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Odd-Sized Photos & Holiday Cards

Ok, so we're going to talk about odds size photos I brought this up earlier and I brought up this idea of a little bit of research I did and how you can't just mass produce these page protectors that don't fit with every picture just doesn't work it doesn't make sense. So what do you do with these older pictures and how do you how do you preserve things like this? And I want to go ahead and demonstrate something and give you just a quick example I have I did not practice at a time so of showing you just live like what I would dio I grabbed an old scrapbook scrapbook is what this is and this is the this is a notebook that comes to my grandpa jake johnson and this is one of his company's binders versus I think one of the coolest things you know that his scrapbook is in here and why wouldn't it be? And when you open this you see they're not magnetic pages there luckily not sticking but there's lots of acid in this so what do I need to d'oh? We talked about how behind I am behind, okay, I'...

ve got a project here that I mean to manage and it simply will be taking all these photos out and slipping them in well, where am I going to set them in where they're going to set um, let me see if I have that. I want to show you that page protector the photo pocket page that we have that has the four by four squares pull this one. Okay, this is an example of a photo pocket page has four by four squares and has three by four through the middle. And the idea here is that you cannot journaling to go with the photos. Okay, so I'm not asking you to necessarily true anything down. So if I were to take a photograph out of here and luckily ok, good. Luckily, that just popped off this I could see my glue smear marks right there. This picture very easily can slip right in here. Now, what challenge I was seen here is that there's a little extra space. This happens to be square photo and a square pocket. Nice that's great that I had even borders, but for it not to slip around slide if we wanted to look organized, then what there's a couple suggestions and take this out. One suggestion is that you take this photo and I would not mather adhesive all over it. I wouldn't do that there's no reason all you're doing is trying to keep it in place so that it doesn't cite all over I'm using a very simple and he said from american crafts and I'm going to take this and literally just go right there in the middle just a little slide of adhesive super convenient to use I promote with project life that you don't have to cut our glue a thing but today's segment the one that we're talking about right now are special circumstances when you have this odd sites photos bust out the adhesive if you need tio so this is one idea is that you take that photo and you know can place it on that and I am ok that it's not tightly adhered around the edges that's not what I'm going for because once I slipped this back in here and it's in the pocket it's secure it's there it's not moving around it's not going to go anywhere and yet it keeps it so it's not shifting around giving me uneven borders I'm happy with this I really like this now something else to bring up just another idea full from another picture certainly are not the most stellar photographs you could see the fading they they're so special they should be scanned a piece so that they don't lose even more quality once I scanned these and this is the image that will be preserved at it as it is and later when we learn some photo editing tips from kevin you'll see how to make these images even better. But another thing I want to point out particularly for scrap bookers because scrap bookers all this kind of stuff is instead of that he said that you can't see consider something like washi tape decorative tape. I know you guys have a stash of washington. Oh, yes. There's. A lot of nodding going on in here. Do you guys even know what washington is? Naughty, right? Tape or duct tape? Is this it's safe? While you've got to make sure it's safe look on the packaging. But it's, it is literally tape that is decorative on finding the end of my tape here so I can show you it's not even meant to be cut. It's meant to be tourney, isn't it? You want to have a tauron look, so I'm just going to take a piece of washing tape. I'm going to tear it. I get a little bit more of an edge, but I kind of want get rid of that. The very first piece I'm working with a little bit more of a scrappy kind of peace anyway. And instead of using adhesive on the back to me, it would be really cute. I have just a little strip of washing at the top. Or decorative tape? I'm happy with that. I actually think it's, darling it's not even distracting as I slip it in here and look at it with the other picture. It kind of gives it a fun vintage feel and it doesn't distract now if I use the bright orange and yellow tape that's distracting with these pictures it's in fact it's kind of inappropriate as far a style it doesn't go, it doesn't work and so bear in mind that you have these options of actually adhering pictures. Two cards I gave you an example of pictures I happen to have in this one album which it's really hard for me to not get distracted and want to stop the show right now and look at these pictures I talked about the farm yesterday. This is the fun, these air, the farm pictures, my grandma and grandpa at the farm, these air pictures they want to preserve, I want to scan these and get them in dropbox or something to share with my whole family's everybody has him that's on me, that's on my shoulders and I've got to do that it's I'm adding it to my list of priorities and goals, ok, but that is just to give you very quickly and simply one way excuse me that you can organize photographs are not of standard size I want to demonstrate a little bit more any questions so far, any points of clarity that we're looking for or ideas that you guys wanna throw out? Well, we are getting a lot of questions about clarification about scanning acceptable do want remind you, we're going to cover that all of