When I started blogging back in the Days of Yore, I remember distinctly thinking how awesome it was going to be to have all these new little bits of story telling and pictures to scrapbook with.
It made perfect sense. I'd put all this time and energy into crafting blog posts, then I'd transfer it all to a scrapbook page to preserve forever in the so-called real world.
While it's a sound idea, I've probably only done this a handful of times. For example, one time I told a rather sweet story about something Dan said to me (read it here), and then I made this page:
A true and victorious example of blog to page. But I can count on a few fingers how many times this has actually happened.
Enter the Blog Grab.
(Not to be confused with the very familiar and all-too-prevalent Boob Grab):
As I was working on some new template ideas for Designer Digitals, I thought: I want to create something that easily lets me transfer a word-heavy and photo-laden blog post to a simple layout design. You know, a design with lots of room for journaling, and accordingly, room for multiple photos if need be. And here's what I came up with:
These templates (one for 12 x 12 scrappers, and one for 8.5 x 11 scrappers) are my solution for taking a longer story that I love, like this one, and being able to save it to the real world scrapbook page, like this:
Or, the page I actually printed out for Cole's album, in 8.5 x 11:
Because I was on a roll, I also did this hybrid page with another blog post about my girl turning 13:
(click on the image to see a larger version of the layout in new window)
I tweaked the template a bit by first turning off all of the photo layers and backgrounds, then erasing the lower left hand horizontal line on the overlay for the left page, and then flipping the overlay itself and moving the journaling block over to continue the journaling on a second page. Next I copied and pasted my journaling directly from the blog post into the template and formatted the text using Avenir and a tiny bit of Amelie. Then I printed the two pages out onto white cardstock. To finish, I grabbed some of the shots from the blog post (in 300 DPI, mind you), plus a few other shots, measured the open space, and trimmed the photos to size.
These templates also work great if you simply need lots of space for multiple photos and longer stories.Don't let your good stories live only in cyberspace. Take them from blog to page today. Try one this weekend!
Every one of my templates is on sale—as is everything in the store—until next Tuesday at 6 a.m. E.S.T. as part of the Designer Digitals 4th Quarter Sale.
Have a lovely weekend.
