Lessons

Lesson Info

What is Scrapbook Improv?

I wanted to introduce you to the idea of what scrapbook improv is and how it came about and I want to give just a quick shot at katie scott who had done something similar with the ideas of combining improv with scrap booking and then I kind of took it to a whole new level by broadcasting it live well, I do it but basically what the ideas are with improv scrapbooking everything's in the moment you don't plan out the scene beforehand you don't think about what you're going to say you don't have a character framed in your mind you're working with what's right in front of you what the audience gives you what the other people you're you're performing with give you so I had done some comedy improv in the past and thought got to combine the two loves and bring scrapbook with improv together so I caught one part scrapbooking one part standup comedy all part fun and we actually do this every month so if you are not currently on in part part of my community if you go to lay out a day dot com fle...

sh s why s for scrapbook your story you'll get a little greeting from me and you can add your name to my email lists and I'll let you know when the next scrapbook in providence because we do do this live online every month for free and you can check it out so what I do for scrapbook improv is I take the current month kit from gossamer blue and you can find them at gossamer blue dot com. We talked a little bit in the last session before the break about why I love kits so much. I love having a pre selected a group of products that I can work from she might send me things that I might not ordinary pick out or even find on my own, and I have them here to play with and use with my stories and my photos and I with scrapbook improv, I do each page in less than thirty minutes. In addition, as if that weren't challenging enough, I have what I call the diabolical spinner many of you may may be familiar with this basically it's just like a game spinner, it's something I created my self out of a big tag off of a bean bag we bought and put pattern paper on it put numbers on it a little game spinner and I spend the spinner and it tells me what topic I'm going to use for the page. It tells me what embellishment I'm going to use, it tells me everything from a what style of journaling I'm going to use and then I move and create the page from their spinning along the way. One thing that everybody loves is the bag of fun the question mark that I spend for extra challenges. Unfortunately, the bag of fun could not travel with me to san francisco. What this is it's every loves this because it's an airplane air sickness bag that I just started throwing bits and pieces of because sometimes I might use a whole set of dots except for the last three, and I don't want to storm back in my drawer, I'd throw him in the bag of fun, and when I would do scrapbook improv, sometimes I'd spin and I have to find something from the bag of fun. However, I did bring some extra little bits and pieces in my box here, so if we get that, then maybe we'll just pull something out of their instead, I thought it would look, we're getting on the plane with the pre filled air sickness bag I just wasn't wasn't ready to go that quite that far from my scrap booking, but anyway, it's a it's, a crowd favorite let me tell you, when we start scrapbook improv, so I've been doing it for about a year now and we do it live and the audience is they're giving me input along the way, and whatever comes up comes up and that's really when I developed the concept for starting with story with my scrap booking because of what I noticed is even though I was doing this on the fly, even though I was giving no thought to the design other than what was happening right then I loved the pages and the different what was different for me with starting with the page a topic that story and moving on from there. And I thought, there's, something going on there and scrapbook improper turned into this biggest, bigger thing that actually turned into this course, so it really has a special place in my heart, lots of fun. When people tune in, they might be scrapbooking along with me, they might just watch on get ideas from themselves. I talk about the process as I go through why I'm making the decisions I'm making what I'm seeing on the page, what's working for me, what isn't? And then I just kind of talk through the process. So what we're going to be doing here today instead of me doing three pages of ninety minutes, I'm just going to do one page, but the people here in our audience also have the kit, I'm gonna invite you to play along with me, you're not going to be under the same pressure I am, so I don't expect you to finish the page and thirty minutes if you do wonderful I would love that, but I don't want you to feel that pressure because I know there's a lot of material that I've already presented to you over the last day and a half and I don't want your brains to explode, so please play along and we'll check in with you on the at the end and see where you are and what resonated with you if you made any discoveries discoveries and if you're at home and want to play along either if you have the kit or if you're working with your own products that's great you don't have to be using just this tea enjoy the process so the first thing we always do it scrapbook improv is go through the kit because I don't know what's in the kit until I actually sit down I really don't have any concept it's