In this tutorial, you will be learning a quick and easy way to create a digital scrapbooking Printable Photo Card for Valentine’s Day.

The Scrap Girls’ Boutique contains a category of products named Digital and Printable Cards and Crafts. It is packed full of digital templates and ready-to-assemble products that allow you to easily create personalized gifts and cards for any occasion. I want to send a Valentine’s Day photo card this year, so I am going to use Printable Photo Cards: 4×6 Happy Hearts. These Easy Page printable photo cards are wonderful because you simply add your photos and print or send electronically.

1. Start by choosing one of the PNG files and opening it using your photo editing software. I chose to open the file: CRO_HappyHearts_EasyPage_PhotoCards_BeMine.

2. Now that your file is open, insert your photo in the empty transparent box by clicking on the photo. While holding down the mouse, drag the photo over to the card document and then release the mouse.

3. I want the photo to show through the transparent window, so I want to move the photo layer behind the card layer by dragging my layer down or by using the drop-down menu to select Layer> Arrange> Send to Back. If you need to resize your photo to fit in the window, you can do that by using Edit> Transform> Scale (in Photoshop) and hold down the Shift key while dragging the corners to keep the proportions the same.

When the card is finished, I clicked File> Save As and changed the file format from PSD to JPG. The printable photo card will then be in a JPG photo file, and now I have plenty of fun options. I can print it out from home or I can send it off to the printer. I can post it on Facebook and also send it out as an e-card electronically. Gotta love that!

Voila! In a matter of minutes, I’ve created a personalized, unique, printable Valentine’s Day photo card to send out to family and friends. It was fun, easy, inexpensive, and I know they will treasure it.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Cindy Rohrbough
http://www.scrapgirls.com/AboutUs/AU_CindyRohrbough.html

National Hobby Month, 22.9% off til Jan 31st at Midnight MST. Shop Now!

• Digital papers and embellishments
• Lightweight cardstock or medium-weight printer paper
• 3×4-inch plastic zip-top bags (for SMALL templates) – These are available at craft stores and WalMart in the craft section.
• Sandwich-size, plastic zip-top bags (for LARGE templates)
• Stapler or double-sided tape (or adhesive of your choice)
• Goodies to fill your bags!

These fun and easy-to-make printable treat bag toppers are perfect for birthday parties! Your party guests will be delighted to receive a personalized treat bag filled with candy, toys, and party favors! This printable craft also works great for showers, Halloween, stocking stuffers, and more. This set of templates come in PNG and layered PSD format which makes it easy to personalize for any occasion! You will find several topper designs in small and large sizes.

1. First, open up one of the ScrapSimple Craft Templates: Treat Bag Toppers 2 and make a duplicate copy (Ctrl+D), then close the original file.

2. Open some coordinating papers of your choice. Drag one paper onto your base and hit Ctrl+G (PC), Cmd+G (MAC) or select the layer from the menu and scroll down to “create clipping mask.” This will “adhere” or “clip” the paper to the base layer of your topper.

3. Now choose another paper and drag it on top of the next layer and clip it as you did in the step above. Notice I also added a white stroke to my top layer to give it a nice frame effect.

4. Add embellishments and text to the lower half of your Treat Bag Topper. You will see the blue guide marks, and keep your embellishments and text below the horizontal blue line as this will be the front of your printable treat bag topper.

If you prefer a 3D look, you can print out the embellishments separately, cut them out and use glue dots or double-sided sticky foam to make them pop!

5. After you are done decorating your topper, save as a PNG and also save your layered PSD so you can edit it if you ever want to use it again. Open a new blank 8.5 x 11-inch document and drag the PNG version over to this new document. You can fit several on one sheet.

You can also do several different topper designs and combine them on a sheet to print.

6. Print onto medium-weight matte photo paper or cardstock and cut out.

7. Fold in half.

8. Add candy to your plastic bags, add your printable treat bag topper to the top of your bag and staple at the sides or attach with double-sided tape

9. Add real buttons and ribbon to customize these even further.

Ingredients:

Witty Collection
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/14964/

ScrapSimple Craft Templates: Treat Bag Toppers 2
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/16879/

Spellbound Collection Mini
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/16733/

Merry Memories Collection Mini
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/10932/

Merry Memories Paper Solids Mini
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/10945/

Assemble Your Own Cards: Christmas Whimsy
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/11119/

A Waltz To Remember Collection
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/8957/

Happy Crafting!

