I am recently (okay, not that recently, but I’m trying to make it sound like I’m on top of this sort of thing) back from a gorgeous tropical vacation: lucky me! I’m sure many of you, like me, have wondered about the best way to capture the amazing family memories you’ve created when taking a break in another location. As I ponder putting our vacation memories into album form, in today’s post, I’m discussing the 3 distinct types of images I capture when travelling, and showing you how they complement each other to create pages and albums that help to re-create that sense of exploring a new place.

Taking the pictures

1. Capture details: make sure to take photos of the details that strike as you being the elements that help you to recognise that place. Think the skyline, the trees, the colours, the shop windows. Details doesn’t necessarily mean close-ups, either. It simply means including in your story some images that aren’t grand sweeping landscapes, and aren’t lovely smiling faces, but rather simple shots of the essence of where you are. I’ve included an obvious, but still gorgeous, example here: morning light streaming through beautiful palm trees. This evokes for me that warmth and feeling of stepping out into the tropical heat in the morning.

2. Capture landscapes: this one’s easy, and pretty self explanatory. Try to think of capturing an image that shows everything you can see when you’re standing in an amazing place. Don’t forget that shooting in the early morning or late afternoon/early evening will give you amazing light.

 

3. Capture yourselves in the environment: again, pretty self explanatory. One point to note though is that you can try to free yourself from the pressure to take the here-we-are-standing-in-front-of-this-thing photo. I’m not saying there isn’t a place for that photo, but you may find it liberating to try other approaches. Here’s a few techniques I try to help me branch out:

• when I have my detail and landscape shots, I know that I already have the context for my shots of my family, so I feel happy to simply take a good photo of them, without worrying about where they are at that moment or capturing what’s behind them. For example, the image below was taken alongside several others that show the beach and surroundings, so I was happy simple to capture this image in the early morning light, without much other context. To make this work, it helps to shoot in batches. So, take at least 4 or 5 images from each setting, including photos of you and your family as well as other types of photo.

 

 

•  Think wide and way way back! I take lots of images like the one below that are essentially landscapes, only with our family in them!

 

• Take doing photos rather than posing photos. In the image below I probably could have stopped the subjects and got them to turn around and smile for the camera, but this kind of shot gives you a good documentary-style sense of people enjoying themselves: to borrow a real scrapbooker’s turn of phrase, it’s a moment captured!

Putting it together in a page

I find that balancing Details, Landscapes and People shots in my pages and albums works really well for my form of storytelling. That said, in the layout below, I have actually used two ‘people’ shots. However, as I used some of the techniques I outlined above, I think this page gives you a real sense of the landscape anyway. In an album, I would place this alongside either a grid page with lots of photos from this particular setting, or alongside a full page photo of the landscape. Full page images are so powerful and as scrapbookers we sometimes tend to overlook them because we’re so excited about designing a page around our amazing photos. Grids (think pocket page templates) are a great idea for vacation albums too if you’re planning to get one printed, as they’re a simple way to a) finish an album quickly or  b) use the “other” photos that you didn’t get around to scrapbooking another way or couldn’t work out how to use.

 

So that’s it! I hope this gives you some food for thought as you plan a vacation or scan back through some family memories from a previous holiday!

Make sure you check out our August challenge series in the forum that’s full of ideas for exploration this month. If this has motivated you to scrap some of your travel memories, our Explore Through The Lens challenge starts August 28.
About the author: Kathryn Wilson shares her 1920s New Zealand home with her husband, her sweet baby boy, a wauzer, and a cavoodle. She is a photographer, and both a digital and hybrid pocket scrapbooker, who has lots of DIY projects she should probably be working on right now.

 

Pinterest has long been a love for me – coming a close second to scrapboooking 🙂 I discovered it about 3 years ago when I was preparing for my son’d first Birthday…and I never looked back.

For those who aren’t familiar with Pinterest – Its a free photo sharing website, officially described as a catalogue of ideas. You can create a profile and then maintain ‘boards’ which are like folders. In each board/folder, you can ‘pin’ ideas/photos posted by other users and even upload your own.

As you can imagine, its a visual treat. For us scrapbookers, who are visually motivated – it serves as the perfect go to platform.

I have looked to Pinterest for answers to just about everything. I started with my son’s first Birthday and had a rocking party – thanks to Pinterest! When we moved houses, I was looking for decor ideas and many of my walls look good now – thanks to Pinterest. Very recently, I was asked to concentrate on my son’s motor skills development. I opened Pinterest on a whim and was not disappointed! I was pointed to so many activities that I can not complete them all …. at least in this life time! Pinterest to the rescue again! 🙂

So why am I talking about it here? On The Digital Press blog? Because I believe, there’s no better source of inspiration for scrapbooking, than The Digital Press Pinterest Board. Its been my first stop for ideas for months and I haven’t looked further.

The Digital Press Board contains beautiful scrap inspration for sure. But what keeps me there are the other boards over and above the inspiration board – which, by the way, is TDP’s most popular board. You can find it here – https://www.pinterest.com/thedigitalpress/scrap-digital-inspiration/

I love the designer boards – getting to know them, their scrap pages. They seem more real then 🙂 My second favorite is ‘For The Love of Color‘ board. Its just down right pretty! I can spend quite a lot of time with this board! Finally, my third favorite is ‘Words to Live By‘ Board.. Sometimes witty, sometimes quirky – this board has uplifted me many a times and the words have found their way into my page title or journaling.

With regards to Pinterest – the only thing I will caution you against is…. the time!  You can spend hours there and not even realize it! Pin at your own peril! 🙂 I will leave you with some of the most pinned pages from the popular Scrap: Digital Inspiration board.

