debbie hodge

  • I am a writer, scrapbooker, mom and wife, dishwasher with an MBA. I own Get It Scrapped! at debbiehodge.com offering online classes for paper and digital scrapbookers, art journalers, writers, and crafters.
My Photo

get it scrapped mailing list

Twitter Updates

    follow me on Twitter

    header credits

    • "Don't Pick the Flowers" by Lynn Grieveson; Scalloped Strip Masks #2 by Katie Pertiet; www.designerdigitals.com.
    Blog Widget by LinkWithin

    July 04, 2009

    Patriotic Scrapbook Page

    Happy 4th of July and . . . to get in the patriotic mood, I scrapbooked Memorial Day photos. Two products coming to the Designer Digitals store tomorrow got me inspired. Lynn Grieveson's Uncle Sam Mini Kit and an awesome new HTDT (How'd They Do That?) lesson from Cassie Jones --On the Border . . . check it out! I made that star border strip from Lynn's paper. Love this lesson. Here's a link to the layout (Memorial Day -- digital layout) and I'll update the store links on it when the new products come out.

    MemorialDayParadeForWeb And speaking of coming out --- the sun just came out here so we're going to grab a little outside time before the rain returns. Happy 4th and much gratitude to the men and women who protect and fight for our country. Thanks.

    July 03, 2009

    Scrapbooking Your Everyday Places

    This is a preview lesson for “Scrapbooking Everyday Life.” For details on the complete class and registration, click here. To read and print this lesson in pdf form, click here.

    Note: the journaling for the layouts here is at the bottom of this post.


    Your Everyday Places

    • prompts & approaches for: everyday places
    • focus on journaling: meaning without schmaltz
    • sketches for scrapbooking everyday life

    “I want to go home to the dull old town, with the shaded street, and the open square, and the hill, and the flats, and the house I love, and the paths I know -- I want to go home.” -- Paul Kester


    BeenThereForWeb The places we come from, the places we’ve traveled through, and the places we long to visit  all inform who we are. How many of you have had the very longing described in the opening quote here? When you experience this kind of longing for a place, the place itself takes on associations and triggers feelings.  

    Writers and filmmakers understand this connection between place and character, often creating a story setting with such power it becomes a character itself. Think of 1920s Long Island in The Great Gatsby. Its geography and society inform the characters’ actions--both those who’ve lived there all their lives and the newcomer Gatsby.

    When I want to plumb my own thoughts on the places in my life, past and present, I often turn to the poem “First Year” by Irish poet Eavan Boland that begins:

    It was in our first home--
    our damp, upstairs, one-year eyrie--
    above a tree-lined area
    nearer the city.


    That first stanza can carry me immediately to a “garden” apartment in Silver Springs, MD, and from there I’m recalling the furniture, the deck, the view of the parking lot below it, and even the stories. The ending to this poem drives home this poet's belief in the impact place has on character (and even the relationships that a character is capable of)

    Where is the soul of a marriage?

    Because I am writing this
    not to recall our lives,
    but to imagine them,
    I will say it is
    in the first gifts of place:

    the steep inclines
    and country silences
    of your boyhood,
    the orange-faced narcissi
    and the whole length of the
            Blackwater

    strengthening our embrace.


    Against Love Poetry 
    by Eavan Boland


    Many of my favorite scrapbook pages are those I’ve created as my own nod to the places in my life. “Been There” (above) and “Its Charm” (below) are both about my childhood home--a topic I scrapbook again and again.

    Oxford_ItsCharmForWeb

    prompts & approaches: YOUR EVERYDAY PLACES

    To figure out and decide which places of your life to scrapbook:

    Pull out a piece of paper and begin making lists that answer the following:

    • What are the “MACRO” places in which you live your everyday life? (These would be places like: home, town, work, school, errand destinations, fun destinations, etc.)
    • Within each of these “MACRO” spots, what are the “MICRO SPOTS?” (i.e., for the macro spot “home” the micro spots might include: kitchen, porch, desk, garage, garden, driveway, foyer . . .)
    • Now go through your lists and check off the spots that compel you. To decide just how you’ll approach documenting a particular place, ask yourself these questions --and make notes as you do. The answers will help you get at the place’s significance in your life, the tone you want to take in your journaling, and even details to include in the journaling:

    - is this spot a part of your daily routine?
    - is it a place you like to go to? what feelings do you have about it?
    - does it have a strong influence on your character (or on that of those living with you)?
    - will you remember it in 10 years? do you want to remember it in 10 years?
    - what makes it interesting or compelling?
    - what do you usually do at this spot?
    - who else is with you at this spot?
    - what is/are the lighting, the temperature, the smells at this spot?
    - what are the most important concrete details about this spot?

