My Project Life–linking smaller photos

One of the techniques I’m liking for my Project Life album at the moment is having a title go across two photos in the 3 x 4 slots.  Particularly if I have several photos of the same thing – in this case two examples of our twice-daily workshop energizers. Or the next with two of the workshop posters. [Sorry about the poor photo quality with the light showing – no good daylight today].

I create the 3 x 4 photos in PSE by placing two onto a 4 x 6 canvas so adding the title across the two is easy – and then I cut the photos apart after I print them.  For these examples I added a background shape to make the words easier to read and to accentuate the strip across the 2 photos.

In this next one I used the white frame around the photos for the title that crossed across both

And last week I got carried away and have this waiting to print

3 photos to show that we had 3 days of beautiful, unseasonal weather.  The banner is from Katie Pertiet and I lengthened it to reach across all 3.  The hand written words are from Ali Edwards – I removed the segment I wanted from the square frames and then lined them up so the pen line seems to continue from one to the next.

This one I’m having to print on two 4 x 6 photos. 

While I’m at home near my paper supplies I must remember to try this using stickers too.

Planning a travel album–suggestions please

I’m gathering ideas for a special travel album.

Over the next 3 months I will be working in 4 or 5 different cities on 3 continents: Kathmandu in Nepal; New York city in USA; Istanbul in Turkey and Nairobi in Kenya.  I’m facilitating workshops for United Nations Development Program aimed at encouraging the people who run elections to do more to ensure that women participate in the elections.  Because the trips are for work I won’t have the opportunity to go sight seeing but I do want to record my impressions of each place. 

I’ve talked before about some of the approaches I’ve taken to memory keeping on the move to suit different situations.  For a family holiday where we took masses of photos – capturing everyone’s visual memory.  For a long nomadic journey – a daily journal.  For a relaxed holiday – taster tags.  I will probably take my tag kit to record the little stories.

I also thought it would be fun to compare the places seeing as I am going to such different cities over a short period of time.  So I was thinking I want to establish a few themes and make sure I have photos of each for each city and then I will create some pages that compare cites by theme (my social scientist’s love of categorising is ever present!).  Looking back on the photos I took in Dhaka (Bangladesh) when I was working there last year, three themes emerge.


I enjoy eating local food wherever I am and also recording the related rituals of the day like the cup of tea.  Although I will be staying in big hotels in each place, all designed for business traveller, I know that there will be differences in the food.  Probably sub-themes are breakast; what I drink and dinner.


All of these photos were taken out of the window as I was driven between my hotel and office.  I like taking these kind of photos so this will be a good comparison theme too.


Some of these are taken from the window of my hotel or office and others on a walk by the lake.
I also have lots of photos of the workshops and participants which will make another good theme.  I’m thinking some details of each hotel would also be good.

What other themes would you suggest?  Remember I can’t count on having time to visit places other than my hotel and workshop venue so photos will be what I happen upon rather than being able to seek things out.

I’ll be asking for food and other suggestions for NYC nearer to my departure on that bit of the trip.

Memory Keeping on the move–3 taster tags

These taster tags are what I’m going to use again next time I travel. I like them because they are easy to use and they are a fun way to record the little details of holidays. And I love anything that involves a jump ring!


Each tag has a title on it. When I come across something I want to record I select the appropriate tag, hand write the story and stick on a number for the date. I like to have things dated – I just do. If you don’t feel the need for having the date then no problem, leave it plain or take some pretties to add. Then I put the completed tag on the jump ring to keep them in order.


When I get home I prepare the photos to stick on the back. The tag is half of a normal photo (4x6 inch, 10x15 cm). At different times I’ve prepared these in Picasa and at the photo machine in the supermarket and using Photoshop Elements.


In anticipation of my next trip I’ve been thinking about the titles I want to use and came up with 8:

• · Yum, yum – because when I travel I always like to try new foods
• · Done that – to cover the ‘must do’ things or a particular goal or test involved in the trip
• · Did you see? – for all those times you say that – for big things like the sunset or view and for small things like a cute grubby face or newly confident swimmer
• · And then … - for those little stories it’s good to remember
• · We laughed – for things we saw or were said or did that created laughter
• · £££ (or $$$) – because I like to note down the costs of basics and sometimes of something special I bought
• · The winner – to include the best …. View/seat/beach/snack/helpful person
• · Listen – for memorable things people said – directly or overheard and also for things like the sound of birdsong or the surf or waterfall or volcano

Here is my taster tag box all ready to go. I like to pack it all in a little kit to keep everything safe inside my bag. I put some washi tape on the back of each in the space that will be above the photo – because my new washi tape jumps off the shelf at me if I haven’t used it for 36 hours. I’ll probably round corner the bottom – but after I have stuck on the photos so I only have to do it once (learnt that lesson the hard way).



Free download
4 tags fit on a sheet of paper so these 8 take 2 pages and I printed each twice so I can use each heading twice on the trip (sometimes I take more copies).