in a big box I opened up the box and pull it out and then we start looking at and what I like to start with is the pattern papers and this is a gorgeous sheet of red with some some dots on it from basic gray it's double sided, which means there's patterns on both sides. The riverside is a bicycle and bicycle print and it's it's just really cute in the grey's with little to live so that's a fun one next we have this is neat this's also basic gray it looks like almost sections of leimert or to kiwi or something in a gold color with the ski cityscape on the reverse and that's basic gray mon ami this one is julie being sightseeing stew and it's ah world map like an atlas with the reverse oh, I love this it's some diagonal chevron stripes and that's a very cool I love that a lot I know tracy is going like this one oh, in fact it was designed by tracy reed right here in our audience it's called paparazzi by the tracy reed and it's got some gorgeous cameras and shades of golden and olive and teal it's really lovely and the reverse is an ombre effect dots and that's pretty too oh my gosh this is gorgeous market st this is by my mind's eye it's a gold foil huge polka dot I'm a huge polka dot fan that's going to super fun to play with and the reverse is like in all of on all of polka dot many polka dots to I love the double sided pages because you're getting that much more that many more options with your purchase this gossamer boo canterbury court by one little bird it's got a I don't know what you call that almost like a half of a chevron stripe in a green or olive on one side and then a small floral on the reverse next is another gold foil market street my mind's eye one side is the gold foil on white and the reverses the armory effect with the teal again and you can see how everything's pre coordinated I don't have to think is this color going to match with this lori's already done all that thinking for me so I just know they're going to work together and that makes it so much easier I'm not guessing at all I can just get toward then we've got some actually we've got some more pattern paper here oh this looks cool looking it looks just like the table it's a wood grain and then the reverse is some more cameras and this is from cheek tags and that's really cute I like that it's called let's go captured I haven't heard of their line before really like that then we've got the card stock is remember card stock is solid colored pattern paper and we've got a pale yellow a cream a kind of a dusty light blue and it almost a bright teal how in one more piece of pattern paper here let's go this looks like the cheek teg also let's go explore it's got a pattern of airplanes on one side and then the reverse is like a luggage tags from different airports and that's really really cool to and again all the colors work together so well lori designs her kits based on color and it just makes a huge difference and she's pulling things from different designers and as you can see, it looks gorgeous together and I don't have to do any work at all all right? And we get on to the embellishments we've got a fund set of being bored alphas from jilly bean soup those look like they'll be a lot of fun and lots of options there lots of vowels that's always important and we've got some wood wood veneer shapes that go with the sheik tags let's go places and says like the places we go vacation things like that we've got a little mini stamps that here that says notes from today with some photo corners and all who wander are not lost that's really sweet we've got enamel dots everybody's favorite everybody loves those enamel dots there great substitution for brad's you don't have to make a hole in the page they just stick right on and they're in a golden orange and green very pretty and my mind's eye market street bijan alison some card stock stickers those are very pretty too. And then finally the's air called what does she call them? She just says hello two thousand fourteen miscellany puffy stickers everybody likes the public sticker poke him already they are indeed puffy, so they add a nice dimension to the page but they're very light and these air from evil ish isthe so that's our kit what I typically add in in addition to what comes in the kit, my journaling pen and I've got several to choose from here and white card stock, and sometimes I'll go to my scraps is well, if there's a challenge that requires me to use my scraps. So what do you guys thinking of the kid? How that look in love? I see you guys playing james got the wood veneers out there already. Anjali look very organized. Look, teo and cities got it all spread out nicely in front of her. Tracy, how is it when you work with your own supplies, what's that, like, my husband calls it meadows scrapbook e because I work with my own product with my own pictures of my own kids are and make my own page and it's just very weird, so but I love it. Yeah, yeah, well, I'm sure you like, you know, you were with something you like because it's your stuff that's awesome. Denise, what do you excited about? What you've seen in the kit that you're absolutely loving over there? I like the papers. The papers have just absolutely beautiful are just really they're great colors they are, and then, you know, that's, the kind of thing where I'm not going to worry about is this photo going perfectly match that paper? I haven't I tow whether it's really going to clash like if somebody's wearing a strong color but it's not the primary concern