    • With your lists and answers in front of you, pick a place and decide upon an approach for making your page. In other words, decide upon the scope and angle you’ll take. Will it be thoughtful, documentary, snapshot, or contextual?

     thoughtful
    Create a thoughtful (perhaps even reverent) celebration of an important place that helps the viewer understand your feelings about the place and the role it plays (or has played) in your life. “Been There” (above) is this kind of page for me. I firmly believe that the place I was raised has left an indelible (and good) mark on my character, and this is one of the many pages I’ve made in homage to it. “Trestle” (at the end of this post) records how the train tracks and trestle near our home have fit into our life over the years.

    documentary
    Make a document or record of your personal world. “Your Room” (below) includes several photos of my son’s room last year. I wanted a record (for him and for me) of the things that he surrounded himself with and the style in which he did this.

    “Sweet Dreams” (below) is another bedroom page. The bedroom documented here is the one my sons share when they’re at their grandparents’ home.

    snapshot
    Take a (perhaps fun) peek at a very localized spot in your life captured at one moment in time. “Like a River to the Sea” is this kind of a page for me-- I took a photo of the odd items that accumulated on my dresser top recently and then journaling a list and some of the reasons these things are there.

    LikeARiverToTheSea

    context
    Scrap a page that’s not specifically about a place, but that uses photos of place to provide context. In “See Why” (below) the farmland in the photos sets the context for my Dad’s story and allows me to make a record of what his land looked like at this time.

    JoshuasRoom 

    focus on journaling: MEANING WITHOUT SCHMALTZ

    Purple prose, sentimentality, schmaltz: all of these are ways of describing writing that uses exaggerated or affected emotion. Sentimental writing relies on cliches (“heaven on earth,” “a feast for the eyes”) and abstracts (peace, despair, joy) to grab at a reader’s heartstrings rather than taking the time to render a subject with complexities and specifics. The result is writing that we don’t quite believe and definitely don’t feel.

    Try these techniques for pages that have meaning without being “schmaltzy.”

    • Pay attention to concrete details.  

    SeeWhyForWebIn both your writing and your photos, focus on conveying how you experienced something concretely (as opposed to naming your feelings) including any of the five senses for which you have relevant information. Relevant is key -- detail for detail’s sake can weigh things down and make it hard for the reader to figure out what’s important.

    Photos can show lighting, colors, and specific sights. In your writing, you can include smell, sound, touch, and taste.

    The best way to do this writing is to allow yourself to initially free write and then revise with a checklist:
    * Use no more than 20% abstract concepts and 80% concrete description. (See sidebar here.)
    * Avoid “pretty prose” by eliminating streams of adjectives, adverbs, and metaphors.
    * Avoid clichés, simplistic expressions, and “Hallmark”-isms.
    * Be clear. Revise language that’s “fuzzy,” i.e., sweet and abstract, and replace it with concrete details.

    Concrete details are those of images that can be sensed (seen, heard, touched, smelled, even tasted). Including details gives your image specificity. “Creature” is a vague word. “Animal” is more specific but still leaves a lot to the imagination. “ But tell us about your “long-haired Persian cat with a wide face” and you’re getting specific.

    Significant details are those that matter to the story. You don’t need filler. A significant detail suggests an abstraction or feeling like beauty or stress or joy without using that abstract word. When you write the detail rather than the abstraction you’ve got a more compelling piece.

    The journaling in “See Why” opens with a listing of the constants of a farmer’s life and a brief history of how my father got there, then moves on to recount a specific outing. This outing provides a few concrete details that supplement the photos -- and that build up to provide the basis for my new understanding of where he’s coming from. The photos work with the journaling to establish the concrete details. Views of land with lots of green grass, blue sky, bits of water and trees all give a sense of the natural world in which my father has moved about his entire life.

     

    • Evoke an emotional response with color, image, motif, and design choices.

