Memorial Shadow Box

Here's a project I did today, a memorial shadow box. This shadow box displays a photo of my paternal grandparents, Thomas and Sarah Craft. I included two photos of them, an army medallion and a copy of their marriage certificate. I really like how it came out, as well as the fact that I can change it if I want to.

Products used:

• Pioneer's self-adhesive army medallion

• Tim Holtz's ornate plates

• TPC Studio's framed dome stickers

• Martha Stewart's photo corner punch

• other assorted scrapbooking items

Difficult to Remove Photos: Two Solutions

While transferring the family photos from the old magnetic albums to archival safe scrapbooks, I occasionally come across photos that are difficult to remove. In this video, I show two methods that I'm using to remove them.

Changing Albums

Many of our older family photo albums are in the "magnetic" albums. These are the ones with the peel-back cover where the photos adhere to the page. Well, these are really bad for your photos. Don't believe me? See what the Photo Detective has to say.

Well, it took some doing, but I convinced my mom to change the photos out of these old albums and into archival save scrapbooks. We have seven albums to complete. Here's how we're doing it:

Featured Page - Albea Kids

I made this page using the "Vintage Findings" kit I previously mentioned. Aside from the acetate page, the main pattern paper I used for a background, and the rub-on alphabets, everything on this page is from the "vintage findings" kit. Thanks to that kit, this page took about 10 minutes!

Looking at this page from a genealogy perspective, I really should label the children... I'll probably add a tag with the names of the children and "hide" it behind the photo.

Roy, June, Charlie

Ruby, Lloyd & Larry Albea

Featured Page - G for Genealogy

This is a page I did a while ago for an ABC album. I chose Genealogy to stand for 'G' and used one of my favorite photos from my collection. The journaling card is attached by one brad and can swivel to reveal the rest of the photo.

Shopping for Supplies

I had a rare Saturday off from work today, and spent it shopping with my mom. We hit up a lot of different stores that carried scrapbook supplies.

First, we hit Archivers, which is a scrapbooking chain store. I saw some great new products from Making Memories: Vintage Findings kits. These kits contain great random "vintage" items such as buttons, keys, ribbon, paper, ticket stubs, etc. If you're interested in ephemera pages, these kits are for you. Check them out at MM's website.

I also saw great products for genealogy scrapbook pages from Tim Holtz and Jenni Bowland, such as chipboard buttons, vintage papers, distressing supplies, and more.

Next, we hit a few bookstores, looking at their Genealogy section. I was disappointed in the selection, with both Barnes and Noble and Borders having only a few books each. Oh, well - I'll have to get them online.

Later, we ended up at Hobby Lobby. I picked up some K&Company die-cut cardstock tags. What's great about these is that you can easily create an album that flows and carries a theme. I plan to use these on my census pages to add titles and captions. Also, these tags are made by the same company as those that are used in Ancestry.com's My Canvas publishing. So, if you created a digital scrapbook with My Canvas, you can create a traditional scrapbook that carries the same theme.

Also at Hobby Lobby, I saw these great mini-book overs from 7 Gypsies. They really look like antique book covers and photo album covers. I didn't pick any up because I don't have a project to use them for - but I love that they are available.

Featured Page - The Family Tree

This page was done on acetate for my mom's biography scrapbook. I took a piece of 8x8 acetate and painted it with Making Memories taupe colored paint. I thin stamped it was a light green paint and Hero Arts' K5165 French Country stamp. So, in a way, I made my own patter paper.

I lined my tree up how I wanted it (and how it would fit on the page), using the same green paint on the edges of the name blocks to give it a more finished look. To designate the couples, I used a small leaf punch to connect the name blocks.

Finally, I hand painted "the family tree" in the middle.