of course the primary concern for me is that story so I don't worry about that too much. How about you, jennifer oh, I love the color says love how they all coordinate together I don't think tonto I love it so just a reminder also that there is a coupon from gap gossamer blue in the enrollment bonus the basic scrapbooking start with story enrollment pack that you can get by registering for the class so definitely take a look at that everybody's got their groove books or photos ready I do as well anybody nervous? I am what about what internet audience saying a lot of low yeah people love gossamer blew some people are already members they love getting their boxes every month and now a lot of people are asking questions of just about this whole scrapbook in prague now is this something that you could just sort of do with your friends and family at home? I mean, what what what do you suggest to people if they're they've never done this before and they're looking to set up a little improv sessions definitely and all my previous versions of scrapbook improv are archived online so if you sign up for my email list layout of data excuse me? Yes, later today, dot com slash s y s if you sign up for the email list, we'll tell you when the next scrapbook improv is as well as where you can find all the previous month so you could go back and see what I was using and the challenges I was working with. Also, I've got this little cheat sheet that I fill out each and every month, and I make this available on my facebook page at facebook dot com slash lay out a day and you could fill this in yourself or create something thing similar for one of our layout a day challenges the monthlong challenge that I host I I had people do something like this, but I created little paper dice that they printed out and they rolled the dice and it told them what they needed to do next, and so there's a number of different ways you can do this, I think there's also some aps that people have used on their smartphones that will generate random numbers or things like that and and you can always make your own diabolical spinner as well is really simple to dio so you can come up with your own challenges, we actually have a section. In a little bit where later today where we're going to talk about prompts and where you can get props for your challenges and I have an iphone app that serves up a prompt each and every day and it's got an archive to so you could use the archived prompts for your scrapbook improv and decide how crazy you want to get do you want to get your a little air sickness bag from the airline and fill it with goodies are you going to do something a little tamer totally up to you but it's it's so fun to do and it really brings your scrapbooking to a new new area because it's completely outside everybody's comfort zone so it's fun that way all right so what I have right here is my cheat sheet and I fill this in as I say each and every month because it tells me what the number what numbers correspond to what on the spinner so if I spent a five I know what it's going to correspond tio so again this is available on my facebook page facebook dot com fleshly out a day you can scroll back to the end of last month which was our last scrapbook improv it's the fourth wednesday of every month and I've got this uploaded as a j peg and you can just grab it from there or you can do your own but what I haven't divided into his topics techniques, journaling, embellishments and then the extra challenge. So so what I do is the day of scrapbook improv I post on my facebook page, and I say who's got story or topic ideas for today's, improv and people time in and give me suggestions, and then I filled them in in this section here and then when I opened the kit, when we're sitting down to scrap book, I'll fill in the embellishment section because I don't know beforehand what embellishments are going to be included in the kit. So one month there might be enamel dots. The next month, there might be washi tape, so it can be I can't really fill that out beforehand, because it's all done in the moment. So at our break, I was walking around asking for suggestions for topics today, and we've got seven topics we have now and then from cindy sally had you have to be kidding and say what I love both of those number four is what were you thinking? That was from tracy? Really, from cindy, best day ever from jane and make me happy from tracy, so I've got seven topics. I'm obviously on lee going to be creating one of those today at a typical scrapbook improv session, I would be using three of those and then oftentimes after scrapbook and problems over, I'll go back with the kit and work on some of the other ones because story ideas are coming to me already based on these topics, then for techniques I have stamping because we have a stamp in the kid's distressing which for those of you who aren't familiar with that typically that involves either creating ragged edge, ripping a paper, curling the edges, making the edges darker with a darker inc something like that di cutting, which were actually going to cut out today just because I don't have my die cut machine with me, so I'm gonna just that create an embellishment, so that might mean somehow I turn a piece of pattern paper into something that I can add to the page or I stamp something and then cut that out and then turn that into a new embellishment for the page as well doodling which is just adding some kind of little hand drawn element or