    SweetDreamsForWebOn a scrapbook page, you have more than your journaling available for conveying a feeling. It’s possible to use a combination of images, color, and motif to convey the joy or disappointment of a moment, place, or subject. In writing about art (specifically about Hamlet), T.S. Eliot talked about the “objective correlative,” a set of objects, or a situation, or a chain of events that evoke an emotion in the audience. Rather than writing “He felt sad,” in a story, the author can use weather, gestures, and even the things the character observes to the same purpose. On many of the pages you scrapbook, you will absolutely have a feeling or attitude about the subject you’re scrapping. Consciously think about every choice you make to create a whole that’s evocative of a mood or emotion.

    Specifically, you can work with:
    * color associations
    * pattern (oversized, stylized florals convey a different tone than bright dots on white background)
    *photo cropping and editing
    * image and motif

     The layered papers along with curled and worn edges and warm colors in “Sweet Dreams” convey a cozy tone that goes with how I feel about this room. A bedtime motif of the cow jumping over the moon and a gingham bow complete this feeling and support the subjects

    • Show don’t tell

    TrestleHold back from telling the reader what they should think about your subject (or at least save it for the end). Trust that if you report an experience as truly and accurately as possible that it will speak for itself. Do not try to shape a response, but, rather, seek to present the kind of clear picture that lets readers come to their own understanding of meaning. The journaling on “Its Charm” above accumulates details that work to earn the abstract “charm” in the page’s title, listing the many aspects of life at my parents’ home that are both different than those at my home and that my family loves.

    The journaling and photos in “Trestle” also accumulate details. The photos were taken in different seasons and from different angles. The details accumulated in the journaling are of incidents relating to this place. Together they sum to show just how this spot fits into our lives now and in the past.

    sketches: FOR SCRAPBOOKING EVERYDAY LIFE

    GISSketch11

    Click here to download layered psd files of these three sketches.

    LAYOUT JOURNALING

    June 30, 2009

    Inspiration for Art Journal pages from the work of van Gogh, Picasso, Cassatt, & Warhol

    In Masterful Art Journaling, Dina Wakley has written 8 detailed lessons and illustrated then with the work of the masters and her own journal pages (often with step-by-step shots). 4 Weekly videos make this class a fabulous inspiration and resource.

    Here's a Picasso collage and Dina's page that was inspired by this piece.
    Picassocollage2 201aj56

    June 29, 2009

    Being Disciplined

    I want just a little break from it. Or, I guess what I’m tired of is being disciplined about certain things (work and house) and then just letting other things go to hell in a handbasket (that would be exercise and food). How many of you have a running list in your head of things that you MUST do just in time . . . otherwise the whole structure around you will fall apart?

    Right now I’ve got the following rolling through my mind as needing to be done soon:

    • get new ad blinkies for July done
    • clean up the mess that some animal made with the full compost bucket I left on the deck overnight
    • figure out how to direct pay teachers so they don’t have to deal with paypal fees
    • get pool passes
    • clean up the mess in my bedroom that’s a result of having cleaned the boys’ rooms --- and do it before Neil gets home at midnight so that it’s calm and welcoming
    • ooops – better go do this one before I finish this post – order Isaac’s camp shirt
    • move plants for Neil so he can start his shed –meant to get it done while he was out of town, but that’s not going to happen (but I will blame the rain for this one)
    • get final notes & requests out to DD book contributors
    • figure out how to get two huge trees that have fallen in the river moved
    • start looking over fall class proposals
    • get webpage for “Still More Mad Digital Skillz” up
    • finish writing my class that starts next week --- & promote it

    Show me your list. I always LOVE reading lists on blogs. And tell me what you’d do if you didn’t have a list. I would scrapbook. Ah, scrapbook! And watch a movie --just watch a movie, not work while I watch it.

    I’ve just treated myself to a little r&r, though,by writing this post and by taking this photo of my dresser. Whenever we can’t find something around here, they boys will eventually say, “Look on Mom’s dresser.” And I often lament, “Why’s *THIS* (pvc pipe, lone sock, wrapper to string cheese, YuGiOh card deck) on my dresser?”
    Dressersm

    This looks like it would make a fun “I Spy” for our family. All these odd things mean something to at least one of us. The orange & blue paint bottles are from Isaac painting a tank model “blue camo.” The card shuffler is from evening games of Gin Rummy with Isaac. The pvc is part of Joshua’s recent nerf remodeling hobby, Isaac and I watched “My Fair Lady” last week. The trombone slide grease was packed in my suitcase on the Disney trip and it hasn’t made it’s way back to the trombone case.

    June 14, 2009

    free DOODLING lesson--it's awesome!

