scrapbooking

[hacatta]

I was surfing on the web yesterday and came across scrap booking,now i remembered someone mentioning it using it for her parrot.
I i am really thinking of doing it,but i have no idea what it is all about.
Do you buy a completed one,or make the layout yourself?
What do you put in to it,i couldn't find one that was used for birds.
Is their someone that is doing this here?i really would like to know more about it.
Like do you use one for all the birds or do they have one each?.
I really would like to have a book with such fond memories when they are gone,they are still young so not for a long time i hope.
But i can make the best memories now to document.
Thank you for reading!

 

[Terry57]

I have done a few scrapbooks in the past, but hadn't thought of doing one for the birds! What a great idea
I am sure if you google scrapbooking, you will find lots of info about how others do it. The great thing about it is that you decide how you want to do it...there isn't a wrong way
Michaels has lots of scrapbooking supplies (I don't know where you are located) and there are also stores dedicated to scrapbooking. They make stickers and all kinds of things. You can also print off things from your computer that you can use

 

[noblemacaw]

I have "scrapbooked" for all three of my deceased parrots. I will now do a combined one of my cat Julianna and dog Mercedes. All these animals I no longer have. All I have left at this point is Valentino my RFM and Julio my rescue.

Anyway I have always created my own. First I bought the album. For each bird I though of a color that best suited their personality. Joaquin's my Eclectus color was blue because he was very mellow, intelligent and gave of himself so much to others. Diego, my illiger's macaw album is purple. This is my favorite color and apparently I favored Diego the most. Mihijo's took me the longest to choose. I ended up picking a printed album with printed flowers of bright orange, yellow green and brown. This album as the look of 70's print for mod clothing. When I saw the album I thought of my boy that was such a special little macaw. Mercedes my Scottish Terrier's album is bright red with the blue undertone. I will also add pictures of Julianna my Ragdoll cat in this same album because I don't have enough pictures of her to make her own album.

My sister scrapbooked each one of her childern and has several family ones as well. She has a LOT of equipment and she invites me to come down and use anything she has. She is very generous with extra "embellishments" (that is what scrapbookers call the stuff you decorate the page with) but I also bought tropical embellishments and printed paper for my parrot books and dog and cat embellishments for the fur baby book.

My sister once told me I only seem to work on scrapbooks after the parrot had died. I thought to myself this is very strange and WHY do I only make them after they died? For one thing making the book was my way of honoring each parrot as I took their deaths very hard. Another is I wanted to create visual images of my memories of them and be able to have a tangible book of each special boy. Now that I had to place my cat and dog (Mercedes went to the Scottish Terrier rescue on Sunday and I still have to tear down her kennel and wash her bowls and take care of her pillow and toys as Lupe won't lift one finger to deal with Mercedes things because she is too upset with having to part with her) I will make their scrapbook as well.

In each parrot scrapbook I made a page just of their tail feathers. They are arranged in a fan with a picture of the parrot in the middle of there the quills meet. I also used some body feathers though out the album. Each album is unique to that parrot and fur babies.

If you have any questions let me know. Personally you don't need to buy a lot of stuff except for the album, embellishments, have the pictures and what ever from the animal you want to include in the album and background printed paper which to paste all the pictures and embellishments too.

I don't want to wait until Valentino had died before I make his scrapbook. I have enough pictures of him starting when he was six weeks old to now that I could fill most of a book with.

 

[KiwiPlusUs1025]

I have done a book for my GCC on shutter fly. its really user friendly and as of last week there was a groupon. I think i paid like $26 with shipping and the book come out GREAT. I can post some pictures of the actually book if you would like to see it. let me know

 

[hacatta]

I have done a book for my GCC on shutter fly. its really user friendly and as of last week there was a groupon. I think i paid like $26 with shipping and the book come out GREAT. I can post some pictures of the actually book if you would like to see it. let me know

I would love to see some pictures.
I also like the idea of using their feathers by their first picture.

 

[Terry57]

I have done a book for my GCC on shutter fly. its really user friendly and as of last week there was a groupon. I think i paid like $26 with shipping and the book come out GREAT. I can post some pictures of the actually book if you would like to see it. let me know

I'd love to see your book

 

[hacatta]

I just made on photebook online ,it will be ready in a few days.
Pfff it took me 2 hours,can't wait.
I will post some pics here when i get it.
Now to collect new pics for a second one.

 

[Terry57]

Can't wait to see it!

 

[Kiwibird]

Shamefully, I just store my important photos on a thumb drive and never do much with them:54:. My mom on the other hand has become OBSESSED with scrapbooking in the past 5 or so years. She's completely taken over my dad's billiard table as her work station, and has a DRESSER full of supplies. She makes scrapbooks of every trip, event, season- you name it (I think at last count, she had about 70 of them). Yes, she has one for each of her birds with photos going back 40 years, she has one of Kiwi and even one for Leo (my ancient leopard gecko) and gave me the one of Tiffany (my beard dragon) when she passed away. She even has one just for "sunset" pictures:roll eyes: I think my mom may have a bit too much time on her hands lol......

