in the background? It is actually a mistreatment, another idea from The Nester! This divides the entrance to my office area from the entry... I will show that off when it is done, in another post!

Here is a view from the "office" area into the entry. Another good friend gave me this great table -- here used as a storage bench. Several years ago, my mother made this wall quilt for me, for the entry of another house. I hung it before the bench came, so now I think I need to bring it down 18" or more. I was worried about the kids touching it, but it is way too high right now!

This was an easy makeover, using stuff I had. I love the results! I think it is peaceful and welcoming.

So where did the bookshelves go?

Virtual Makeover... No heavy lifting required!

I decided I wanted to move the bookshelves into the family room. But if you look closely, they really aren't in the room yet, at least not in this picture. Both bookshelves are actually the same shelf, copied and placed into my family room photo! This is my Virtual Makeover.

Here is the family room before:

I wanted to move the bookshelves, but it was a daunting task... unloading all the books, moving the shelves, reloading. And then what if I didn't like the results? I didn't want to be moving them again! So I decided I would do a Virtual Makeover first, using my StoryBook Creator software! This software is for making scrapbook pages, and other fun projects, but I had an inspiration that I could use it a very unique way!

I measured and I knew the shelves would fit beside my chairs in the family room. But I wanted to see if I would like the bookshelves in the family room. First, I took a photo of the family room. Then, attempting to use the same angle of viewing, I took a picture of the bookshelves.

I opened up StoryBook Creator and brought both photos in. Then, I used the Custom Cutting Tool to cut around and isolate one of the bookshelves. Step 1: Select the photo, then choose a cutting tool from the Tools menu.

Step 2 was to click each corner point in order to outline the shape of the bookshelf. The bookshelf is an easy shape to select since it is all straight lines. It only takes six or so clicks. This tool will also work on curved edges... you just need to enlarge the view and click smaller segments at a time. See the shading over the shelf image?

Step 3 is to use the little pop-up menu for the Custom Cutout tool to first "Invert the shaded area." This leaves the bookshelf alone, and reverses the selection to everything else. Next, I clicked on the "Cut around the shaded area" which deleted the background.

Now all I have is the bookshelf! I copied it so I would have two. Then I brought in the photo of the family room and placed the bookshelves on top. I resized each of them to make them fit into the room. And then I used the cutting tool again to cut away the parts of the bookshelf that covered up the furniture in the family room photo. Here is how it looked with the family room photo taken away...
Here is the final result. I really only played with it on the computer for about 1o minutes. I was really tickled with myself that I could "see" the room without moving furniture! And even better, my husband came home while I was playing. I was able to get his stamp of approval for the change! I moved the bookshelves the next day. Below is the virtual makeover... I will show off the family room, as it is now, another day.

p.s. The tutorial images were also made with StoryBook Creator Plus! Isn't it fun??!