Syndee Nuckles
http://www.scrapgirls.com/AboutUs/AU_SyndeeNuckles.htm

Here is the archive for all of the newsletters in January 2012.

• Monday, January 2:  Girls’ Day
• Tuesday, January 3:  Faith in the Future
• Wednesday, January 4:  Take Off That Coat
• Thursday, January 5:  Adapting Digital Layout Templates
• Friday, January 6:  Redo and Refresh an Old Layout
• Saturday, January 7:  Love & Wrinkles
• Monday, January 9:  Be True to Yourself
• Tuesday, January 10:  Have You Chosen a Word of the Year?
• Wednesday, January 11:  Faith is an Action Word. Do Something.
• Thursday, January 12:  Resizing Layouts for Printing and Framing
• Friday, January 13:  Scanning Tricks and Why You Should Tell Stories
• Saturday, January 14:  What Do I Want To Do?
• Monday, January 16:  Your Enthusiasm is Catching
• Tuesday, January 17:  101 Excuses for All Occasions
• Wednesday, January 18:  Random Guide for the 21st Century Revisited
• Thursday, January 19:  Customize Your Own Keyboard Shortcuts
• Friday, January 20:  Life Scrapbooks – The Gathering
• Saturday, January 21:  Word Pictures
• Monday, January 23:  Random Facts
• Tuesday, January 24:  Ro Shares One of Her Most Important Discoveries
• Wednesday, January 25:  How to Easily Improve Your Photos Using White Balance
• Thursday, January 26:  Making a Collage Desktop Wallpaper
• Friday, January 27:  Life Scrapbooks – If You Don’t Do Anything Else, Do This
• Saturday, January 28:
• Monday, January 30:
• Tuesday, January 31:

Weekly Newsletter Round-Up, January 2012.

• January 2 – 7, 2012
• January 9 – 14, 2012
• January 16 – 21, 2012

I’m going to share with you the quick, easy, and inexpensive solution I found to help my camera “girl it up!”

The lost lens cap is a plight of many DSLR users. In my opinion, a cap-keeper is an absolute must have for protecting your lens. They’re extremely inexpensive (about $2.50 on average), but they’re kind of blah. But with some adhesive and some sparkly buttons or beads, they go from ho-hum to fabulous!

All you need for this project is:

Lens cap
Basic cap keeper
Glue (I like epoxy glues best)
A cute button
… and maybe a pair of pliers.

First, I selected a sparkly button with a metal loop on its back. Since I want to adhere the button flatly to my basic cap-keeper, I used the pliers to gently bend the loop back so it lays flat.

Next I applied a drop of glue to the back of the cap-keeper and pressed the button onto it. Most epoxy glues dry quickly, but just to be on the safe side, I let mine set overnight.

Once the button is firmly adhered, your fabulous new cap keeper is ready to girl-up your camera!

Don’t try just buttons! Beads and old jewelry can also add some glitz as well.

Here, I gave an earring a new lease on life by repurposing it!

So give it a go and help make your camera stand out at your next photo event!

Laura Louie
http://www.scrapgirls.com/AboutUs/AU_LauraLouie.html

In this tutorial, I am going to walk you through how to make a printable photo bookmark. In this case, I turned it into a printable birth announcement bookmark, but you could use any occasion or photos!

First, make a rectangle on its own layer in Photoshop.

Then, make a circle with the same circumference as the width of the rectangle.

Merge these two layers together so that it makes a shape like this on one layer:

Next, insert the paper that you want to be the background of your printable photo bookmark. In this case, I used a paper from Vintage Pretties Collection Mini. I like this one because it has the fun corner artwork that frames the corner of the bookmark! Use the shape created on the previous step as a mask on the scrapbook paper.

Next, insert the photograph that you would like to go at the top of your bookmark. Use the circle selection to make a mask around the photo so that it fits into the top section of the bookmark. Add a matching stroke, if you would like.