embellishment to the page. It could be a simple is putting a little fake stitching line around the page or in that page I did on wide open spaces with the song lyrics that writing on the photo, I counted as doodling for that one embossing, which we're going to cross off also again just because I don't have my in boston machine with me here on been random acts of scrapping which was something. I always decide what it's going to be in the moment, and I think of something that it might be based on what I have around me, so it might be use random letter stickers on the page, or it might be used pocket scrapbooking cards or scrap mint lift myself, or something like that. In fact, that might be a good one is to scrap lift myself. So I think that's going to be our random act of scrap lifting today because that'll be an easy one for us to do right here in the moment. Journaling there seven options for journaling number one is to create a list number two is not my words, so it could be something that somebody here in the audience says or could be, ah, quote, or it could be something from from our friends on the internet who are in the chat room, something like that, and I'll include that in the in the journaling, a quote so that similar, but a quote would be a direct quote for its song lyrics. Five his paper strips that's quite kind of more of a technique or design element, but it does tie in with journaling, and basically, it means writing my journaling on strips of paper that I then add onto the page. Number six is typically computer generated, but obviously we're limited on that today, so instead I added in tags because we have some tags here and I also have just happened have a random tag and my my kit here, so if I get get number six, I'll do my journaling on my tag and then seven his inbox! I love this one! That means I go to my my in box on my email and I find either a title oven, email, subject line or something that somebody sent to me on and that goes into my journaling, so it makes it really, really fun, because obviously, who knows? What's gonna happen. Embellishments I feel that in as we're sitting here, so I just fill in what we have in our embellishments. So number one is the puffy stickers. Number two is the enamel dot. Now it doesn't mean I'm on ly limited to that, so if I spin the two, it doesn't mean the on ly embellishment I use on the page has to be the enamel dots. It just means I have to use the enamel dots. I could also use some other things, but that's, the primary embellishment I'm going to start with number three is going to be our card stock stickers number four will be our alphas. Which I would probably use anyway, just because we do put a title on the page number five is the wood veneer shapes and then if there aren't seven in the kit, because obviously we're limited as to what we get each month in the kit I fill in with things I have myself, like, I brought some washi tape along if you're not familiar with washington tape it's god's gift to crafters there are five ca gillian and I counted five ten jillion different patterns of watching tape, basically it's a fancy masking tape, it originated in japan and now it's manufactured all over the world, but it comes in every possible color pattern size. I actually have a couple here because I wasn't sure what our colors and the kit would be, but I think this craft one's gonna work best you can see right there just two examples. I think this one is a basic gray. I think tracy gave me this in fact, on dh, I'm not sure, but who made this one because it doesn't say on there, but you can see the difference in size. They're great for adding borders to the page to use instead of ribbon there's a million uses for for washi tape and it's, really a fun addition and fairly inexpensive that's, usually just a couple a couple dollars per per roll and then I also have some simple stories burlap stickers that I think would look really well with this set so I'm gonna add that in a cz well so just to make a note everything except for this so far has come from the kit and I'll make a mention of that as I use them so you can see what from the kid and what isn't okay and then we have an extra challenge as I mentioned if I happened to spend the question mark it's like the chance sir the community chest in monopoly where you just don't know what you're going to get ill go down here to the extra challenge and number one is product packaging that means I have to use something that the that used to was used to package the products so it could be cutting out a heart here could be using this here I don't know yet it could even be using the plastic I'm not sure what I would use but I have to use some sort of product packaging on the page number two is used on ly pattern paper so if I happened to get that from there on out in my scrap booking for for that challenge for that page I'm only going to use pattern paper I won't be using card stock number three is get messy and typically at home when I've got my full array of supplies that would mean getting out the paints or the sprays or something like that today, here, if I get number three, I'll just go to my ink pads because I have a couple in peds that I brought number four scraps. That means pulling some scraps from other things to use. That might be a little bit difficult today, just because we're just starting, but we'll see how that goes. I'll leave that in there for now. Number five is always a fun one. No paper trimmer. You remember? We were talking