Favorite Friday

Today I want to share one of the reasons I joined Close to My Heart. Six years ago I was visiting with my aunt and she introduced me to the Close to My Heart How-to book Cherish (9038).

I was blown away and ordered one the next day. That year for Christmas my siblings and I decided to give my parents scrapbooks of their lives together. This was a huge undertaking, but because of this book and the help of my sister we were able to put it all together in a month. It was then that I decided to become a consultant and get the rest of the how-to books.

Reflections (9037) came in my consultant kit and I will say that it is the hardest for me to use. Mostly because it has so many options. Every layout in the Reflections book is a one-page layout that has a list of which other layouts will compliment them. This is really nice if I am in a very decisive mood, but if I am not, man it takes me forever to figure out which two layouts I want to do. So I ordered the other scrapbooking how-to book Imagine (9039).

I have gotten a lot of use out of this book. Cherish, Imagine, Magic, and the two Make It From Your Hearts are books that have two page layouts in them. They are kind of like sketches only better because they have diagrams that help you to figure out how many papers you need, what size to cut them, the best way to cut them so that you don't waste paper, and the sketches give you some dimensions (like place piece A 1 inch from the top and 1/2 inch from the left). They also are shown in a small version at the beginning and tells you how many photos you can fit in the layout. WAAAAY better than sketches in my opinion because I don't have to use my time to figure out how big or small to cut a piece of paper, or how many papers do I need to make the layout. The hard thinking is all done for me and all I have to do is figure out what papers I am going to use and where I am going to put them. I can literally put together some layouts in an 1 if I don't use too many embellishments, and that is huge for me. I don't have a ton of scrapbooking time, so I have to be able to sit down and get it done and these books are amazing in helping with that.

Magic (9040) is a really fun how-to book because it shows you how to make your layouts interactive. I love this book because it has taught me how to hide things, or add more than what you can see. Sometimes I want to scrapbook the event but I don't really want everyone seeing all 12 pictures, with Magic I have learned how to hide at least 6 of those photos and have a beautiful layout that is fun to look at and play with.

The Make It From Your Heart series is a little different because the books are smaller and they don't have as many layouts. They also contain card sketches as well, which is really nice. I LOVE the modern feel of these layouts. I also LOVE the price, $7.95! That is half the cost of the other how-to books and I turn to these two the most.

If you are wanting to order your own how-to books and see what they can do for you, just click here. Happy Weekend everyone!