this afternoon when I get it he's going to be covering all the different techniques of actually scanning sector and we'll go, we'll go through that that that's the technical side of scrapbooking. So hold your questions and that's why we're not posting anything right now, but let's definitely hear from our students see how they're doing. How is my girlfriend denise doing so you guys are feeling inspired as faras what to do with the outside stuff? I know that it can be tricky and I want to go ahead and show you I'm going to show you in action again. There's no prep here, I didn't prepare anything. I want to show you how easy it is to really like in real life do this. Um, weii get holiday greeting cards every year, all of us do I'm sure we're all in that in that in that world of exchanging holiday cards, we love receiving them, we love giving them in our family it's a race to the mailbox andi, I want to point something out. It's a little bit of a sidebar to my topic cause I'm gonna talk about what on earth do you do with all of these? But as a side bar no it's, just really quick on my block today. Becky higgins dot com you click on my block and the the very newest block post that you guys probably haven't seen yet here in the audience because you're you're hanging out with me, but you're home watching. Please check that out. I have a special guest post by our in house editor aaron aaron has written a block post it's all about not not so much the pictures for the holiday cards, but you know how a lot of us like to accompany the picture with a newsletter, and you know how none of us like to read a five page single space newsletter from someone else, even though we love them? Aaron has amazing, awesome, very creative and inspiring writing ideas for how to put together a family newsletter to go with your picture, so definitely check that I'm really excited. I read through it again last night and was just so pleased that we've got aaron to share these ideas, so holiday greetings, this is what we do with them. And many of you do the same thing. You display them on your wall, you keep it and keep them in a basket. Whatever you do with your holiday greeting cards, you enjoy them throughout this season. And then why did you do with him? Well, in the past year is what I ended up doing as I would save them and I would categorize them by year. I started trying to put them in my scrapbook, but I was just too much and it was a lot and I that was of interest to me anymore. So I thought, well, not thrown away that I love these people are I love these cards, and so I'll put them and organize them in baggies and thereby year. Ok, I've got two thousand two and c six and two thousand eight, two thousand nine I had per year all of our christmas and holiday cards in a bank and that's, great on dh. Then I realized kind of my own ah ha moment that I was never looking at them is never looking at them. And that's not for any it's not lack of love for my loved ones that's just I mean I just didn't look at them and I and I'm not going to call out anybody but I want you to think in your mind do you go back and actually look at those past okay you're telling me no you don't you don't but sometimes we do want to look at those so I'm gonna give you two extreme examples one extreme example and people will cast all over the world when I say this as I made an executive decision several years ago to take this stack and throw them all away I know I know that's a hard thing to dio I totally get that some people have to keep this stuff the reason I made the decision is because I was in this assessment part of my life for a scrap booking a memory keeping and I was looking at everything that I had I was like, you know everything I had done everything it still had to be done and this weight on me heavily why was keeping this stuff I'm not looking at it I'm not enjoying it and I really didn't want to take the time to scrap book it this was pre project life so I threw it all away I don't regret that it's ok with me I'm coping through this but now there is a system in place there is now a solution that if you wanted to take christmas cards, holiday cards, greeting cards, birthday cards, anything like this don't think so much about holidays, specifically there's other occasions where we get cards, I want you to be open minded to this idea of actually scrapbooking them now, because now we're not decorating pages and displaying them all pretty on these elaborately designed pages, we now can slip them into pockets well, what's our with our struggle here let's have a look. I grabbed a stack of christmas cards, they're not mine miner in the trash remember I asked my friends, who has a stockbroker since karzai khun taken show online and so live in front of the whole world. So caroline gave me a stash of her christmas cards that she had. They're not even in any particular order, they're not even from all of one year and that's cool, I it doesn't matter to me, I said, d are you okay with me cutting these up to demo? I'm going to show you and so that's why I say there's, no prep, I'm looking at all different sizes here, different styles, different families, different faces, different everything. So what I would suggest is that with your variety of photo pocket pages handy, you would want to actually trim each of these this is what I mean keep in mind it's not a rule don't ever say that becky said I had to do this and then blame me later that you get to have that full try folded card that you wanted if it were me and these are my pictures this is what I would dio I would take every one of these and I would make them work into a photo pocket page because what matters to me I can tell you this doesn't matter to me this matters to me I want these faces I won remember these faces and I don't care how cute their card was in how it unfolded and what it looked like and if it was a costco template or a persnickety prince uh, template or whatever and by the way we have free templates on her site did I mention that already you guys need to know this free holiday templates for your photos for your family