Angie Pedersen's Scrapbooking Industry News

New Idea Book Inspires Crafters to Celebrate Cultural Influences & Heritage

ETHNIC SCRAPBOOKING, by Lisa Sanford, provides resources for scrapbookers to make cultural connections to their memories and daily lives.

BOWIE, MARYLAND – December 27, 2007 – Visit any scrapbooking store or website, and you'll find plenty of resources – ideas for scrapbooking about first steps, birthdays, holidays, and travel experiences.  But if you want to include meaningful commentary about your cultural heritage and experiences, you may be looking for ideas for quite a while.  Until now -- award-winning scrapbooker, designer, and instructor Lisa Sanford has released Ethnic Scrapbooking, an idea book geared toward providing meaningful inspiration to scrapbookers of all skill levels.

When Sanford's sister returned from a trip to Africa, she handed Lisa a stack of over 2000 photos and asked her to scrapbook them with "cultural flair".  An avid scrapbooker with over 70 albums in her library, Sanford was up to the challenge, but quickly realized that the travel scrapbooking products wouldn't convey the sense of culture she wanted to capture.  How do you depict the attitudes and ways of living of a people?  Their customs, their traditions, and their values?  Sanford couldn't find those answers, so she created her own.  The result: Ethnic Scrapbooking, Sanford's 116-page book released this month.

ETHNIC SCRAPBOOKING is the first multi-culturally inspired book that offers specific ways to include examples of culture and ethnicity on a scrapbook page. With over 100 full-color images, and ideas from over 40 countries and cultures, this heartfelt book will inspire a wide audience, no matter their race, nationality or ethnicity.  Sanford's ideas encourage the reader to live a lifestyle of cultural awareness and preservation.  Memory keepers of all skill levels will be able to add new cultural perspective to their projects with ideas on topics such as:

• Adding memorabilia to scrapbooking projects, like postage stamps from specific countries of family origin
  
• Documenting family namesakes
• Detailing ethnic holiday celebrations
  
• Including ethnic-inspired prints as backgrounds
  
• Identifying traditional family recipes, and researching their cultural origins

Each chapter shows readers how to make cultural connections with their photographs, memories and daily activities.  ETHNIC SCRAPBOOKING describes the process of creating unique layouts and memory albums with cultural flair using all types of scrapbooking supplies and tools.  The book features Lisa’s guiding philosophies on ethnic scrapbooking, offering a fresh new perspective on cultural nuances and traditions.  ETHNIC SCRAPBOOKING is a rich source of innovative ideas for preserving memories, and an invaluable addition to any family photo historian’s library.

About the Author:
Lisa Sanford is a speaker, passionate paper craft instructor, product designer and award winning scrapbook artist. Her inspiring ideas have appeared in multiple publications, including a contribution to Chicken Soup for the Scrapbooker’s Soul, and a guest spot on "DIY TV Scrapbooking". She is a contributing editor for ScrapsofColor.com, an informational website for African American scrapbookers. 

Sanford and her husband live with their five children, one grandson, and multiple pets in Washington, D.C.  Visit www.ethnicscrapbooking.com for more information and cultural scrapbooking ideas.

Learn Digital Techniques Easily Step-By-Step with New Book

Become Confident Without Being Committed
Digital scrapbooking instructor offers tips for beginners to advanced users, everything from installing the program to organizing digital kits and achieving realistic effects - all with no technical or graphic arts experience…or help from husbands.

Fountain Valley, CA – November 14, 2007 – Finally, an instructional guide designed specifically for creating scrapbooking and card-making projects on the computer - Digital & Hybrid Scrapbooking and Card-Making with Photoshop Elements promises it is "the book that fills in the steps that the scrapbook magazines leave out."  More than an idea book, this is a 384 page how-to manual written in plain English for scrapbookers who want to learn digital techniques with clear step-by-step instructions.

"Digital & Hybrid Scrapbooking" is based on author Patty Debowski's experience teaching digital scrapbooking in California community colleges.  "Many of my students learned to use a computer with their impatient husbands hovering over them," explains Debowski, a formerly frustrated digi-scrapper. "They depend on their husbands for even simple tasks, like copying the photos from their camera to their computer.  My students love my simple step-by-step instructions – they go home and get the same results they got in class.  So many women have emailed me to tell me how empowered they feel because they can now do this easily."

All of the techniques in Debowski's book are explained for a digi-scrapper. "Everything I’ve read explains how to use Photoshop Elements to edit photos," says Debowski, "not make scrapbook pages or cards. Nowhere in my book will you find an instruction like 'rasterize the vector layer' and wonder what it means.  That is what makes this book unique."

