[Sara Arell]

I use InDesign and Photoshop for my layouts (simple as though they may be) but because I started digi-scrapping long before I found SG I already had 4 full scrapbooks full of 8.5 x 11.5 pages since I was printing them at home and putting them right into my scrapbooks. It was just easier for me, but the more I see the 12 x 12 layouts here (and I have started doing a few that size on here) I'm beginning to like it and am in the process of looking for a large format printer because I really like printing them at home, but am not against taking them out to be printed.

I find that my smaller layouts here are a wee bit harder to see and a lot of people think they are 4 x 6 - just wondered if I'm the only one who uses 8.5 x 11.5 digi-scrapping?
Are scrapbooks that are 12 x 12 hard to find? And how about document protectors for that size layout? And do 12 x 12 scrapbooks come in three ring or any ring binders?

Just thinking about changing things up a notch here and curious to know what you all think?

Hope this makes sense.

Thanks, Sara

[SandiC.]

I do 8.5x11, both portrait and landscape. At Hobby Lobby I've found some very cute 8.5x11 landscape orientation albums. Most of the ones I do I scrap as 12x12 but reduce to 8x8 to print. The 12x12 and 8x8 albums are readily available at most craft stores and some at discount stores too. There are tons available at different web sites and a quick google should give you plenty of choices.I also do a few smaller albums, 5x7 and 4x6. Its fun to change it up. I love the 8x8 albums because they fit on the bookshelf so much more easily than the 12x12. You can find ring binders, but it seems the post bound ones are more readily available. One other nice thing with 8x8 is that you can print on 8.5x11 paper and trim to size, no need for a big expensive printer.

[Sara Arell]

SandiC., on 09 November 2010 - 07:29 AM, said:

I do 8.5x11, both portrait and landscape. At Hobby Lobby I've found some very cute 8.5x11 landscape orientation albums. Most of the ones I do I scrap as 12x12 but reduce to 8x8 to print. The 12x12 and 8x8 albums are readily available at most craft stores and some at discount stores too. There are tons available at different web sites and a quick google should give you plenty of choices.I also do a few smaller albums, 5x7 and 4x6. Its fun to change it up. I love the 8x8 albums because they fit on the bookshelf so much more easily than the 12x12. You can find ring binders, but it seems the post bound ones are more readily available. One other nice thing with 8x8 is that you can print on 8.5x11 paper and trim to size, no need for a big expensive printer.

THANK YOU! Sandy, I had hoped you would have an answer for me - I really appreciate all of the info you shared with me - Now I don't feel so different doing my 8.5 x 11 layouts since it appears I can do so much with them - thanks for the tips!

[AggieB]

If you are pleased with the format, Sara, go for it. I do 12x12 because that is what I started with and I rarely print things out anyway. If you are going to print yourself, I'd say the 8.5x11 is the most practical - no risk of messing things up at the last post because you slipped with the trimmer. Your layouts are pretty, too.

[Pab]

Ditto what Sandi said! My first book I did was a 8.5 x11, but I quickly changed to 12X12 for scrapping then convert to 8x8 for printing. Even when I send out to print (like Walgreens) I just put the 8x8 on 8x10 size and cut when it comes in. They are much easier to handle and store on bookshelves. The only time I considered printing in an 12x12 was for my sisters weddings. But since I had two books to do back to back it was more economical still to print them in 8x8. My sister told me later she was glad I did because it made it easier for her to carry to work and share with everyone.

[no_idea]

I scrap at 12x12, but I print at 8x8 on 8x10 paper and trim. 8x8 is way cheaper than 12x12 and the books are easier to handle.

[MaryCole]

I started out making layouts in the portrait view (8.5 X11), but changed over to landscape view (11 x 8.5). I find having the long side horizontal makes it easier to place things on the page. I have also made an 8 x 8 album. I bought a small Fiskars paper cutter for trimming. I do my printing at home.

[BarbaraC1977]

I've done a few portrait 8.5 x 11 layouts, but prefer working in landscape 11x8.5. I love how these layouts fit on our digital picture frame shows, and on my phone's photo gallery. I have to work harder to have "white space" than on 12x12, but I really like this format. I also enjoy 4x6 for recipe cards.

I was glad to read Sandi's tip about albums at Hobby Lobby. Commercial printing services handle landscape just fine, but I hadn't seen many albums for "local" printing. Thanks for the tip!

Does anyone do 5x7? Just wondering.

