There are many ways you can add a title to your page but a headline of some sort draws the viewer to that page to read more.  It can be above the Journaling, across the top of the page or down the side, or in the middle or along the bottom. It doesn’t matter where you put your title but do not crowd the photos.

You can buy peel off letters and stick them to different layers of coloured card,

or directly to the page.

You can die cut letters and build the title up as demonstrated here:

Or a simple date:

Nicola, Nicole and Nikki were the names of my deceased eldest daughter.

I used to babysit a Nicola as a teenager and her nickname was Nicky. She was such a like-able character and I always liked that name and said I would call my daughter Nicola if I had one, and so I did!

My mother always brought us up not to shorten names and all her 5 children were always called by our full names. So to me, my daughter was always Nicola.  She was a bit of a rebel and and always running away from home from 12 years of age. She settled down at 19 and came home to live again, but while away she changed her name to Nicole.  I remember her getting very angry as we did not remember to call her Nicole, but it was so hard for us.  I could remember to use Nicole if writing it down, but when it came to talking to her, that was a different matter. If her friends came and we used Nicola they wondered who we were talking about so, somehow it came to be shortened to the nick name of Nikki. Then, whoever we spoke to, whether they knew her by Nicola or Nicole; we all knew who we were talking about, as Nikki could be a nick name for either, so Nikki she became.

I have two scrapbooks of Nikki, one from birth to 11 years and the other from 12 - 23 when she died. So the first one is a scrapbook all about Nicola and the second one is a scrapbook about Nicole. If I don’t journal it, then they may never know and think of them as 2 different people!

We are bringing up her daughter, Abbey, and she knows her Mum as Nicola. We don’t use Nicole at all now.  I am Abbey’s “Mum”  and her real mother is”Mummy in Heaven”.  It gets very confusing for her, when my children are really her Uncle and Aunty’s but she thinks of them as her brother and sisters. They all call me Mum so I suppose it is only natural, she doesn’t understand why they came from my tummy and she did not, but I don’t want to keep her from knowing who her real mother is, but she is too young to take everything in.  As she gets older it will fall into place.  If it is confusing for us while we are living it, just think how much more complicated it will be for future generations when looking back through the scrapbooks!

I have been playing at MLM for over 30 years and I have collected so many books, but it does not matter what you read unless You Follow Through…. 
Reading it and thinking it is a good idea is not enough, you have to put what you learn into practice.

One of my favourite courses is one I bought for my daughter 2 weeks before she died, so she never got to use it. I could not bring myself to go beyond the first couple of cd’s and have only just gone through the whole course a couple of times just recently which is why I went back to the Businessvibe forum and decided to Do something. Nikki died in 2003 and I have only just completed it now, it was the best £180 that I spent and will recommend it to anyone.

I am talking about Tony Robbins CD course: Get The Edge and Personal Power.  How I wished I had completed it when I first started listening! I am so far behind now and it is my own fault!  But it is never too late to start.

One of my favourite poems is one by Patience Strong:

The Christmas Gift
Each new day is God’s good gift, a gift from heaven above.
A Blessing and a token of an everlasting love.
Every morning brings a chance to make another start,
To improve on yesterday and play a nobler part.
Every time the light comes stealing back into the blue,
We receive this precious gift of life to live anew,
We are given by His grace an opportunity
Of beginning once again, forgiven, fresh and free.

It is referring to God’s Gift of Everlasting Life that Jesus gave His life for, but it is also a reminder that no matter what mistakes we make, each day we have the chance to start anew, so it is NEVER too late!

I recommend that everyone who wishes to make something of their life go through this course with Tony Robbins, it will help them succeed in whatever they do. As it says….. Get the Edge on Life to live your life how you want to, and make it a SUCCESS. I have just started on that Journey…

Sympathy cards are something very dear to me for two reasons; one, my daughter died in 2003 and, two, I am a born again Christian.

When my daughter died at the age of 23yrs in 2003 I received over 100 sympathy cards and no two were the same. Isn’t that amazing! You would have expected a couple of duplicates, at least.  Also, considering that  handmade and handcrafted cards is a growing hobby, I did not receive one. I like to give a handcrafted card as it is so much more personal.