At 384 pages, and weighing nearly three-and-a-half pounds, "Digital & Hybrid Scrapbooking" is no light-weight "fluff" book with a lot of pretty scrapbook pages, cautions Debowski.  "My students are tired of looking at the pretty pictures – they want basic instruction on how to do the techniques and use all the digital tools. This is a Photoshop Elements instruction manual geared toward the digi-scrapper that’s written in plain English."  Extensive table of contents and index listings allow readers to quickly find instructions on any digital scrapbooking or photo editing task they need.

Digital and Hybrid Scrapbooking & Card-Making with Photoshop Elements includes:

• Basic instruction for the beginner, such as how to download and install fonts, how to unzip and use digital scrapbook supplies, and organize them efficiently.
• Detailed step-by-step instructions with lots of screenshots show how to do the techniques shown in scrapbooking magazines and how to use the Photoshop Elements program.
• Tips on achieving more advanced techniques, like making and using templates (a fast way to speed up your scrapping), making and using brushes, and using blending modes and filters.
• A DVD filled with 15 digi-scrapping website discount coupons, and more than 1,000 pieces of digi-scrapping elements, created by more than 30 professional designers -- a great starting point for a new digi-scrapper, and great additions to an existing collection.
• Customized Photoshop Elements Organizer tags, designed for the digi-scrapper to instantly install. They will allow you to find the perfect scrapbook element in less than 15 seconds when you tag your digital scrapbook supplies.
• Handy mini reference card with shortcuts and tips, sized to slide under your keyboard while you work.
• Detailed "What Did I Do Wrong?" section to help you quickly fix problems you encounter.
• How to combine digital techniques with traditional scrapbook supplies (hybrid).

Included in a grand opening special which expires November 30 is The Digi-Scrapping Menu for Success (free with the purchase of the book, a $6.99 value) -- an 8 ½ x 11 inch plastic coated, fun, chocolate accented, reference card to keep by your computer...all the tips and tricks you need at your finger tips. The book, and menu are available at www.TheDigitalScrapbookTeacher.com. International & U.S. bulk specials, templates, and gift wrapping are also available.

TheDigitalScrapbookTeacher.com offers an affiliate program, enabling affiliates to earn a commission for every product sold through ads placed on their website, blog, newsletters, or emails.  Find more information at http://www.thedigitalscrapbookteacher.com/Affiliate/scrapbook.html.

Debowski works with local retail stores to help them set up digital classes and programs.   
To encourage retailers to offer digital programs, Debowski offers product discounts for bulk orders.  Find wholesale information here: http://www.thedigitalscrapbookteacher.com/Wholesale/scrapbook.html.

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EDITORS: Patty Debowski is available for interviews and as an expert resource on digital scrapbooking.

SOURCES: PRWeb and Yahoo! News

* This is a ScrapbookMarketing press release

Memory Makers Books to Release Scrapbooking PageMaps by Becky Fleck

Announced in Becky Fleck's August PageMaps Newsletter:

Fleck has authored a sketch idea book, to be published by Memory Maker Books. Scrapbook PageMaps: Sketches for Creative Layouts will premiere at CHA Winter February 2008 in Anaheim.

"Scrapbook PageMaps is not yo momma’s average sketch idea book," cautions Fleck. She hints that "in the coming months, I will be sharing sneak peeks and more details about its content, including an awesome bonus section that pops right out of the back of the book, as well as some very unique and unconventional techniques".

Digital Art Photography for Dummies Released

With digital camera technology improving almost monthly and the price of sophisticated digital SLR cameras dropping, more and more people are turning to digital cameras for their advanced photography needs.  In Digital Art Photography For Dummies, award-winning journalist and photographer Matthew Bamberg, covers the steps and techniques needed to take and print gallery-quality photos with digital equipment.

This full-color guide uses the fun, friendly For Dummies style to guide readers through:

• Selecting and using high-end photo equipment
• Shooting in a variety of artistic styles including landscape and portrait photography
• Working with special effects while shooting
• Mimicking the work of famous artists and photographers
• Using Photoshop to enhance photos
• Printing high-quality photos
• Presenting the finished product online or in a gallery

Digital Art Photography For Dummies also includes hundreds of example photos to provide guidance and inspiration for would-be artists.  For further inspiration, readers can visit Bamberg's photoblog (where he calls himself the "Digital Traveler") at http://digitalartphotographyfordummies.blogspot.com. Here the author takes bloggers on a world journey through spontaneous text and images from world heritage sites and throughout the world's greatest cities.