pictures on becky higgins dot com right now so that's kind of fun you see some fun options and they don't cost you get really cute cards becky we have the solution way have they also we can rebuild you susan west but this is a brilliant idea thank you, susan, she says if you don't want to keep the holiday card, take a picture of it and put that holy card as the person's id on your phone so that when they call you, you see that a picture can tell you it's so cool, thank you so much. Thank you so much for bringing that up, because just literally about a week or two ago I was with a bunch of girlfriends and she was talking about we were scrapbooking actually, I'm going to show you pictures of that occasion later is a lot of fun, but jen was commenting how she photographed, just like you're saying she photographed our christmas cards and took pictures just really quick with your iphone use those for the idea of their profile, and she was bringing up because she said, for those of you guys who are printing on pearlescent paper, it doesn't look clear so she's like print the christmas cards clear as far as you know, not the textures and lenin and the pearl essence that so that people can take pictures brilliant. I'm so glad that she brought that up. Thank you. All right, so this is what I'm doing. I am using an american cross tremor here and it has you will not be able to see this in detail, but it has all of my benchmarks and my and my millimeters and everything along care, I know that I want to take every picture and trim it down, so what that means is that this picture, which is not a for my six or three by four whatever needs to be smaller, I can tell just by looking at it that that's too big for a three by four I'm not thinking about my plastics yet not thinking about where it's going, I'm gonna turn them all in and I don't have time here during the segment maybe I could tell later for you guys, but you'll see I'm going to take the stack of trimmed photos and literally slipped them into the photo pocket pages, so I'm going to take this time to make sure that it is lined up here at the top and I'm not cutting off brandon's head and I am slighting this and trimming it, okay, great! I'm at this point now and you can see that I have the top portion I know that if it's a four by six that I can on ly go to four inches, so I'm gonna take this and again, you're not going to able to see my mark here, but it says four inches right here that's how I know am I cutting off knees and hands? Yes, I am and yes, that's ok, I'm trimming, I will not be sad that brock sneeze or cut off, I just want to see brock space okay, so there's my four inches now I need to go six inches so again we're just going to make sure that there's my six right there it's simply trim it like so and I am done okay there's my four by six doesn't have to be perfectly centered kind of fun that you still see the year I'm not worried about anything but the's loved ones faces carolyn and I happen to share a friendship with this family that's why in all of their names ok, so what do you d'oh about these like these combination well, you look at a card like this I don't know these lovely people but they are lovely I don't need all of these that's not necessary because look, I can see the whole family right here. Well, I can tell by looking at it that this case is not a four by six I could tell it needs to be smaller I can trim it fully and mounted on a four by six but I have a lot of cards I want to get all these cars into just a handful of pages so I know I want to turn this three by four ok? And I know it's bigger than a three by four and so how do I do that? I look at my four inches right here excuse me three inches right here and I'm going tio trim I'm gonna get my three inches this way and I'm going to trim it again and now I have what I need here four inches okay, so four inches this is the same thing I don't want to cut off to many heads let me trim off as much as I'm willing to trim off and now I know I have for interested to go here I put it at the four inch mark tram now you see a couple examples I've got a four by six I have a three by four okay? So that's what I would dio on all of these now on example this is another example of a lovely family the past mars I see them together right here I don't need this one on this one I just in each family represented with one picture this is enough this is smaller than a three by four so what do you think I'm going to do with this? I'm gonna trim it just where it is and I'm going to use a cute little red and white polka dot washington and just slap it on a three by four card and I'm done okay this one this is beg a lot of cars were printed this big site is the mccray's don't need a full I don't need to put this in a big fight by seven page protector I'm gonna turn them down I love them but I'm gonna I'm gonna downsides to mcrae's okay, I'm gonna go for inches by six inches on this one. Another example of the king family. Four inches by three it's. Not exactly that, necessarily. But I know I could turn it down to that. What do you do about these, jen? I mentioned my friend jen, who brought up the whole print. I'm you know, clear paper, not limit. This is jen just once knew who thought of this same idea that our friend on the internet dead. This is amazing. A gorgeous card. Well, I'd be sad to not see the cool edges. No, I care about the family. I care about their faces. I know that I control this down to a four by six and I don't have time to demo. But you get the idea as you go through each of these, that ok, I'll give you a tip. I'm so glad I'm struggling with this right now. So I can tell you when you take your things to the wall and you pull them off of your wall. Take the tape off. Right then when caroline gave me the stock, I said, carolyn, you didn't take your tape off like I thought I did oh no, you did it good bye sat there for a while they sealed it off and the point was I've done the same thing I've done the same thing where I was like, oh, christmas is over pull my car's down, stashing away I'll get to it later. Well, what