Need help Mom's Christmas Present!

[ThomasT]

Hey guys,

I have a idea for my moms Christmas present but I need your help... I want to get a bunch of pictures of her and my dad..(because my dad died) and make it into a scrapbook I need your all's help... If you all can help me with background ideas I saw, I think Pauline or Wendy had something for there mom and dad, I would have to check again but I liked it, but I still want y'alls background idea's... I know this would be the world to her and I wanted to do it, so if you all could help I would really appriciate it..

Thomas

[Carbone]

This is a wonderful idea Thomas!!!

I'm not good at scrapbooking, but here's what I do with every project : First, gather your ideas on a plain piece of paper (away from Photoshop Elements!). Things like what comes to your mind when you think of your Mom and Dad, places they visit, close friends they have (or had), first car, first house, a concert they both attended, etc.

Once you'll have your ideas, you'll be able to divide them into themes and start scrapbooking from there, thinking of a possible layout for the pictures to fit in themes.

Ray

[Mary]

Hi Thomas
After you do your ground work as Ray laid out - decide what size pages you want to print out or use in a digital album. Then open a new document in Elements and find a background that you like. Either create one with fill and filters or visit one of the scrapbooking sites in our helpful link section in the forum.

Then save that as a document all by itself. This will be your template for all your pages. Then scan, size and add your pictures and your journaling even if it is just who what and where (or as much as you know). The beauty of digital scrapbooking is you can always go back in make corrections and print it out again.

Let us know how you are getting on with the project - things are bound to come up along the way.:)

[Kathy]

Hi Thomas, :)

Ditto to what Ray and Mary said.

I am also creating a Memory Book for my parents for Christmas ... but my pictures that I am working with are a lot older than yours would be since my parents are at the age where they have everything. I posted a couple of very simple layouts in my gallery if you care to look. I am also using individual photos, but "matted" for presentation.

I would suggest purchasing the album you will put them in before starting the pages. That will determine your size for you. Around here, you can purchase albums that are 12 x 12, 10 x 10, 9 x 11, 8 x 8 and with white, parchment, ivory, neutral grey or black pages. I find it helpful to change the Editor background to the colour of the album page ..... it helps with selecting the colours you want to use.

One of the best places for backgrounds, tags, ribbons, etc "Freebies" is www.scrapbook-bytes.com (http://www.scrapbook-bytes.com). You just have to register to download. They also have a Sketch Gallery to give you inspiration for page layouts.

For the "journaling" ..... use phrases from songs that were special. quotes that describe them or words that come to your mind when you look at the picture.

Hope that helps.

Kathy

[Pauline]

Thomas, I'm really not good at scrap booking. Perhaps what you saw was in the contests. There was a scrapbook one a while back and it had to have a Mother theme. Look on the home page for the previous contest and find it. There were some beautiful ones in there. Mine was very simple and basic. I was still very much struggling with everything I did in elements back then. I am sure you mother will love anything that you do, and if she starts to cry when she see it, don't be upset. It will be because she is so overwhelmed with emotions and loves it! :)

[kevq]

Hi Thomas,
I made the following because we had only these few photos of my wife's late parent's early years and they were scattered between the brothers and sisters.
Now they each have their own prints and amazingly the grandchildren and great grandchildren wanted copies too.
Believe me it is a worthwhile thing to do because the pleasure it gives is great.
Kev.

http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/5930/oliveweb9ri.th.jpg (http://img512.imageshack.us/my.php?image=oliveweb9ri.jpg)

[kayser]

Thomas,

This is a great idea and I'm sure your mom will really appreciate it. I created a memory book for my parents' 50th wedding anniversary last year. I wasn't really into PSE then, but I did include some pictures I found on the Internet of places where they met, the church where they were married... if you can find any of those things, you could do one of those as a background for one of the pages.

Good luck!

[ThomasT]

Thanks guys,

Thanks I am going to start it tonight! Really good idea ray, I am doing this picture that my mom has from when my dad and her got married and its losing it's color... So I am going to work on that tonight! Thanks guys for the many ideas!

[Carbone]

Knowing you, Thomas, it's going to be a very nice looking album, I'm positive :)

Ray

[Wendy]

Thomas ...

Do let us see the final result :)


Wendy

[Ward Grant]

Thomas

A great idea. I wish I had known about Elements when my parents were alive. Here's one idea I did for my sister-in-law that was well received.

Background: an 8 x 10 of her parents house
Center photo in circle cutout: sister-in-law's parents
Other photos: pictures of my sister-in-law and her siblings surrounding the parent's photo. Each child was in own photo (luckily I had plenty from last Christmas) in an oval cutout.

All the siblings were adults when I made this , but it would be great if you had similar photos when the children were much younger.

[NMarti]

Thomas,
I did a memory book of all my ancestors (going back 7 generations) when I was researching my family history. I did it all manually because that was several years ago. What I would have given to have PSE back then!:rolleyes: I did one for my mom that she really likes and would work well for your situation since your dad has passed away - use a picture of him as the background but fade it and then place your mom on top of that (sort of like the filmstrip collages are done). It's sort of a "gone but not forgotten" theme and it works quite beautifully.

[Wendy]

Thomas ...

If you go to the home page then scroll right down to the bottom you will see the past challenges click on the link and you should see the Moms one ... take a look at some of the things in there as it may give you some ideas :)


Wendy

[ThomasT]

Wow!

You all have alot for me I don't know which to choose.. Sorry I haven't been here latley with midterms and all...All I know is the week before christmas I have to set up lights, work on my moms present, get the pictures for the soccer team to the soccer coach, call up editors and see if we can get some shots in magazines, ohh that should be a blast,edit pictures for church, edit pictures for people who wanted me to do christmas shots, and I still don't have my digital yet so I have to call up the company and see what in gods name they are doing with my camera.... I hate developing film....

Wishing you my best and trying not to die doing it,

Thomas