Digital Art Photography For Dummies helps readers channel their inner Ansel Adams and go from hobbyist to photographic artist with ease.

New Scrapbooking Fiction to Launch: Prints Charming

Via an interview on GoDeKalb.com, a heads up on a new scrapbooking fiction book due out in early March: Prints Charming by Rebeca Seitz.

Picking up the pieces of her life after a divorce from her cheating husband, Jane Sandburg's living large with the help of her scrapbooking friends. Her wedding scrapbook tossed in storage and forgotten, life looks promising again as the hunk across the breezeway shows interest and Jane convinces the girls to open a business networking scrapbooking women. Yet just when Jane's romance with Jake blossoms and the business starts taking off, her ex comes back begging forgiveness and assuring her that he'll never hurt her again. What's a girl to do but grab her old wedding album and head to the scrapping table with her friends? Whether it'll be revived or recycled remains to be seen!

Prints Charming includes age- and race- diverse characters. Four women who are bound together by their love of scrapbooking live life out over the scrapping table.

Real Women Scrap to Launch with High Acclaim at CHA

New Book by Tasra Dawson Named Creative Excellence Awards Finalist

January 22, 2007 – Santa Rosa, California – Craftrends Magazine announced the 15th annual Awards of Creative Excellence Finalists in their January issue on newsstands now. Tasra Dawson’s new release, Real Women Scrap: Create the Life and Layouts You’ve Always Wanted has been named a Finalist in the Papercrafts Book category. Each year Craftrends Magazine recognizes books for market innovation, value for money, and creative excellence. Entries are judged on seven points: Overall Quality/Ease of Use, Meets Consumer Need, Originality/Innovation, Attractiveness, Clarity of Instructions, Retail Support, and Advertising/Marketing. Real Women Scrap officially released Jan. 2007 by Dare Dreamer Press.

Winners will be announced at a Gala Event at the annual Craft and Hobby Association (CHA) Winter Trade Show in Anaheim, January 2007, as well as in the April issue of Craftrends. CHA draws nearly 20,000 exhibitors and attendees from 46 nations, including some of the biggest names in scrapbook magazines like Memory Makers, Creating Keepsakes, Better Homes and Gardens Scrapbooks, and manufacturers like Basic Grey, Bazzill, Chatterbox, and Xyron.

Dare Dreamer Press will be exhibiting Real Women Scrap in conjunction with UHU, the U.S. distributor for Germany's UHU brand of premium glues and adhesives, preferred by professional artisans, crafters and everyday people (CHA Booth #3983). Dawson will be present to sign books and spread the message of real women, real stories, and real scrapbooking.

Tasra Dawson is an award-winning author, speaker, and scrapbook artist based in Northern California. Real Women Scrap is the first book of its kind to share more than just tips and techniques—it offers new insight into the way women lead their lives.  The book also includes stories of real women whose lives have been transformed through the lessons learned from the scrapbook page. Real women’s stories are followed by practical strategies intended to cultivate hope and produce change. From layout ideas to candid advice, Tasra Dawson provides a whole different perspective on the scrapbooking world.

About Real Women Scrap: Real Women Scrap offers busy women ways to keep life simple by transforming her love for scrapbooking into a metaphor of how to live life to the fullest.  Each chapter offers scrap lessons, real stories, and life lessons. Packed full of useful information, constructive solutions, and inspiring stories. Real Women Scrap is the book women cannot afford to leave on the bookshelves.

About Tasra Dawson: As an entrepreneur, wife, and mother, Tasra understands the demands on time and energy faced by career women and busy moms and is passionate about transforming layouts and lives through creativity. A former consultant for a popular scrapbook company, “Diva Idol” contest winner, and an artist with more than a decade of scrapbook experience, Tasra Dawson brings personal and professional insight to the craft. Today a full-time freelance author and speaker, Tasra has multiple publications to her credit, including articles, stories and a national column.

SOURCE: Lessons from the Scrapbook Page

Digital Photography Book Named Book Award Finalist

Resource Written for Time-Starved Shutterbugs Named Award Winning Finalist of the Best Books 2006 Awards   

SAN MARCOS, TX (OCTOBER 25, 2006) – USABookNews.com, a premiere online magazine and review website for mainstream and independent publishing houses, announced the winners and finalists of its “BEST BOOKS 2006” BOOK AWARDS (BBA).  Among the titles chosen was “Digital Photography for Busy Women: How to Manage, Protect and Preserve Your Favorite Photos (Compass Trade Press, ISBN 0-9774727-2-8), which was named a Finalist in the Photography category.