When I make cards, I never duplicate. Sometimes they might be some similar, when requested commissions, but there is always a difference. I make a variety of different ones and have so many made that I haven’t uploaded into my website yet. I do religious, thoughtful, contemporary and some pretty ones. Most cards I craft, take 1-2 hours to make, but the hardest part of that is deciding what to put together and how. The making is so simple and only takes a while to put together, but the designing is so time consuming.

This is one I made today, instead of getting my faith-scrapping kits ready for tomorrow. Although late to bed now I have to get up early in the morning to prepare them now, but I am going to enjoy that.

More views of this can be found in my craft shop in the sympathy section.

This is a scrapbook page of my daughter, Nikki as she was when she died. Her life is a whole different story which I will tell about on this blog, with time.

These 2 pages are done on 12 x 12 scrapbook cardstock.  They are from tLc Scrapbooking Kits which can be purchased from my online craft shop.  They are the same person, even though in one she is titled Nicola and the other is Nicole. To find out why, tune in tomorrow…..

 I made a card for my grand daughter, Lara, to give to her Nanny but I was too late in taking it around to my daughter so I am going to put it on my Top It All website.

You can view it in full and purchase here

Photos give your pages colour, motion and life.  Here are a few tips to help improve them ready for Scrapbooking:

• Shoot extras. Most people have digital cameras’ nowadays so it easy to take multiple shots of the same subject to choose the best one later when needed.  Your pics could become blurred, or the subject had their eyes closed, or out of focus… Anything could happen. Even if using rolls of film it is still advisable to shoot extras - just in case! It is better to pay more developing costs than risk losing the picture forever.
• Seek Light. Anytime someone has a shadow on their face it is a good idea to use a flash. It evens out the shadows and illuminates shaded eyes if wearing a cap. Take one photo with a flash and one without to choose the best one later.  If you have the choice of photographing people in harsh sunlight or shade, choose shade and use your flash.
• Shoot vertical photos. Remember to shoot some vertical photos as well as the horizontal photos to add dimension and variation to your scrapbook page.
• Shoot from several angles.When you are at an event make sure you shoot from several ponts of view; from an emotional close-up to a broad overview. For example, a trip to the coast could include a scenic shot of the ocean, a portrait shot of friends near a marina, a close-up of a starfish or lobster, or a tight profile of a friend gazing at the ocean.  Say, your event was a trip to a fairground, you could take several overall shots like the whole fairground from the top of a ferris wheel; a wide shot from the ground as you approach the fairground, or close-up of the kids enjoying a candyfloss on a stick, an action shot of a family member on a ride, or a family portrait at the fair.
• Don’t forget You!Remember, you were there too, so don’t forget to get another family member to take photos that include you.  You could ask someone else attending the event to take a photo of you all together. It makes your scrapbook so much more interesting if it had photos with you in them rather than just your journaling of the event.

I’m sure you’ve heard the stories of the Californian gold rush, where thousands of gold prospectors made their fortunes. A few of those lucky people struck gold, huge nuggets of gold that allowed them to live the high life. Unfortunately, those were the fortunate few…for every one of these there were hundreds of thousands of gold prospectors that didn’t strike it rich!

All those prospectors, hundreds of thousands, even millions of them, who didn’t strike it rich, still contributed enormously to the fortunes made from the gold rush, by making thousands of millionaires out of the people who sold them the shovels, picks, maps, food, clothes etc.

That was 150 years ago but NOTHING has changed!

Well, I’m here to tell you that Internet Marketing is the modern day gold rush!
Before I go any further, let me ask you a question. How are you prospecting for gold?  Have you bought a load of shovels? Maybe you’ve invested in half a dozen picks, a prospecting pan or two, even bought dozens of “guaranteed treasure maps”?

Fools Gold!

Have you spent weeks, months, even years “digging holes” without hitting one single gold nugget? Well, you are not alone. There are hundreds of thousands of prospectors out there, spending every hour of every day, doing exactly the same as you.

It’s true, every now and then one of them, “Strikes the Mother Load” just like they did in California. But for the vast majority the “lucky strike” never happens.