I thought some of you lovely readers might like to use these tags so I’ve attached them here for you to download. I have included A4 and US paper sizes and I did $ as well as £ (if anyone want a euro sign let me know and I can send you it).  All the versions are in one zip file.



I also included a set of tags without the titles if you want to print blank ones and write or stamp on your own titles.

The files are png files so you can also open them in photoshop (elements) if you want to make changes. Use the Type tool to add your own title. The font I used is Rub This, if you want to match those tags. [I’ve got tips on using the Type tool and on fonts on DigiScrap Buddy]

If you use the tags, I’d love to see what you do – I’ve created a linky in the Memory Keeping on the Move page – see heading at the top of the page under the header.

What other titles can you imagine using? I’m always interested in new ways to record the tasters of a trip. Remember the title has to fit in that space – 12 characters, including spaces. You never know, I might make up another sheet of tags for download next week.

If you missed parts one and two of this series – see the tab at the top, Memory Keeping on the Move - under the header

Memory keeping on the move 2–daily journal

I enjoy travelling and exploring new places and I’ve had plenty of opportunities to visit some interesting places for work and on holiday. Since I started scrapbooking in 2006 I have used several different methods to create special holiday albums and to scrap while travelling. I thought others might be interested in what I have done and what worked for me. So each week I’m going to showcase one of the projects that I have used to record my travels.

Memory keeping on the move 2 - a daily journal on the move


In 2009 I spent several months travelling, mostly to islands in the Pacific – the pages I’m sharing are from when I was in Tonga. I wanted to record what I was doing and my impressions as they occurred and I did not want to face the task of putting together a big album at the end of the travels.

I used a Stacy Julian mini-album as my inspiration to have a photo page protector and sheet of card for each day. Finding a source of page protectors with 2 photo slots took some searching – I found these in paperchase. I cut down A4 card for the pages and added some tags and ribbon to them one afternoon so they were all done before I went.

I took the card and the D ring album with me on my travels. I took the album as it was the easiest way to keep the card from getting bent and the completed pages in order. My only other kit was three coloured pens to write with.

I wrote bits on the card during the day – sometimes I recorded what I had eaten or listed what I had seen. Sometimes I described the scene or how I was feeling or noted a conversation.


Each evening I downloaded the photos from the day and decided what to put into the album. I had my laptop with me (it’s actually notebook size) so this was easy. I often created a collage – using Picasa. I saved them all with the date as the name to help me identify the right ones when I finally had them printed and was putting them in the album.


This process worked really well for me when travelling around for over a month. It combined a daily record and photos in a format that I had created. The casual, not rules approach that I took to what I wrote was great for jotting things down throughout the day. I will definitely use this set-up again. It would work well for a shorter trip too and I can imagine an album made up of several short city trips.



If you missed the 1^st part of this series check back to the post about capturing everyone’s visual memory

Next week capturing moments and impressions with tags

Memory keeping on the move 1 – capturing everyone’s visual memory

 

I enjoy travelling and exploring new places and I’ve had plenty of opportunities to visit some interesting places for work and on holiday. Since I started scrapbooking in 2006 I have used several different methods to create special holiday albums and to scrap while travelling. I thought others might be interested in what I have done and what worked for me. So each week I’m going to showcase one of the projects that I have used to record my travels.

Memory keeping on the move 1 – capturing everyone’s visual memory

In 2007 I went on a safari holiday in Malawi, Africa with my parents, sister and nephews. We took over 3,000 photos over two weeks, on 4 cameras. I have made a big album with double pages for elephants, where we stayed etc and my Dad created a photobook.

But I also made a small accordion album the week that I got back with is more of a snapshot of each of our visuals memories of the trip

Here’s how I did it -

On the second last night of our trip I asked each person to make a list of the 5 images that for them were strongest or summed up the trip. We shared the lists at dinner and I wrote them all down. When I got home I created a collage for each person with their 5 images and a picture of that person.  I made a copy of the collage for each person and also a set for me which I put together in a simple accordion album. On the page facing the collage for each person I listed the images. On the second night at dinner I had asked everyone for their first impressions and recorded them too on this page. 

Here is my collage

[birds flying overhead; mud hut villages, multiple animals grazing together; markets; hippo]

In our vast collection of photos I was able to find an image for everything on the list. I think it helped that there were 4 of us taking photos as we each had a different approach to what to snap. We all took the wildlife but after that - if it was a detail of birds or plants it was Dad, if it was lovely light or a landscape view it was my sister and if it was narrative or something quirky then it was me. And I knew what my teenage nephews were like so I had taken a picture of elephant poo – and yes one of them included that on his list of images and it is in his collage.

One item was in 5 of the 6 lists – hippos

I think this set of collages adds another dimension to our albums of the trip because it is so immediate. The images we remember several years later are not all the same as the ones we listed at the end of the trip.

I would definitely do this again for a group trip where there were several people taking photos and there was a big visual focus of the trip.

Next week – a daily journal on the move.