[SandiC.]

I did find a nice 5x7 (landscape orientation) at Hobby Lobby and I got it, but haven't used it yet. LOL. I plan to some day, just haven't found the right subject yet.

[BarbaraC1977]

Good to know, Sandi.

By the way, it's been fun learning how to composite the elements on SS templates or papers, stacking and adding masks etc to turn these into 11 x 8.5 templates, without distorting the design by just resizing. Here's an example of what I mean:
 SNU_Fragmented_5_SSPaper_600.jpg (181.47K)
Number of downloads: 21  SNU_Fragmented1_5_SSPaper_Letter 600.jpg (130.45K)
Number of downloads: 21

This takes a little time, but once I got started, they didn't take long to be re-saved. PSD layout templates are usually even easier to reconfigure. My apologies to Syndee Nuckles if she doesn't care for this use of her lovely templates; but who knows, maybe our designers will be encouraged to do more of these!

[Heatheranne]

I make my layouts at 12x12, then shrink them to 8x8 for printing. As said previously, the 8x8's are easier to handle and to store. One thing I do that hasn't been mentioned is that I make a strip from the layout that's about 2 to 23/4 wide and place it with the 8x8 onto a 8.5 by 11 paper. After it's printed, I trim the layout and strip, so that I have a matching bookmark of the layout. When the bookmark has been plastic coated it's very durable and I love to use my homemade bookmarks. I also use them as stocking stuffers and put them in with cards, as an added little bonus. Cards get discarded or hidden away, but a bookmark seems to stay accessable. A wonderful little rememberance! :-)

[SandiC.]

Heatheranne, on 09 November 2010 - 09:54 AM, said:

I make my layouts at 12x12, then shrink them to 8x8 for printing. As said previously, the 8x8's are easier to handle and to store. One thing I do that hasn't been mentioned is that I make a strip from the layout that's about 2 to 23/4 wide and place it with the 8x8 onto a 8.5 by 11 paper. After it's printed, I trim the layout and strip, so that I have a matching bookmark of the layout. When the bookmark has been plastic coated it's very durable and I love to use my homemade bookmarks. I also use them as stocking stuffers and put them in with cards, as an added little bonus. Cards get discarded or hidden away, but a bookmark seems to stay accessable. A wonderful little rememberance! :-)

What a fabulous idea! And not one bit of wasted paper too. I'll have to try that.

[BarbaraC1977]

I love the bookmark idea, too!

[B&K Mom]

Heatheranne, on 09 November 2010 - 09:54 AM, said:

I make my layouts at 12x12, then shrink them to 8x8 for printing. As said previously, the 8x8's are easier to handle and to store. One thing I do that hasn't been mentioned is that I make a strip from the layout that's about 2 to 23/4 wide and place it with the 8x8 onto a 8.5 by 11 paper. After it's printed, I trim the layout and strip, so that I have a matching bookmark of the layout. When the bookmark has been plastic coated it's very durable and I love to use my homemade bookmarks. I also use them as stocking stuffers and put them in with cards, as an added little bonus. Cards get discarded or hidden away, but a bookmark seems to stay accessable. A wonderful little rememberance! :-)

I do this too...especially for our DDs. They LOVE to have bookmarks with their names on them AND that match their scrapbook pages. I need to add them to the pages I do for my parents. My mom would love the bookmarks too.

[PBarnes]

Sara, I haven't looked for 8 1/2 x 11 sized albums much but I would say there are more 12x12 albums and page protector sheets available than the 8 1/2 x 11 size. I think there are some 3-ring binder types available in 12x12 but I'm not positive.

I like the 12x12 over the 8 1/2 x 11 just because of the addition room for adding things. I do print some of my layouts at 8x8 on my home printer but send some layouts out to be printed 12x12. I would love to have a wide format printer but I'm not sure I can justify the cost.

[Heatheranne]

SandiC., on 09 November 2010 - 10:10 AM, said:

Heatheranne, on 09 November 2010 - 09:54 AM, said:

I make my layouts at 12x12, then shrink them to 8x8 for printing. As said previously, the 8x8's are easier to handle and to store. One thing I do that hasn't been mentioned is that I make a strip from the layout that's about 2 to 23/4 wide and place it with the 8x8 onto a 8.5 by 11 paper. After it's printed, I trim the layout and strip, so that I have a matching bookmark of the layout. When the bookmark has been plastic coated it's very durable and I love to use my homemade bookmarks. I also use them as stocking stuffers and put them in with cards, as an added little bonus. Cards get discarded or hidden away, but a bookmark seems to stay accessable. A wonderful little rememberance! :-)

What a fabulous idea! And not one bit of wasted paper too. I'll have to try that.