about products, how I was saying paper tremors are a must. Well, you can scrapbook without them and it's fun when I sometimes pull that out and then I am uh uh if I spend that, then I've got to put away the paper tremor and I'm using just the scissors all they going over to grab somebody's pair of scissors number six is something from the bag of fun and instead I'll just grab something that I happen to have here in my my kit that I brought along with me and the number seven is like from the devil have to speed it up, I lose five minutes off of my thirty minute clock, so, um I'm gonna go ahead and pull this out and get my time or going here but I would love to know what the audience is saying it and what you guys are thinking here, do you think I'm absolutely nuts? Or does this look like fun for somebody else? But you and yourself would never do it because I've done it with you? I am so happy that in thirty minutes I've gotten a layout done, you've taken the guesswork out, all it is is my mind trying to figure out and it's actually a very creative process, because everything's laid out for you. You just got to put the pieces in the puzzle, right? Right? I so agree, and I wasn't sure the first time I sat down to scrap book, and when I got the idea, I thought, that's cool on that immediately, I thought, that's insane, why would I ever put myself through that? But then that's, when I knew I had to do it right, so, like, we're going to do it, and we're going to go for it. So what about our internet friends scandal over the night? Piper triple I like the way people like the spinner idea. They like the sort of random chance some people are mentioning that they could make some dice instead of a spinner and kind of roll the dice rather than spinning, but the same sort of logic there. And yeah I mean people are excited to get started they've all kind of had different levels of experience with this but a lot of new improv scrapped oh great people who reckon it's too stressed we're going to watch you do it yeah yeah and you know what? Oftentimes people watch me and then I think you know what? I want to try that because hey it's paper and photos that we're getting for two and a half cents each and what's the risk you never know what might came out what came out for me is this class so I feel like it was well with worth the risk of totally embarrassing like what I do anyway right according to my daughter I embarrass her too so yes, you choose thirty minutes there's something magical about that time well when I started scrapbooking ahead young kids and I used to say if I don't get it done in the length of one barney video it's not thirty minutes has always been kind of my go to number and plus I have a short attention span so it kind of worked out well and then in an hour and a half together we get three layouts which seems substantial to me versus even forty five minutes to look at forty five minutes and and then we'd get to layoffs and somehow three layout sounded good hour and half sounded good, you know it was almost like I spend the spinner and said ok, thirty minutes it is so yeah, any other questions I'm a little nervous but we're gonna get to this and we've got I got thirty minutes on the clock here I'll be talking through my process as I do this I invite our studio audience as well as our friends at home two scrapbook along and I would love to hear how the process is for you what's occurring to you what just made you go the or what was like eye opening to you so feel free to chime in and don't forget to upload what you make to the gallery because I really want to see and I don't expect you to finish a page and a half an hour if you do that's wonderful if you don't then we'll just check in and see where you are and how it felt because I know this is a big stretch for some people I know many people take five, six, seven hours for a page so this just seems like way outside the realm of possibility so all right other thing is I do have some additional and he says I have some foam dots that I might be using and I think we're good tracy emmy didn't you just waving at me saying hi I'm excited all right who's excited all right wait is asking for clarification so these kids and these are going to be different for each month yes could you just maybe say like what? What kind of changes from kid to kid? Because people obviously have different products at home I just want a little player way have a different issue dio it up if you want it yes, that would be great so our hosts are working right here with the may gossamer blue kits and every month there will be card stock every month there will be patterned paper every month there's an alfa of some sorts what this month it's he's being bored they're almost like chipboard some months they might be stickers andan every month there several different embellishments it's all color coordinated but it won't necessarily work with previous months. In fact, sometimes it does but it's more by chance then design so it changes up every single month also with gossamer blue. There are digital downloads that accompany the kids tracy designs many of those and she brought her is whether on but also there's die cut shapes that are exclusive to gossamer blew that they're provided with the kid as well, so they're shipped to you directly again there's a coupon in your enrollment bundles so definitely take a look at that and check out gossamer blue dot com they're really amazing great customer service and laurie's a wonderful person