Next, insert any other text or embellishments you want on your bookmark. In this case, I put the birth announcement text for my daughter.

Finally, I took a craft knife and carefully cut along the bottom half of the photo’s outline, so that the bookmark can slip over the top of the book page.

This tutorial uses:
Vintage Pretties Collection Mini
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/23287/

Loni Harris
http://www.scrapgirls.com/AboutUs/AU_LoniHarris.html

The new ScrapSimple Club contents are released on the 15th day of the month (or the closest business day to the 15th).

A commercially licensed version of the ScrapSimple Club is also available here.

January’s ScrapSimple Club designers are…

Amanda Fraijo-Tobin
http://www.scrapgirls.com/AboutUs/AU_AmandaFraijoTobin.htm

Elisha Barnett
http://www.scrapgirls.com/AboutUs/AU_ElishaBarnett.htm

 “If you don’t have a plan for yourself, you’ll be part of someone else’s.” – Proverb

Yesterday, we talked about how to take your Legacy Plan and Life Plan and drill it down into a five-year outline. Today, we are going to talk about how to drill it down even further. We’ll be developing a one-year plan, a monthly plan, weekly goals, and then I will show you what I’ve learned about making daily to-do lists.

This 1 Year Planner contains spots for a six-month breakdown of your annual goals. In each month’s spot, you will enter high-level activities, taking care not to overextend yourself. Make the goals manageable. For instance, in my sample layout, I have set the following goals for my Life Books project.

• January: Finish printing existing layouts. Move the rest of my audio tapes onto the computer. Burn DVDs of the layouts I have included in my book so far. (I can do this while I am printing layouts.)
• February: Rework old layouts that I wouldn’t print otherwise. Make contact sheets of photos I am not going to use on layouts. (My thought about that is that I will concentrate on the photos that were taken in photo sessions that I have already created layouts about, rather than trying to tackle my entire photo library in one month.)
• March: Organize photo files. Start burning DVDs of photos to include in my Life Books. (These would be photos that I never intend to scrap.)
• April: Go through old journals and find things that I want to include in my Life Books. Start scanning and/or building layouts about these things.
• May: Continue journal project.
• June: Move some of my Muses onto layouts. Burn Muses that I want to save onto DVDs to include in books.

Notice that I have tried to be realistic about what I can accomplish. Some of the tasks are things that don’t require my complete attention, so I can work on them while I do other things.

I will follow the same process with the other goals I will set for my year.

“A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.” –Proverb

“Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up.” – A.A. Milne

Once I have my 1 Year Plan completed, I will start making weekly goals to accomplish them. Over the years that I have owned Scrap Girls, I have found it very helpful to do this. Sometimes, I don’t meet my weekly goals, but most of the time I do because I purposely don’t give myself too many to accomplish at once. Life has a way of throwing extra work at me, and I need to be flexible enough to respond to new things that come up right away.

I use Google Calendars to track projects. In fact, I use Google Calendars for tracking almost everything imaginable. I have multiple Google Calendars – each one assigned to single topics such as my appointments, my activities, Scrap Girls company events, editorial calendars, and more. Each one is color-coded so I instantly see what is happening when I look at it.

I am able to sync my Google Calendars to my mobile devices (my cell phone and iPad) so I am able to enter my appointments or other items onto my calendars no matter where I might be. When I set up an appointment or calendar item, I enter pertinent details about location, file names, or anything else related to the item in its description. It’s easy to set up reoccurring appointments, as well.

I have my calendar account set up so that it sends me a daily agenda each morning. I also have it send me reminder emails for certain things. I can also have it remind me via pop-ups and text messages.

Before I started using Google Calendars, I constantly forgot or was late to appointments because when I start working on something, I become so laser-focused that I lose track of time. Google Calendars has saved me from myself.

But when I am planning out my goals, I need to write things on paper so that I can see them in a glance before I can move them into the Google Calendars, so I sketch them out on paper. I am planning to start putting my planning sketches in my Life Books because I think it will be interesting to look back at them in the coming years.

Here is an example of my weekly breakdown of January’s Life Scrapbook Project.