Thank you so much for your interest! I wasn't impressed with losing that strip of paper, then one day when making a book purchase, a paper bookmark from the bookstore was inserted into the new purchase. Voila! I can make my own, I thought and all I have to do is cover them with stick-on laminate. Now when I prepare layouts for printing, it's become part of the process. When I do 8x10 layouts, I make strips for them that I combine all onto one page, or add them to a page where I'm printing out recipes or ATC's. There always seems to be room somewhere to add one or two bookmarks. I'm sure that you'll love having them and gifting them! :-)

Debbie, I'm sure that your mom would love to have bookmarks made by you, especially with photos of the girls and other family members. :-)

[Sara Arell]

Thank you all so much for all of your input - I appreciate it so much - now just have to decide what i want to do -

Heatheranne, I love your idea about the bookmark - how clever!

Sandi - I will check out Hobby Lobby - thanks for the many tips!

And thanks to all who gave me so many ideas and suggestions - it's funny how we all do things differently, isn't it? Love it!

BTW I do prefer my 8.5 in landscape mode too.

[caprimom]

I usually scrap in 12x12 because that's what I started with but I will scrap in 8.5x11 every once in awhile. I resize to 8x8 for printing and Heather, I'm totally stealing your idea LOL.

[Sara Arell]

Thanks, Ashleigh - I've gotten a lot of great ideas from all of you and I do appreciate them - don't mind my layouts being 8.5 x 11 in my scrapbooks but they look sooooo tiny in the Gallery and it definitely doesn't leave me a lot of space to do all I really want to do to a layout.

[SandiC.]

I found some nice 8.5x11 portrait orientation albums at Target, leather look.

[Sara Arell]

Ooh! Thanks, Sandi - I use the portrait ones and when I have a landscape just insert it in there too - the kids get a kick out of having to turn the book around to see what Nanny has done! Target - I will see you in a day or so!

[BarbaraC1977]

I saw Sandi's suggestion about 5x7 photo albums at Hobby Lobby, and marched right down to pick up a couple, made by "The Paper Studio." Adjusted a few photos and printed them to exactly 5x7.

Ack!

The slots in the books are not really 5x7. The slots for pictures are 5.5 x 7.75. I can crop my layouts to that proportion for future prints. I just wish I'd checked it first. I wanted to give everyone a "heads up" about this, so no one else gets this surprise.

[Sara Arell]

Ack! to quote Barbara! I haven't been well enough to go to Hobby Lobby yet so haven't bought these books yet - maybe I will give it a second thought and just stick to my already growing number of 8.5 x 11 scrapbooks - I can print them at home, put them in document protectors which have the three holes in them for the binders and will "match" all of the ones I've already made - I guess I've come to the conclusion that "why change something that isn't really broken" and the kids are used to the books I make by now anyway.

I can buy regular notebooks that have the plastic insert on the front of them and design each one personalizing it for each of the 8 grands I am making them for and the paper for those binders that I use (matte finish) is not that expensive - my ink lasts a long time which surprises me a little but it really isn't too bad. I asked at several stores about the large format printers and was told that I would have to buy larger paper and have it cut to 12 x 12 and there is another expense, so not really sure what to do.

One thing I did do just to try it out was to send my 8.5 x 11 layouts off to an online company and ordered 4 x 6 prints - I was just AMAZED when they arrived - they had captured the entire layout and nothing was cut off at all - so I do have several books now that hold 4 x 6 layouts (almost like a postcard really) I really thought they would come back with the edges missing but they did a great job with them - I sent them to Snap Fish and they did an incredible job of keeping the whole layout in the 4 x 6 size for just pennies a copy.
Guess that's just one more way to go as 4 x 6 books are easy to find with the document protectors already in the books.

Digi-scrapping is trial and error once one tries to get away from the norm and I really wanted to try the 12 x 12 because one can get so much ore on the page - but, alas, no document protecters to be found - at least not ones that don't "stick" to the picture - mine aren't cheap but they do a great job of protecting and not sticking to the layout - I did a few on glossy paper and found that they did tend to stick a little after a few years so went to matte paper and the results are remarkable.