First up is this layout by CT Shivani which was pinned/favorited the most times. The circles and the lovely pictures of her sweet girl give the page the perfect aha effect.

Next is this gorgeous pocket layout by CT Erin. I am a huge fan of Erin’s pictures and pages. So no surprise that we find it here 🙂

Equally popular is this layout by the very talented CT Kacy. I love her take on clean and simple – with a lot of drama 🙂 Her color choice makes me look at this page again and again.

 

There are numerous such amazing pages on TDP Boards. In order to get your mojo flowing, I am hosting a Pinterest Scraplift Challenge over at the Drawing Board:Challenges Forum. Do stop by and share your thoughts and creations there.

 

About the author: Pallavi Sureka is a wife and newly designated stay at home mom to 3 years old Rajveer. She currently lives in Mexico City and her family moves around a lot. She has previously lived in Calcutta, Pune, San Francisco, Chicago and London. She reflects all these places in her pages as she captures her everyday stories.

 

Hi scrappers! Today I want to talk to you about rediscovering some of the amazing places in your very own hometown. Sometimes I feel like my family gets in a rut of going to the same places and doing the same things. When we start to get bored with our usual activities, we play tourists in our own city. Living in Orlando, it is easy to find new things to try, but every hometown has their own little gems worth exploring. Some of my favorite places to visit with my family are new parks, splash pads, libraries, museums, and cultural events and festivals. We also love to go to the Disney parks whenever we can!

I have had a lot of luck just searching for family friendly activities on the internet. This summer we took an airboat ride, went to several food festivals, tried a brand new ice cream shop, and visited the new Crayola Experience that just opened here. We love trying new things without having to spend too much money, and playing tourist in your own city is a great way to do that! The memories make for wonderful layouts, too. I scrapbook to give my children the opportunity to remember experiences that they otherwise might forget as they grow older. I want them to be able to look back on all the special moments and memories we created as a family.

I hope that this inspires you to go out and explore your own hometown! It is amazing when you realize all of the wonderful things that are happening in your own little part of the world. I’m hosting a challenge over on the forums and I hope you will come play along and share a layout you created while exploring your hometown!

About the Author: Katie is a member of the Creative Team here at The Digital Press. She lives in Central Florida with her husband and their four sweet, crazy boys. When she’s not dodging Nerf bullets or trying to dig out from under the never ending pile of laundry, she enjoys photography, cooking, going to Disney World with her family, and, of course, digital scrapbooking.

Hi everyone! I am so excited to be here to talk about something that I am so passionate about … scrapbooking YOUR childhood. Many of us spend most of our scrapbooking time focused on creating pages for and about our children or our current lives. And we sometimes forget how important it can be for us to also ensure that we capture the photos and stories of our childhoods. Even if you don’t have photographs from your childhood, it can be a great idea to get some of the stories or things you remember down in your scrapbooks! I often think about how much I’d love to have more information about my mother’s childhood – I will come across a photo and wonder what was happening at that time in her life. I wish she’d taken the time to document some of her childhood moments as I think they could help me understand who she was and where she came from more fully. I have made a commitment to begin getting MY stories into our family scrapbooks, especially the stories from my own childhood.

Here is a recent layout that I did about the picnics we’d take when we lived in Caroline County when I was a little girl & my memories of those adventures! Just looking at this photo brought back so many memories and details about those picnics! And my children love seeing what I looked like when I was little and what sorts of things I did as a little girl.

Another member of the Digital Press CT, Kacy, has created quite a few layouts about her childhood so I thought I’d share a few with you for additional inspiration!

And here is a childhood layout from another CT member (Sokee) which is fantastic!

OK, I hope you’re feeling inspired to create some pages about your own childhood! So, now it’s your turn! I would love to see what you can do to explore YOUR childhood by creating a scrapbook page with your childhood photos and/or a story from your childhood.  I’m hosting a challenge over on the forums and I hope you will come play along!  Check it out at The Drawing Board: Challenges.

About the Author: Amy lives in Reston, VA with her husband of 13 years and their 9 year old boy/girl twins. Their 18 year old daughter is beginning her third year at West Virginia University!  Amy has been scrapbooking since the early 1990s but discovered digital scrapbooking in 2005 when her twins were born and has primarily scrapped digitally since that time. She is passionate about telling her family’s stories and documenting their life together! Amy is a huge reader (mostly literary fiction) and is a pop culture junkie! She also LOVES all things beauty & makeup!

 

This month we are exploring lots of different aspects of our lives. I would love for you to explore inside your home. Every once in awhile, usually in August, I like to snap a few photos of our home. I take photos of what has changed, the rooms, the favorite spots that I have decorated or the spots where we gather like the family table.

This a layout I did from 2013 where I captured our home and all the aspects that make it ours. I was also inspired by a Becky Higgins project to capture the home. Since I was 9 months pregnant I went with quick snapshots and a grid layout to simplify the project. I love looking back on this especially seeing the baby ultrasounds hanging up!

 

And this the layout that inspired my explorations around my home. I wanted to capture our house right now. I love that this exploration is in the now (well, after I straightened up of course). I included a few recent improvements to my house like the fireplace mantel and wall gallery. I am also taking a snapshot of the outside of our house each month so I included the most recent one.

I would love for you to document your home; your favorite spots inside it or what it looks like on the outside or your decorated, completely areas. Just go exploring inside your home!
Can’t wait to see your projects!

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 About the Author: Sabrina spends her days chasing after a feisty 2 year old who always insists everything goes her way and at 3pm adds a 6 year old into the mix. He thinks life is unfair and fights for its injustice. When she isn’t battling the little people, she is taking a few minutes (or hours) to scrap the night away. And if she isn’t scrapping she is reading. Scrapping, reading and negotiating with little people keeps her life action packed.