“So many women find themselves with more technology than time these days,” stated author Laura Oles, "if I’m able to help them enjoy digital photography a bit more, I’ll consider it a great success.”

Jeff Bowen, president of USABookNews.com, said of the title, “Digital Photography for Busy Women is full of useful information that you will reference again and again. Well-written and organized, you’ll want this book in your library if you want to get the full benefits of your computer and digital camera.”

Winners and finalists traversed the publishing landscape: Simon & Schuster, Warner Books, New American Library a division of the Penguin Group, Red Wheel Weiser and Conari, New World Library, and hundreds of independent press titles contributed to this year’s outstanding BBA competition.

About USABookNews.com
USABookNews.com is an online publication providing coverage for books from mainstream and independent publishers to the world online community. USABN Magazine Online is the monthly electronic magazine e-mailed free to a large cross-section of the book buying public. Los Angeles based, JPX Media is the parent company of USABookNews.com.

About Author Laura Oles
Laura Oles is a photo industry journalist and the author of Digital Photography for Busy Women:  How to Manage, Protect and Preserve Your Favorite Photos (Compass Trade Press, ISBN 0-9774727-2-8).   A founding team member of Pixel Magic Imaging, she left the company in July 2005 to dedicate her time to helping busy women make the most of today’s technologies.  As the mother of three small kids, she spends so much time running that she’s considered asking Nike® for an endorsement. She is grateful her husband has a sense of humor.

For free resources, downloads and tips, please visit www.gotdigitalpictures.com.

Scrap Everything: New Novel Highlights Scrapbooking

Scrap Everything: A novel that brings the love of scrapbooking together with the love of scrapbooking

Colorado Springs, CO -- From author Leslie Gould, Scrap Everything (Waterbrook Press, October 2006) -- In the community of a scrapbook shop, two women develop an unlikely friendship during one of the most difficult and rewarding years of their lives.  Scrap Everything is a story about living courageously, letting go of guilt and control, and embracing the bond that comes when women gather.

A month after Elise Shelton and her family arrive in Forest Falls, Oregon, she wanders into Rebekah Graham's scrapbooking store.  Elise deems Rebekah too chatty, and judges scrapbooking to be another guilt-inducing chore, but she's also drawn to the community of women who gather to crop their photos, lay out pages, and share their lives.

When Elise's recently retired husband is called back into the army, the women try to rally around Elise.  As her oldest son's bad behavior becomes more pronounced, Elise blames herself -- and then blames others.  Not until she lets go of her past does she find freedom.

Meanwhile, Rebekah's daughter, Pepper, needs a kidney transplant, challenging Rebekah to let go of control and trust God to provide the right kidney.  When Elise finds out that she and Pepper have the same blood type, she must decide how much she's willing to risk for others.

As both Elise and Rebekah battle to overcome their fears and to grow in faith, they experience unexpected gifts that change their lives.

Leslie Gould works as a writer in Portland, Oregon, where she lives with her husband Peter, and four children.  Her previous novels include Garden of Dreams and Beyond the Blue.

Editor's Note: Read my review of this book: Scrap Everything review

technorati tags: scrapbooking, new+fiction, Leslie+Gould

Journal: A New Way to Experience a Scrapbooking Mystery

Who was Amy Zoe Mason? 
How did she die, and why?

"That's what we found ourselves asking when we 'discovered' her journal in the secretcompartment of an old desk that we bought at a thrift store," said Kristine Atkinson and Joyce Atkinson, sisters who share a passion for art, mystery, and intrigue. The artists joined forces to create their stunning debut novel, JOURNAL: The Short Life and Mysterious Death of Amy Zoe Mason, (Simon & Schuster; September 2006; $23.00) which Publishers Weekly calls "tantalizing."

The result is an innovative, genre-bending work that the Atkinsons call a "Discovery Novel." In these pages, visual and verbal clues invite readers to do their own detecting into the shadowy fate of a young artist, wife, and mother. Leads are interspersed among images, text, and live weblinks, all pointing, with the suspense of a well-crafted mystery, toward potential solutions to Amy's fate. Unlike conventional mysteries in which the reader is a passive observer JOURNAL allows the reader to become an active participant by exploring and interacting with the pages to discover the mystery.