    Doodling, painting, hand-cutting, and stitching: great ways to get personal art on your scrapbook and art journal pages

    In her online class, “Oodles of Doodles,” beginning Monday, June 15th, Michelle Houghton will teach you these "personal-art" techniques, and then show you how to use them as backgrounds, embellishments, lettering, and journaling blocks for your journals and pages. 

    Early-registered participants have already had a chance to get doodling with Michelle’s free “Warm Up” lesson—and now you can check it out, too. This introductory class prompted a lot of chatter and resulted in Michelle posting impromptu lessons in the welcome forum on drawing eyes and puzzle pieces. It’s looking like several of the participants will be sharing Michelle’s how-tos with their kids this summer.

    Check out Michelle’s preview lesson, "Warm Up Your Fingers," to learn the patterns shown here and more. Sign up for class now so that you can join in the conversation already happening in the “Oodles of Doodles” welcome forum.




    June 08, 2009

    new photography class starting this week

    capturing your life:
    Through the Lens

    Join Katrina Kennedy in class for the next three weeks, and look through your camera lens to create photographs that capture the story you want to tell. You will explore both artistic and technical aspects of “seeing” with your camera. You’ll learn about focus and composition while finding out just how to use those buttons and knobs on your camera.

    This class is good for beginners, point-and-shoot camera users, as well as those with digital SLR cameras. In addition to 6 written lessons and daily forum chatter, Katrina has prepared 4 video lessons, and she will host a live-chat for participants.

    Still not sure? Download this free preview lesson from Katrina and see how and what she’s planning to teach as well as the interactive features she’s including in this course. Class starts tomorrow, so check out the preview now, and get registered so you can participate in an adventure of seeing and capturing your life “Through the Lens.”

    June 07, 2009

    I miss blogging

    I so miss blogging. It has become my diary of what goes on – my resource for scrapbooking pages, my way of keeping family and friends updated on what we’re doing. But . . . what’s happened is this: I owe a lot of people stuff – and so I feel like if I blog, they’ll see that I had time to blog and wonder why I haven’t taken care of their stuff. It stinks. I don’t scrapbook enough anymore either.

    Right now my “I’m-behind-on” list is bigger than my “to-do” list.

    • I owe people answers, calls, emails, gifts, videos, photos, & coffee.
    • By next Monday, I need to (or really ought to) finish the e-book I’m writing for Designer Digitals, write at least 4 promotional letters for classes, put up new webpages & come up with a “look” for two classes, restore the old smileys to the forums,  integrate the chat-room & its database into the new forums, make more progress on the spring cleanup of our yard (yes, I said spring), edit photos from the Disney trip, edit photos for a friend, figure out how to access and distribute the video from the Disney concert, figure out who still owes money from the Disney trip & hand off to my collection-agency friend, Emma, edit and lay out at least 2 Oodles of Doodles lessons and at least one Masterful Art Journaling lesson.
    • Between now and Monday, the things that will keep me from doing these things are: laundry, dishes, evening events M-Th, technical support & general email correspondence, hanging out with my family, two ball games--and just maybe doing a few puzzles to relieve stress, and the fact that I am not quick at much of my work. It all takes some consideration, revision, proofing, and thinking.

    So what did I do today to put a dent in the list?

    Got up and answered emails and registered students for classes. Updated the homepage of Get It Scrapped with details about "Captured Through the Lens" which is starting Tuesday and "Oodles of Doodles" which is starting next week. And then . . . I tracked down the missing chat transcript from Katrina's chat last week. And I started moving the chatroom over to be integrated with the forums but didn't finish . . .

    We all went down to the river and did a lot clean up--- got the decking reset on concrete blocks, pulled out the boats and chairs and boat rack, carried down the picnic table (which is NEVER going back up) and I spent at least an hour working on repairing the cane seat in the canoe. The boys swam and took the paddle boat out.

    Registered more students and answered emails.

    Helped Joshua get going on his homework and fed everyone and then we played another long game of Settlers of Catan --- (now if i'd been blogging as I should have been recently, I would have blogged about our discovery of this game a couple of weeks ago---I did, however, scrapbook this and the page is below).

    Registered more students and answered emails.

    Ran out to get pizza for dinner. WE ate and then I cut Neil and Isaac's hair. Put clean sheets on the bed.

    Registered more students and answered emails. . . . and then WROTE THIS POST!! yippee. I'm blogging.

    And here's my layout from a couple of weeks ago: 5 Hours Later.

    5HoursLaterForWeb