Customer Reviews

Scrapbook Storytelling, Step by Step

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is not just a book of great layouts, though it certainly has those! And it's not just tips on journaling either. Joanna Campbell Slan does an outstanding job of teaching you how to tell the stories behind your pictures.

The layouts are wonderful, and not as impossible-looking as so many layouts are in other books! But what's important is that she shows how scrapbooking can be used for SO many situations. It's not just a hobby for moms with young children.

I really enjoyed reading this book, and looking at her layouts. She shares a lot of her own scrapbook pages and by the end of the book, we get to know her son Michael and we feel better equipped to scrapbook the stories of OUR lives.

There was a poignant section about scrapbooking the not-so-good memories. Joanna uses her photos and journaling to create a memorial page for her nephew Josh who was killed just before his 5th birthday.

Probably the most helpful part of the book is all the journaling/storytelling tips! The author even includes questionnaires to fill out as you interview your family members. I enjoyed the fact that the layouts are graded by how easy/difficult they are. You can look that up in the index and also see what materials are necessary.

By the end of the book, I really feel that I had gotten to know Joanna quite well - and isn't that the goal of our scrapbooks, to share ourselves with future generations?

Also, Joanna has a website ... where you can download templates, access helpful hints, and link to other scrapbooking websites.

Happy Scrappin'!

This book gets to the heart of scrapbooking. It not only has lovely visuals, but is full of stories that Ms. Slan tells so eloquently and guides you step by step to be able to do the same. I was so inspried by this book that I found myself effortlessly sitting down and doing page after page with my own family's memories - the ones other than your typical birthday, vacation, holiday, etc. Isn't this what we want our family to remember after all is said and done? A "must have" for any scrapbooker!

This is a wonderful guide for those of us that have trouble organizing our thoughts or that get stumped while trying to journal. I have found it to be a lifesaver when my creativity seems to be on vacation. I can take this book and after a little browsing come up with a new and fresh way to make my scrapbooking come alive. Ms. Slan has really shared alot of her life and times in this book and this causes you to feel like you could invite her over to share at one of your crops. For a beginning scrapbooker this is invaluable and for someone that has experience it's a must. My only negative is that I wish the pictures of her pages were larger so I could see more of the detail. Over all it's a fabulous book! Thank you Ms. Slan.

This is the most comprehensive book I can imagine on the subject. My creative juices were inspired with the turn of every page.

I have decided to take an understated approach to my scrapbooking. The only fault I find with many of the scrapbook pages that I see in magazines and such is that they are so overdone that you can barely see the photographs. This book offered many alternatives. I particularly enjoyed the spread on the house near Joanna's friend's office (page 22). So simple, so elegant.

The journaling is what is important to me and I tend to write full accounts of events, so I am always looking for ways to incorporate pockets, envelopes and hidden layers. Scrapbook Storytelling offers some fresh ideas in this area.

Thanks for producing a wonderful resource that I am sure will satisfy all kinds of scrapbookers.

The text of this book is so wonderful with lots of hints and ideas and encouragement for writing in our scrapbooks and capturing our stories. HOWEVER, the author's pages don't match her advice -- they don't illustrate what she's preaching. A serious flaw, I think.

This well-written and touching book shows how to make your scrapbooks more than just dressed-up photo albums. It's easy to forget that you won't always be around to explain the story behind every photo, and it's amazing how quickly we forget the little details. Slan has tons of great ideas for capturing it all and making the words look nice on the page, even if you're terrible at lettering!

As a scrapbook professional, I meet many scrapbookers all over the country. One common thread I have found is that we all wish we had more time to do what we love. This lack of adequate time causes us to sometimes not give enough attention to the really important things. Scrapbook Storytelling, by Joanna Slan, offers the tips and techniques to get you started preserving the two most important parts of scrapbooking: Your Photos, and Your Stories. The ideas clearly delineated in this book, allow even those of you with a chronic case of writer's book to be able to start recording more of the story behind the pictures.

One of my favorite sections in the book, Preserving Family Values, encourages the reader not to go at scrapbooking from a position of "panic." This overwhelming need to be "caught up" is the persistant driving factor leading scrapbookers to neglect their journaling. Joanna says, "Start from a place of joy. What is important? What would you like to preserve? What seemingly ordinary parts of your life make each day extrodinary and beautiful?" These are the things to scrapbook and to use to tell your family's story.

If you are like most scrapbookers and just need a little more encouragment to add to the journaling side of your craft, then don't pass up this book!

Joanna Campbell Slan is apparently one of the most popular scrapbook writers on the market today, and with good reason. She writes clearly and warmly, has a winning style full of humor and a down-to-earth point of view. Her books are informative and knowledgeable; they also fill many gaps in the scrapbooking industry.

Scrapbook Storytelling is a great example of the author's early scrapbook offerings. Here, the reader is gently encouraged to take stock of their photos, plan pages and journal with an eye toward one's ultimate purpose - brag book, heritage, wedding, travel, etc? All aspects of the art of using photos and journaling, design and color, accents and gimmicks are explored as a means to tell whatever story you are trying to tell through your album. The author never assumes that you already know about a technique, page style or trick: there's even a major section dedicated to a glossary of common scrapbooking terms. An entire section is devoted to taking better pictures. If I were an absolute beginner to scrapbooking, this book would be a lifesaver in many ways.

I had to subtract one star because four years after the first printing, Scrapbook Storytelling is starting to look a bit dated. For instance, Joanna Campbell Slan lists stickers, die cuts and odd bits of memorabilia as the main accents and page decorations to consider in a layout. Since 1999 there have been an explosion of products and new techniques that came too late to make it into this book (for example, quilling, chalking, tags, eyelets...I could go on and on). Then, too, new styles and looks for the patterned papers and colors are currently replacing the ones used by the author. For those scrappaholics who purchase scrapping books to get ideas for their layouts, these will already seem very passé.

The other reason I subtracted a star is the glaring lack of information on computer-related techniques, equipment and software. Digital cameras are not even mentioned. Although many scrapbookers get by just fine without ever going near a computer, photo editing programs, computer fonts, home photo printing and even whole page layout software are increasingly important to the scrapbooker and should have more focus in a book like this. I hope there's an updated version in the works, because a good low-pressure, basic scrapbooking guide like this is invaluable to newbies.
-Andrea, aka Merribelle

A look at the title and subtitle of this book tells the intelligent reader exactly what this book is about. This is not a book about writing your memoirs. It is not a course in creative writing. It is an excellent resource for people who make scrapbooks. Joanna Slan gives the reader a starting point, inspiration, and lots of ideas for future journaling. While the "voyeur" in me would love to read the details of her family life, what she puts on her pages isn't all that helpful to me, as my family and situation are different from hers. Her thought-provoking tips and ideas give me the impetus I need to create my own journaling.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who creates scrapbooks.

This book helped to jump start me. Now I focus on having a book that can tell our family's story whether or not I'm there to explain. However, the author's own journaling seems lightweight. She seems to have lots of artistic technique, but little substance on many of the pages that she uses as examples.