JOURNAL begins on January 1, with Amy's resolution to keep a journal. Rather than face a blank page, she chose a ready-made canvas for self-expression in the form of the 1860 novel, Lucile, by Owen Meredith. Onto the pages, Amy layered a pastiche of words and images, collage and found objects, that combine to offer a scrapbooked record of her life.

Amy hopes the creative exercise will help her deal with two stressful life events: her mother's sudden death, just two months before, and her family's impending move from Houston to Boston.  Her husband, Bob, is leaving in three days to start work as Director of the Wentworth Heart Institute, funded by the well-connected, widowed Julia Wentworth.  Amy is left with the job of selling their house and preparing for her future as a social asset to her husband.  Happily, she has the welcome distraction of two children, Susan and Alex, and her volunteer work with the elementary school art program.  Still, she misses Bob, who seems to miss her back-at least for a while.

Amy finds unexpected relief from her loneliness-and fast friendship-when she chooses Vanessa Garamond as a real estate agent.  Recommended by a colleague of Bob, Vanessa not only exceeds her professional reputation, but goes out of her way to make Amy feel special and less anxious about her future in Boston.  Before long, however, Vanessa's personal touches take a turn for the ominous.  Readers who peer between the lines, and behind and beyond them, will come to suspect that Vanessa has ulterior motives-aimed at Bob.  Does Bob harbor malicious intent of his own?  A telescope, a sudden illness, a prescription for sleeping pills, the gift of a spa massage, plus myriad clues and uncanny coincidences, will raise the haunting specter:  Was Amy driven to suicide - or was she murdered?

Using the love triangle featured in Lucile as the textual backdrop for JOURNAL, the Atkinsons allow some of that tragedy of a bygone era to peek through and add a chilling edge to Amy's story.  Of course, it's all very intriguing and pure fiction.  Or is it?            

About the Authors
Sisters KRISTINE ATKINSON and JOYCE ATKINSON are mild-mannered artists who have a mind for murder. They live two miles apart in a suburb of Houston, Texas.

technorati tags: journal, murder-mystery, novel, Joyce+Atkinson, Kristine+Atkinson, altered+journal

New Scrapbooking Travel Guide Provides Direction for Crafters on the Go

Roaming scrapbookers can use “Scrapbooking Roads” to reveal local stores along the way.

LONGMONT, Colo., September 12, 2006—According to the Travel Industry Association of America, shopping is the most popular domestic trip activity; one-third of all domestic trips include shopping. Annually, that's 342 million trips with shopping sprees.  But knowing where to find unique stores -- or specifically, scrapbooking stores -- can be a challenge when one travels beyond their hometown.  A new book, “Scrapbooking Roads: a Travel Guide for Scrapbookers”, will overcome that challenge.  Compiled and edited by Kim Ivkov, Scrapbooking Roads is a guide to hundreds of local shops, consultants and resources – all in one handy 256-page book.

Scrapbooking Roads enables scrapbookers to find stores, independent consultants, and events when traveling throughout the United States, and in Canada.  The book’s maps and travel resources help paper-crafters plan the itinerary of their trips by revealing which stores they'll find along the way.

"I just received my copy of Scrapbooking Roads and am impressed with it.  I take a lot of road trips and visit scrapbook stores on nearly every trip.  This book will give me ideas for where to look," says scrapbooker Melanie Martin, of Charleston, Arkansas.

The book features:

• Map details for the U.S. and Canada: this allows crafters to see at-a-glance which stores they will pass in their travels. Maps are available at both the state/province and local street levels.
• Store Profiles of over 200 individual scrapbook stores:  find store addresses, descriptions, business hours, phone numbers, and websites.
• Listings for local independent scrapbook consultants and online retail sites
• A Resource Guide featuring industry specific publications, national associations, Scrapbooking events, retreat locations, and monthly kit clubs.
• Over 100 technique ideas, money-saving tips, and timesaving tricks contributed by featured storeowners and consultants

This unique travel guide captures the “the heart and soul” of each participating store. “While other store listing directories are available online,” says Ivkov, “most only list the address and contact information.  They don’t provide a sense of what the store is all about. Because I love to discover new stores when I travel, I wanted to provide crafters with an idea of what they will find when they visit each new store.”

A companion website is available at www.scrapbookingroads.com.  The website features interactive maps, an online store directory, a consultant directory, special offers from retailers, and an "Update Club" membership option for receiving store listing updates.  For more information, please visit www.scrapbookingroads.com.

technorati tags: scrapbooking, travel, travel+guide, scrapbooking+roads