When a lucky prospector hits pay dirt, you hear about it immediately. Emails fly into your inbox by the dozen. Articles appear on numerous websites. Direct mail offers hit your letterbox day after day. Each and every one of them telling you how our lucky prospector made it and how you can do the same. If you just buy this new improved   E-Book, Manual, Cd, DVD or in other words this “guaranteed treasure map.”

Who’s doing all this advertising? Who’s over the moon to spread the word? Who’s selling the latest shovel, the latest treasure map? It’s the shovel sellers of course!

They know that every time a prospector hits a gold nugget there are hundreds of thousands of prospectors hitting NOTHING but dirt and they are in for a massive pay day! They just love to see someone hit it BIG, as it guarantees that they will hit the mother load again and again.

Now, having read this far, there is only one question you need to answer. Given the chance…what would you rather be, one of the hundreds of thousands of hopeful prospectors or one of the few the shovel sellers?  One of the new breed of Internet Prosperizer!

The choice is yours….If you answered “prospector” STOP reading now…this simply isn’t for you. However, if you answered “Prosperizer” read on.

Let me tell you, for MORE years than I care to remember I was a very “Unlucky” prospector..I never found a single gold nugget but I’ve still hit “The Mother Load”

Let me explain….for years it felt like I had bought enough shovels to start my own mining company. I was forever racing from one brand new “lucky” area to another, looking for that elusive gold nugget. The moment I heard of someone striking gold I was there with everyone else prospecting as if my life depended on it. Buying the latest, information, the latest manual, CD or DVD. Trying to copy their success..doing the exact same thing as thousands of others.

But it didn’t seem to matter how hard I searched, or how hard I worked, I never found anything but DIRT. Until one day I stopped looking and started looking around me.

It didn’t take me long to realise that the people selling the tools i.e. the shovels, picks, maps, (The Manuals, The Cd’s, DVD’s, E-Books etc) were the ones making all the money.

From Buyer to Seller!

That’s when I became an Internet Prosperizer….you see an internet Prosperizer doesn’t buy – they sell.  They stack the odds of getting rich from the internet in their favour by developing and selling the tools to the thousands of prospectors.

To become an Internet Prosperizer – Take the
7 Day Trial Today by visiting:
www.prosperizer.com/100112/

I have been working to the late hours in the mornings, lately and I could hear Abbey walking across the landing a couple of times. At 5am she came down and told me she was feeling sick so I went up with her, and sure as eggs is eggs, she was sick. She perked up after then, so we got up in the morning to take her poster (see yesterdays’ post) to school. They took the poster off her, but sent her home because the school policy is to let 24 hrs lapse before being allowed in again, to restrict infection spreading.

Then this afternoon, it was my turn and I ended up sleeping on the sofa from 7pm to 9.45pm tonight, because I was so sick, and my whole body ached and my earache was quite sharp. After this, I will check my emails and then I will go to bed, for a long earned rest! I will keep you posted with the results of Abbey’s poster.

I am managing to keep my craft area tidy, as I packed it all away before going to the garage to work for my son.

Abbey my 6yr old grand daughter, whom I am bringing up as my daughter had a project from school, to complete by tomorrow. It was to give the children and their families something to do in the holidays.  We had to design a poster to bring awareness to helping the school grounds be more more environmentally friendly. We finished it tonight and this is the result.

It is A3 in size and very 3D and tactile.

The project has highlighted a lot of things that the school could do to help the environment and teach the children how they can do their bit to help save the world. Abbey learnt a lot and thoroughly enjoyed it!

How many of you had this type of chocolate box for Christmas?

A useful use for them is to leave the gold tray in and pop all your Twinkling H2O’s in the spaces.  Leave the lids off the individual H2O pots and then when you come to use them, make use of a spray bottle and spray the whole tray with water and leave for a few minutes. They will become the right consistency and will be so much easier to use from the “palette”.

When finished put the lid back on until required again, no need for all the fiddly little lids which can be thrown away into the recycle bin.

There are 24 spaces for 24 pots of Twinkling H2O and so easy to stack and store.