Sandi, if you have any more tips, let me know - I till would like to change things up - putting together the books does add up over time and iI spend too much on ink, paper and document protectors but have done it that way for almost 12 years now and not sure how to change really. Any suggestions would be appreciated. May have to just stick to what I've been doing.

Thanks again to everyone for all of the advice - it gave me something to think about.

[Smiles]

BarbaraC1977, on 09 November 2010 - 09:50 AM, said:

Good to know, Sandi.

By the way, it's been fun learning how to composite the elements on SS templates or papers, stacking and adding masks etc to turn these into 11 x 8.5 templates, without distorting the design by just resizing. Here's an example of what I mean:
SNU_Fragmented_5_SSPaper_600.jpg SNU_Fragmented1_5_SSPaper_Letter 600.jpg

This takes a little time, but once I got started, they didn't take long to be re-saved. PSD layout templates are usually even easier to reconfigure. My apologies to Syndee Nuckles if she doesn't care for this use of her lovely templates; but who knows, maybe our designers will be encouraged to do more of these!

I would love a tutorial on how to do this - I figured out a way to do it on a frame with straight edges (make a copy, stack and slide them to the width you want, line up exactly, and erase the overlap) but it's pretty labor intensive. And it doesn't work on the kind of paper you showed.

[BarbaraC1977]

Smiles, on 13 November 2010 - 01:10 PM, said:

I would love a tutorial on how to do this - I figured out a way to do it on a frame with straight edges (make a copy, stack and slide them to the width you want, line up exactly, and erase the overlap) but it's pretty labor intensive. And it doesn't work on the kind of paper you showed.

You got it, Gayle! I'm posting it here: http://scrapgirls.co...howtopic=49358.
Hope it helps.

[tinkerbell11]

This is a great thread so many fun tips and tricks! Thanks for asking the question Sara. I am a 12 x 12 girl, was in paper too so I didn't switch just print 8 x 8 at home, I am going to get some of my LO's done 12 x 12 tho soon a nice bound book to see my favorites full sized.

[Sara Arell]

tinkerbell11, on 13 November 2010 - 09:20 PM, said:

This is a great thread so many fun tips and tricks! Thanks for asking the question Sara. I am a 12 x 12 girl, was in paper too so I didn't switch just print 8 x 8 at home, I am going to get some of my LO's done 12 x 12 tho soon a nice bound book to see my favorites full sized.

Great idea, Shannon! I'm still pondering about this........since all of my pages for the most part are 8.5 x 11. not sure i want to change but am going to look at 12 x 12 binders - I've been told I wlll have to have my 12 x 12 paper cut but am still checking on it. Decisions, decisions!

[Smiles]

BarbaraC1977, on 13 November 2010 - 05:07 PM, said:

Smiles, on 13 November 2010 - 01:10 PM, said:

I would love a tutorial on how to do this - I figured out a way to do it on a frame with straight edges (make a copy, stack and slide them to the width you want, line up exactly, and erase the overlap) but it's pretty labor intensive. And it doesn't work on the kind of paper you showed.

You got it, Gayle! I'm posting it here: http://scrapgirls.co...howtopic=49358.
Hope it helps.

You are the best, Barbara!

[Sara Arell]

Ditto, Gayle!............and Barbara!

[Matadors and a Princess]

Awesome ideas here ladies. I love the bookmark idea...my family is..are? bookaholics, so those would be highly entertaining for them.

My comments:

I've been scrapping in 12x12 because, initially, that is what my cousin chose for my grandmother (which is what started my digi-scrapping) But I found some references in a book called Self-Preservation...by Anita Hallman. She suggested scrapping in the 8.5x11 because you didn't need any special equipment, you can simply use the standard page-protectors that you mentioned, Sara, and toss them into standard binders. Nice neat shelf of standard sized projects that can be continually added to over time and still look cohesive.

Elsewhere in my searching, I read a suggestion to scrap 12x12 but print 8x8, again to be able to put in standard sized equipment. Another statement I've picked up is that often on a 12x12 we tend to make all the pictures & embellishments too big. We can learn to make it right..but the idea is that when it is printed 8x8, it is just the right size...I think this is probably the biggest reason why I scrap in 12x12...because my dear grandmother has imperfect eyes and it is more difficult for her to see smaller things. This way I can create pages/books for her and use the exact same layout in the 8x8 size for everyone else.

One other thought is simply cost...12x12 prints from my photo lab are three times the cost of the 8x8s (we ditched the color printer a couple of years ago).