I know that she will buy the binders at staples with the clear covers you can insert a 8x11 sheet into the front and back so she can customize the covers, and make a "spine" insert with the "name" of the album. She uses the 3 holed plastic sheet covers, and then makes up the pages on that special scrapbook paper (with all the fancy designs) you get at the craft store by the sheet. She always cuts around photos, then cuts little frames of paper for them, glues in rhinestones and stickers and labels EVERYTHING. They go in perfect chronological order, and even sometimes include receipts, the birds all have their feathers in their books, the bills for "odd" vet visits that have occurred over the years with a hand-writted "explanation" of what happened (Alfie got worms from eating a cricket, Lucy scratched her eye and bit the vet and he charged extra, Leo got a sand impaction ext...), Leo and Tiff's have flattened chunks of their molted skin (sounds worse than it is). Lucy's has her leg band she got in quarantine and since Lucy and Alfie each removed a talon off each other in a fight, she went ahead and stuck the talons (that she bizzarly kept for like 20 years) in their respective books:roll eyes: They are actually like very complex works of art. Hope you get some good ideas!

 

[hacatta]

I do still want to have a go with scrapbooking,but i have no idea what kind off album to use.
I would like the 12x12,since it would seem it is used the most.
Does anyone know faithabigaildesigns from youtube?i would like to know what kind of album she uses to keep all the pages together.
She is the one that made me want to try it.

 

[hacatta]

They go in perfect chronological order, and even sometimes include receipts, the birds all have their feathers in their books, the bills for "odd" vet visits that have occurred over the years with a hand-writted "explanation" of what happened (Alfie got worms from eating a cricket, Lucy scratched her eye and bit the vet and he charged extra

To think that could happen!
I did had to laugh at it sorry:54:

 

[Kiwibird]

They go in perfect chronological order, and even sometimes include receipts, the birds all have their feathers in their books, the bills for "odd" vet visits that have occurred over the years with a hand-writted "explanation" of what happened (Alfie got worms from eating a cricket, Lucy scratched her eye and bit the vet and he charged extra

To think that could happen!
I did had to laugh at it sorry:54:

O yes, the vet charged extra because she gave him a good chomp on the thumb when he went to look at her eye. Mind you, this was way before AV were widely known or used by bird owners. He was just a regular, "country bumpkin" type vet working in a rural area and he stopped seeing any exotic birds after that.

I don't know where to get the special sized books, but I'm guessing you could find them on amazon or at craft stores like Michaels. But my mom just uses regular binders like this that she can "customize" the cover and spine on (thickness varies on how big of a book she's making)-
3" Simply? View Binder with Round Rings, White, 6/Pack | Staples®
and puts her scrapbook pages in these type of plastic sheet protectors-
Staples® Nonstick Top-Loading Sheet Protectors, Medium-Weight, Clear, 2.4 mil, 8 1/2" x 11", 50/Bx | Staples®
I guess when it's just an odd book you're making, it's worth spending a bit more on. But with how my mom makes the things, she buys her supplies in bulk and spending $20 on just an album is a bit ridiculous when you're making 15/20 a year (she gives them as gifts too).

 

[hacatta]

I think i am going to follow your advice and just buy a simple album i can buy near here.
Lets see if i actually like it first.
Does you mother post picture's of her layouts?i am curious about it.

 

[Kiwibird]

I think i am going to follow your advice and just buy a simple album i can buy near here.
Lets see if i actually like it first.
Does you mother post picture's of her layouts?i am curious about it.

My mom doesn't even own a computer lol. She does all her scrapbooking by hand. She does everything very free-flowing though, and literally everything is "framed". Like if she has a picture of just her bird, she will cut around the outline of the bird, then use double-stick tape to tape it to a plain color paper, cut around it again so it has a "frame" and then stick it to the album page so it "pops". If she has pictures that need to be left rectangular (so someone holding the bird or it doing something funny), she frames the picture too. She also makes up a hand-written (you could use the computer of course) description under every photo of what was happening or some cutesy caption and uses a lot of those "specialty" type scrapbook stickers and rhinestones and stuff to fill up the page. I googled images of scrapbook pages online and didn't really see the type of stuff she does. If they weren't buried in storage right now (we had to repurpose our bookshelf as a makeshift pantry in this apartment, so we have all our albums and books in storage), I would scan some pages out of the ones she's made for me

 

[hacatta]

That is a shame.
But on a lighter note,i got to a dollar store today and bought an album and some goodies for it.
The album costed only 2 euros.
I made 2 pages ,not too bad for a first timer i think.
No i have to collect pictures.

 

[Kiwibird]

That's very nice! That's right along the lines of what my mom does with all the different decorative papers and making "frames" for her photos. I bet you'll pick up scrapbooking very quickly.