Customer Reviews

A Designer's Eye for Scrapbooking

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I love, love, love Ali Edwards, and am practically obsessed with her work. So I could barely wait to get this book, and was disappointed when I did. I think a big part of the problem is that I'm used to her current style in Creating Keepsakes, and as we all know scrapbooking has evolved a lot even in the last few years. It's a lot more personal and a lot less "Here's a picture with some heart cutouts around it." Of course we're talking about Ali here so there aren't pictures with heart cut-outs, but just like the rest of us, she's certainly gotten better with time. Looking at this book (dated 2004 and 2006) was definitely looking back on her work and not what I'm used to seeing. There were some things I liked, some helpful design suggestions, and some layouts I enjoyed. But I really wouldn't spend $17 on the book. I've looked at it once and I don't think I'll return to it much, if at all. I'd suggest spending the money to subscribe to Creating Keepsakes (which I love and she's the creative editor of) and getting all her fresh, new ideas plus tons of other pages and ideas, too.

Ali Edwards' book is a wonderful must for the scrapbooker. She breaks down principles of design in an easy to understand, thoughtful way, so that you can use them to make great layouts of your own. Her layouts will inspire you to do so, as they are to the world of scrapbooking what J Crew is to your closet...slightly whimsical, visually clean, well put together, and they always look great, keeping you coming back to them again and again. She demonstrates not only how she uses the carefully described principles in her work, but includes the layouts of several other talented scrapbookers with distinctly different styles to illustrate each underlying principle. This book is a real treasure for both the novice and advanced scrapbooker. Gently encouraging and nudging the artist in each of us, Ali's text is one I return to again and again for inspiration.

I don't go in for buying every design book ever published. Buy a couple of the best and the rest are pretty much redundant. This is one of the best. Required scrapper reading: the Zielske books, a Becky Higgins or two, and both of Ali's 'designer's eye' books. That way you've got inside tips and techniques from the girls leading their field. The blueprints in this book are fantastically liftable.

I have enjoyed this book by Ali Edwards. It breaks down the basics of putting together a scrapbook layout. Here are some chapters...
Chapter 1 "Think Before You Speak", unique perspective on journaling your photos.
Chapter 4 "Go With the Flow", tips on arranging balance with photos, embellishments, and journaling
Chapter 7 "Mind Your Manners", great ideas for putting YOUR personality on a page.

Throughout the book are FABULOUS layouts designed by:
Ali herself
Tina Barriscale
Mellette Berezoski
Joy Bohon
Carrie Colbert
The layouts alone are so inspiring but they are really the icing on the cake for this book!

This is the scrapbooking how-to book that I return to over and over again. Ali is just so artistic, warm and intelligent! Not cutesy. Very real. I find her pages to be timeless yet up-to-the-minute. They are classic, yet hand-crafted. Ali has great ideas on how to incorporate embellishments without being frou-frou about it. Her journaling is thoughtful and meaningful and often quite touching. We should all aspire to this type of journaling. I don't know how to describe it, maybe like this: Ali's pages look like fun and really get me inspired to have fun, to do my own pages, in my own way. What could be better? This would be the first book I would recommend to any scrapbooker.

This book lets me into the world of scrapbooking through a graphic designer's eye. Ali has many great ideas for wonderful layouts. I also love the themes she uses for her pages and she has inspired me to also take these special moments and capture them in my scrapbooking. Her journaling is wonderful and is shown to be a very intregral part of Ali's design of each page. I often go to this book as a begin a new page in my scrapbook. Thanks Ali!

Ali Edward's book is wonderfully inspiring and brimming with fantastic ideas. She is a star in the world of scrapbooking, but she is to real and accessible. I just loved this book. I go to it over and over for ideas and inspiration!

I absolutely love this book, and Ali Edwards! She's got the best style among them -- clean and simple with a lot of heart. Her background as a graphic designer is evident in most of her layouts. All in all, I really recommend you get this book, if not for scraplifting purposes, for a lesson or two on basic graphic design principles. You don't have to be a scrapbooker (I'm not, I'm just a regular college student who loves looking at layouts too much) to appreciate this book. It inspires you to want to take down and remember all the little things in life :)

This book is definitely a must have for all and any scrapbook enthusiast. When I first received it, I just scanned through the pages tagging the layouts I wanted to lift. Then when I got around to reading, I couldn't put it down.

i'm no writer so this will be short, but i found this book helpful and i go to it for referance often for basic sketch design.