Week 2 | Tutorial: Letting Another Family Member Journal

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Many of us share this common craft but others, especially our family members may not be as enthusiastic about preserving your memories as you are. In this case, my boyfriend Jeff comes to mind. Although he may pop into my office every once in a while I can assure you, he doesn't stay very long .

I've recently begun to involve him a little bit more in what I do in a way he wouldn't find too overwhelming. I'll ask him to keep aside purchase receipts, movie stubs and such for my Project Life. However, when it comes time for me to piece a scrapbook layout (wether it be digital or hybrid) I am normally the one who does everything from beginning to end but this doesn't need to be the case. It is still a good idea to ask your family members to share their ideas or opinions and to involve them in a fun way in your process. My mother passed away in 2005 but I keep on thinking how AMAZING it would be to be able to look back on a page put together with a little blurb journaled in her handwriting.

Now it's your turn! For this tutorial, I have requested the help of Jeff (my better half) and I chose to do a hybrid layout but you can also go digital. I've also included link to the template I created and used for this tutorial …ready?


Products Used:

- We Are Storytellers collaboration
- Template



Step One : Since I'm doing a hybrid, I make a mock up of my layout digitally in Photoshop. It gives me a clear picture of what I will be doing and what it will look like. I decided to add some text at the top of my page and used Michelle's (Quirky Heart) bold hand written text element as a brush on my background. Before I do anything else, I made sure to print both of these on my background. I tend to always use a plain white background but you can use whatever suits your fancy.

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Step Two: Once that's done, I am now ready to print and cut the other elements. I save each element as a png file, open then up individually in my Silhouette program, print them up on a sheet of photo paper (my preference) and then finally, cut them with my machine. For those who are going digital, you obviously don't need to fuss over this and it makes the whole process a lot easier but for those who don't have a silhouette, you can easily cut out the elements with a pair of scissors.

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Step Three: Now comes the fun part! It's time to piece everything together. I first lay out all my cut photos and elements on my paper page. Once I am satisfied with how everything looks (referring to my mock up every once in a while), I simply glue everything down.

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Step Four: Recruit a friend, your better half, yours kids or any significant other to add bits of journaling or perhaps a doodle here and there on your page and voila! As for my digital peeps, you can either use your tablet for this part or ask your recruit to write some text on a piece of white paper so that you can scan it and extract it in Photoshop.

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Hope this got your creative juices flowing and I cannot wait to see what you all create. Don't forget to link us up!

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