Sunday, July 27, 2008

Book Review: The Big Picture

The Big Picture
By: Stacy Julian

Stacy Julian's book The Big Picture gave me a whole new outlook on scrapbooking. I have learned that it's okay if pictures are not scrapped right away and not every layout has to be about an event. It's important to scrapbook personalities and emotions. Stacy has a Library of Memories and describes her system in the book.

Chapter: Pages
There are 50 pages of layouts featured in the book. Stacy tells you the why, where, and what for each layout. Why she created the layout, where it is kept in her Library of Memories, and what went on behind the scenes to create the page. This section is great because not only do you learn new ways to organize your scrapbooks but you also get lots of layout ideas.

Chapter: Projects
The projects section give lots of ideas for other theme albums to create. One of my favorites from the book is "Mom According To..." Stacy interviewed her 4 boys and asked them questions related to herself. She asked each boy the same set of questions to get their perspective of her. She had at least 2 pages for each boy. One featured pictures and the other had all the answers to the questions. Super cute idea. Stacy even gives you the list of questions that she asked her boys. What a great gift idea for grandparents. There are pages and pages of ideas. This section also tells you the why, where, and what for each project.

Chapter 3: Other Stuff
The last chapter is all about planning. Chapter 3 helps you to identify what motivates you to scrapbook, what approach you take, and what do you want to get out of scrapbooking. Stacy than reviews her Library of Memories system. I'm really excited to create my own Library of Memories. I have some layouts that I really had no idea what album to put them in. But this book gave me a new perspective. What is so great about the Library of Memories is that it is very adaptable to whatever works for you.

The final part of the book Stacy talks about creativity and inspiration. She shares a resource list of books and websites that have inspired her and shares what she liked about each item.

My Thoughts:
What I really like about The Big Picture is that Stacy gets you to really think about what story you want to tell through your scrapbooks. That it isn't about how many layouts you have done or how far behind you (there is no such thing according Stacy's system). It's telling your story and scrapbooking the moments and people that are important to you.

I would definitely recommend this book for fellow scrapbookers!!

Have you read this book? We would love to hear what you think. Post your comments!
To purchase this book visit Scrapbook.com

Next book: Photo Freedom by Stacy Julian

Know of a scrap book you would like me to review. Post a comment or send me an email to get it on my list of books to review.

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