happens is tape actually grabs, grabs and grabs a little tighter over time in some cases and so be careful with that. All right? Just to wrap up as I was just kind of a quick reminder when you have sizes even like this that our circle again trim them down, I can see right here looking at it that that can be an easy three by four on me when I do is I have a template through four four by six to ask potato strong acid tait so I can actually put that floor by right on the the picture where I can crop it where I can't. So I have a template that is that specific size and just draw around and then cut it like if it's a nod like the round thing that you were just showing that's a great tip and I realize that I'm so used to using I'm so used to visual sizes is that for me, it's kind of a no brainer to look at something. Go oh, that's a four by six that's a three by four so right along with that, what I would suggest is that you actually take a card. You can use this as your template. And I know that this is bigger than a four by six here's a sharp family. Well, look, when I put this over, I know it can't be six inches wide. Well, this fit well, yeah, because I can see I could see that their faces fit on the card. Not that if it was going to go like this and I was no longer going to see her face, I would rethink the way I was cutting it. But aiken immediately put the card over when it whether it's three way for oh for my six and be able to tell I'm gonna stop right there with my demo as faras what to do with this christmas cards, but hopefully that gives you some insight as to being able to scale back. And no, we're not talking about this holiday cards. We're talking about stuff, and that includes letters, mail, postcards if you have a stack of things like this of correspondence that you know that you want to preserve, it doesn't have to stay like this there are products that are safe and archival and acid free that we have through project life that will enable you to take those letters out of envelopes, flatten them out in put them in page protectors regardless of the size and I'm not going talk about sides because your letters or different sizes that by letters, envelopes and everything you can preserve all of it safely. Let me just say one last thing about this when you have a stack of letters or even just one letter and the letter is folded and has that crease and it's in an envelope that's not a good thing that's causing stress on the paper it's encouraged that you take it out, you unfold it because in, you know, depending on the acidity level of that paper and twenty years fifty years, one hundred years that crease and as we can see with older stuff today from back in the past, that crease actually creates a break. So you might old open an old letter such as this and unfolded and find that it just falls apart and you don't want that especially if you are a fan of keeping things that are like the special letters I do that I have a whole basket full of letters that again I'm behind it's a project I want to dio I want to get them all unfolded in place nicely into an album, so that is the end of my content for this particular segment. I am sure there are probably a few more questions or comments that you want me to address. We do have some comments I really like to hear from our studios now. Yesterday you all brought photographs. You put together wonderful memories from your photographs, and your travel decided. He also memorialized other things as well, such as your children's drawings of things. Michelle, you're nodding, dio take lots of pictures and there's lots of times when standing over, and I get my toes in the picture or, you know, trying to get a straight, you know, straight down. But, yes, I take lots of I just can't keep everything on time. When you were saying is, do you have, I think, eight grandchildren, I do well, teo, I have lots of grandma. Yeah, photos, you know, that they've drawn for me and also have a running albums, so I have the big numbers and the, you know, all about stuff, tio, so way we'll do receive somebody wonderful things of the holidays that way duel keeping that we never know what to do with this, I think has some great ideas that could be showing us and thank you for sharing all your ideas as well. Other people were saying, put like, a punch a hole in the corner for the more than a ring binder, and you can use them as a decoration. I love the phone idea that and and definitely the idea I just want to expand on because I've seen it, I've done it, and I've had a lot of my own customers suggests that just a simple ring, not even a binder, but one ring you punch a hole in the top corner of every every one of your holiday cards and take the ring. You guys get what I'm saying and you clip it all together and that's literally just like a little loose flip book. Really cute ideas? Well, awesome, awesome, awesome! Well, we are going to take that fifteen minute break, but give us a little hint of what we're going to get into when we get back from it absolutely next step in the next segment, we're going to talking about variations of project life, and so for those who are either brand new to project life or who are really they've already been doing this for a while, next segment is really show and tell I have so many ideas of different theme albums and different things to get your wheel spinning about topics that you want to cover and preserve in your life and a lot of ideas that come from other people just like us who are just trying to do it so it's not all for me, it's a variety of style and topics hating exciting. All right, let me share some, uh, some thoughts from the global audience out there, rohde says love the way becky thinks love that she and her husband worked together to build this business and to solve our too build a solution that she needed and then was able to share it with us everywhere love, love, love it and then sweet, scrappy stuff. O n g never knew how to do a screen shot up and always forgot to ask someone I just did it l well, I've learned all I need just for today way stay with sweet, scrappy spot