I have been digital scrapbooking for a long time, and have never had the guts to try designing a kit before. However, my daughter, Emily, has been learning photoshop and has been wanting to design a kit for awhile now. We decided that since we both love all the kits from the LDS Blog Train that was a good place to start, so we each put together a little kit to share.
It was a lot of fun, and challenging, to come up with my own ideas for papers, and to then to get to play around with some of the tools in photoshop that I don't really know how to use. I have no desire to go into designing anytime soon, but who knows, you may see more kits from Emily sooner, rather than later.
Emily's Kit (click on preview to download, I hope)
Nancy's Kit (click on preview to download, I hope)
I'm not sure where you've come from to get here - but you can find another part of this kit at The Adkins Family Blog .
We were at Rebecca and Emily's volleyball game and MaryAnn walked up to me, hit me, and said, "school bus". She then proceed to hit me again, and again, each time saying "school bus". It took me a couple of times to figure out what she was saying, and when I laughed at her, and said, "school bus" back to her, she again hit me and said, "slug bug".
I laughed and laughed and informed her that there were no school buses or slug bugs in the gym and she didn't need to hit me. Can you tell that we have been in the car a lot lately.
I started a new point system last month for the kids. It is an excel spreadsheet that basically gives them credit for everything that they do in a day, from brushing their teeth, to kitchen chores, to school work. It allows them to set weekly goals, and then track their progress towards earning them. All of the kids have old cell phones, no phone service, just fancy mp3 player, but it is also a mini computer with spreadsheet capabilities. So they can be seen walking around the house checking their handhelds to see what they need to do next.
It is a great little system and the kids have really taken on more responsibilities for what they need to do, and I am doing a lot more praising and a lot less nagging.
Last week, I found Emily in her bathroom at 10:30, way past bedtime, cleaning of all things. She was trying hard to earn her points for the day. We had been gone most of the day, and I had neglected to tell the kids that it was understandable that they hadn't earned their daily points, dinner at church doesn't exactly require the kids to do dinner dishes. I was able to praise her for her dedication to earning her points, and send her off to bed.
However, my favorite story will probably always be this one -
Brad had me ROFL (literally) tonight. I don't remember more than 1 0r 2 times in my life that I did that. I told Isaac he had to earn 5 more points to go watch TV with Grandma tonight so he rushed off and brushed his teeth, and did a few jobs in the bathroom. He came back and reported that he checked the toilet paper and the towels. I was good with that, but Brad went all wacko - I checked the toilet - it's dirty - POINT! SInk - Dirty - POINT! It was so hillarious. I was on the floor for nearly 15 minutes laughing and tearing and laughing again. It was so funny. Not only was Brad loud and obnoxious, he was making faces and jumping around! Of course, he was right also, Isaac did need to do a bit more than just check things, but I was working on the baby steps principle of lets start at least thinking about it before we get to stressed about it. Anyway, Brad took Isaac into the bathroom and laid down the point law - you must use CHEMICALS! to get a point! That of course started us all laughing again, everytime that Brad said, "CHEMICAL". It was a great time - and Isaac even survived yet another lesson on how to clean his bathroom.
It is a overwhelming task to begin organizing a lifetime of photos, letters, and other memorabilia. It isn't a project to take lightly, and sometimes it is hard to get started because you aren't sure where to start, how to organize or what you want the finished project to look like.
I've been working on my Grandma's history for over 15 years now, having started and stopped many times over the years, and technology has grown exponentially over the years, so I can understand the overwhelming feeling, but I can also personally testify to the excitement of finding a new picture that I don't ever remember seeing, or even just finding a picture that all of the sudden is a treasure, because I now understand it's importance.
This undertaking is so worthwhile that I'm going to offer a few tips for getting started.
Timeline Beginning with a simple timeline is a great place to begin to understand how everything else that you discover all ties together. I suggest a spreadsheet format, with the years listed down the left-hand side, and several columns with different headings. There are several things that you can include on a timeline, and you might want a combined timeline for a couple, with a column, or several columns for each of them.
Important/Special Dates - birth, baptism, graduations, wedding, birth of children, deaths, etc Homes - what places did you live (this really helps with organizing pictures) Jobs - Medical Issues
Final Format What is the final format of your project going to look like, there are many many options today, and will probably be more in the future. You can do a traditional scrapbook in either a 12 x 12, 8 x 8, 8.5 x 11, or 11 x 8.5 format. All of these sizes can be done digitally as well. You can also plan on creating a DVD with either a slide show, or an interactive DVD where you can click on links to learn more, hear music, watch video snippets, etc. Really, the sky's the limit as to what you can do, limited only by time, money, and expertise.
I choose years ago to design my pages in a 11 x 8.5 format because it fit nicely into a page protector in an inexpensive binder, the binders fit nicely on my book shelves, I could print them easily on any printer, and computer screens are in a landscape format so they are easy to design and view on a computer screen. I continue to design this way for many of the same reasons, but also because I want uniformity with the 1000 plus pages I have already designed.
However, there are now many places where you can get scrapbooks printed in a wide variety of sizes either as a bound book, or as single pages that you can slip into traditional scrapbook pages protectors and integrated with your paper scrapping pages.
The important thing is to make a decision as to what size you want to design in and for what reason. This does not limit you from occasionally making a different size ( for instance you may want to make a small 8 x 8 album of special family reunion) these pages could be re-sized for a larger album, 2 of them could be put on 1 pages, 4 on a page, etc with a new background layer to tie them together.
We discovered a great website this summer called Scriptures 4 Kids. I love it because it has 4 versions, or levels, of Book of Mormon stories for kids. There are also games, and other fun activities. I should have my kids write the review, they are on there more than I am.
Immediately following devotional we have what we call "Scripture Reading Time". The kids each get to go to a different station each day. Computers is one station and they are allowed to do things on the computer that involve the gospel, so Scriptures 4 kids has been a great addition to their scripture reading time.
During scriptures this evening MaryAnn was wandering around the living room waving her finger in the air and saying "Buzzzzz" and then poking people. It was so adorable.
It made us all laugh. She never managed to get anyone on the nose, but she was just as happy to "buzz" their legs or arms.
This also reminded me of how Dad plays virtual nose poking with Ally over skype. I had heard about it, but it was so funny one day when I was in the same room as Dad when he was on skype with Ally, I was watching her on the big screen TV when Dad, started Buzzing and coming in for the poke. Ally jumped, and covered her nose, just as if she had been right their in the room with us, and not 2000 miles away in Alabama.
