When I was 18 years old, and in my first summer semester at college, I had the great fortune of taking “Theatre creativity,” a class that changed my life forever. We were challenged to do a number of creative exercises, from allowing a fellow student to guide us, blindfolded, around campus, to sharing our most embarrassing moment before the entire class. The teacher pushed us to understand that our lives were important; in fact, our lives were our art, and we had the ability to create things we had never imagined, if only we would try.
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 The creativity exercise with the most lasting effect on my life was the creation of a multi-media journal. Because this was a summer class, we had only six weeks to work. During those weeks, we were challenged to fill every page of a blank book with art, decorations, and writing. Some students chose the smallest blank books they could find, but I marched into an art store (foreign territory for me at the time) and purchased an 8.5" x 11" artist’s sketchbook. Over the next six weeks, I filled it with the story of my life at that time – with writing, of course, but also with art, Polaroid photos, sketches (pretty bad ones, as I’d had no formal art training), and the minutiae of my life.
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 The book not only showed me myself in a completely new light, it offered me an exciting new self-awareness tool. I could write, draw, and document my life on paper! Since that time, I have continued to create these books, now called art journals or scrapbook journals. Over the years, as I have evolved as a woman, these scrapbook journals have evolved with me. Now, at 39 years old, I am filling my thirty-seventh volume. What began as white pages filled with teenage ramblings, clippings from magazines, movie tickets, postcards, and other odds and ends, has become a color-saturated panorama of my life. I now paint the pages, often using paint left over from other art projects. |
Instant scrapbooking
Most scrapbookers gather photos and memorabilia, then combine them with traditional page-crafting components. Sometimes, the search for the perfect sticker or background paper becomes all-consuming. And, even when they’re “just right,” these pieces inevitably reflect someone else’s taste or style or perspective.
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 Scrapbook journals, by contrast, are scrapbooks on the fly. There is great power in the ability to record an event as it happens, or perhaps later that same night when the kids are tucked into bed and all is still fresh in your mind. Originally, because immediacy is important when journaling, I used a Polaroid camera. But the most important change to my scrapbook journals over the years has resulted from my discovery of the power of digital photography.
Specifically, two new pieces of technology came into my life: a digital camera and a color inkjet printer. In fact, my studio now has three printers: an HP OfficeJet g55 All-in-one, an HP Color LaserJet 2500, and an HP Photosmart 230 that travels with me in my suitcase The HP OfficeJet g55 is also a scanner and copier.
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 In addition to printing photos from my digital camera, I often lay dimensional objects on my g55 and print “pictures” of them to include in my journals. For example, just last weekend, my husband and I visited the LA County Museum of Art where he purchased a beautiful letter opener for me. With my scanner-copier, I was able to “digitize” the letter opener and include it in my art journal that very night. (I could have used my digital camera to do the same job.) I can also print photos and other memorabilia given to me by friends or collected in my daily travels.
As you can see, I’ve entered an exciting new world of scrapbooking. Most importantly you can, too. You may not think of yourself as an artist, but with the powerful, flexible tools now available – from digital cameras to affordable color printers to powerful, easy-to-use software – you can create scrapbooks that immediately reflect and document your life in all its color and variety. |
Making it interesting
I use my digital printing tools to create a fascinating variety of scrapbookable mementos of my life. Here are a few examples to inspire you:
- Custom papers and borders: Printed papers are great to have around, but often aren’t just right for your scrapbook page. And how many times have you found the right paper, but the border is on the wrong side, or the image is the wrong size? Now you can design and print your own papers and borders. Scan a photo or 3D object, and then use a photo-editing program to duplicate the item as a background (either as one large image or as multiple small images). Or, use it as a border, all around the paper or on just one edge. If you’re working on 12" x 12" paper, you can print your border, then cut it out and paste it to the edge of your scrapbook paper. In addition, I’ve provided a variety of painted backgrounds that you can download and print to use in your own scrapbook pages. When you make your own background papers and borders, they’re always just what you need.
- Print on a variety of papers: Don’t just think “cardstock” – your inkjet and LaserJet printers will work on handmade paper (buy it or make it yourself), vellum, transparencies, and more. This isn’t your grandmother’s scrapbook! Make it visually interesting by combining a variety of components. For example, you might create a page about your passion for collecting spoons, then print a copy of one or more of your spoons on transparency film, and attach it to your page with brads or eyelets.
- Cardstock vs. matte vs. glossy: You may be used to printing your photos on matte or glossy photo paper, but consider using plain cardstock instead. (For the best effect, be sure to set your printer for cardstock.) Cardstock gives a very different look to your artwork. For another unique effect, use photo editing software to make your photo all one color – maybe sepia tone, or a color to match the rest of your page. Or, print the same image in three or four colors to be used on the page, à la Andy Warhol! I like to use plain index cards in my HP Photosmart 230 when I’m on the road. The cardstock is easier to glue over painted backgrounds, and I can embellish the photos with crayon, colored pencil, watercolor, or other media.
- Alternative papers: Did you know there’s an entire world of printable media out there beyond basic paper? Printable canvas, fabric, stickers, iron-on products, and more. Consider using fabric paint on printable paper, then printing an image over the top! Your ability to create one-of-a-kind scrapbook pages just got a whole lot easier, and all you have to do is print.
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It's all yours
| Whenever you stop to create a page in your scrapbook, remember that it’s an expression of you. It tells the story of your life. And all the tools now available – from pre-printed papers to stickers to your camera and printers – enable you to express that life in all its unique and interesting detail. |
About the artist
 Tera Leigh is a former attorney who is now a full-time artist and author of three North Light books: How to be creative if you never thought you could and Complete Book of Decorative Painting, both named as “Top Ten Craft/Hobby Books” by the American Library Association; and Faux Mosaics, to be released in August. She is also the creator of the Faux Mosaic paper craft product line manufactured by Ranger Industries, and the founder of the Memory Box Artist Program, Inc. (memoryboxes.org), an award-winning non-profit charity for crafters to help hospital neonatal infant bereavement programs. To learn more about Tera, visit her website at teraleigh.com.
Download four colorful backgrounds painted by Tera especially for you!
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To view and print any of these projects, download a free copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader.
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Printable version