The first two weeks, I am planning to print out layouts while I bring audio files onto my computer. I’ve been doing it this way for a while now, and it’s very pleasant. I have to turn the tapes on and let them run in order for the software I am using to record the audio onto the computer. While the tape is playing, I print out layouts. The last two weeks of the month will be dedicated to burning DVDs containing the layout files.

“He who fails to plan, plans to fail.” – Proverb

After I have my weekly goals set up, I have to determine what my daily tasks will be. I used to write big, long to-do lists in notebooks and on scratch paper. They invariably became so unwieldy and intimidating that I avoided looking at them, relying on my memory instead. It never worked.

Then I learned about a cool little app named ToDo (Tomorrow) (Free for Android and iPhones). This app is very simple and only allows you to enter today and tomorrow’s to-do lists and cross off the items once they are finished. If you don’t finish and cross off a list item, the app automatically rolls the item over to the next day. They also have a web browser version of it that syncs with the app on your mobile device. This is what the web version looks like.

I’ve learned not to put my entire laundry list of the things I would like to do in the app. Instead, I have a big master list of to-dos that I keep on a whiteboard in my office. I only look at it once every week or so. I limit the items in the ToDo (Tomorrow) app to a very short list. Three is a good number. If I find myself accumulating too many items on my ToDo (Tomorrow) list, I force myself to prioritize, then I move some of them onto my whiteboard.

People say that once they start using this app, it becomes their most-used application. I can see why. I find it very helpful to enter to-do items that pop into my brain at odd hours (usually right before I go to sleep) and then decide what to do with them once I go to my office to work.

“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments.” – Jim Rohn

As you write your to-do list, make sure that you are not confusing a project with a to-do item. To-do items are very limited tasks. Weekly goals are limited projects. Monthly and annual goals are large projects.

Not proper To-Do Items:

• Write War and Peace
• Remodel the bathroom
• Reorganize the house

Proper To-Do Items

• Write 1,000 words of my new novel, War and Peace
• Pick out paint colors for the bathroom
• Reorganize the upstairs bathroom

“To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.” – Anatole France

“No matter how carefully you plan your goals, they will never be more than pipe dreams unless you pursue them with gusto.” – W. Clement Stone

Well, that’s it! I’ve just reviewed with you a very workable process that will allow you to determine your big life goals and then take them and drill down to your daily activities so that you can accomplish them. I hope it will prove helpful to you.

My wish for you is that 2012 brings you lots of love, joy, happiness, lessons, growth, and success!

All the best to you and yours,
Ro

Layout supplies:

ScrapSimple Digital Layout Album Templates: 8.5×11 Legacy Planner Mini
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/24772/

8.5×11 Basic Neutrals Paper Biggie 2201
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/24778/

Supplies: Angie’s planner
ScrapSimple Paper Templates: 8.5×11 Everyday Moments Planner
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/24865

Here are some more great products from the Scrap Girls Boutique that will help you plan.

ScrapSimple Calendar Templates: 8.5×11 Perpetual
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/23957/

ScrapSimple Calendar Templates: 4×6 Calendar Squares – 2012
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/23934/

ScrapSimple Calendar Templates: 8.5×11 Perpetual – Painted
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/14150/

Everyday Moments Planner Paper Mini
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/22206/

8.5×11 Everyday Moments Planner Paper Mini
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/24773/

ScrapSimple Calendar Templates: 5.25×8 Life in Action Planner 2012
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/23099/

ScrapSimple Digital Layout Album Templates: 4×6 Organizer
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/13354/

In 2002, I was considering doing something stupid. I didn’t know exactly what that stupid thing might be, but I knew that I needed to do something to change my situation – stupid or not – because the unhappiness I felt at work was bleeding out into the rest of my world.

One day, as I was cruising our local library, I found a book named Wishcraft: How to Get What You Really Want by Barbara Sher with Annie Gottlieb. I checked it out and found it so intriguing that I quickly purchased my own copy and began working through the exercises.

One of the assignments in the book was to write out what you think a perfect day would be like if you could do anything you want – with absolutely nothing holding you back. Where would you live? Who would you interact with? What would your environment be like? What activities would you engage in? How would you feel? What would you see? What would you hear, taste, touch, and feel?

Taking the challenge, I wrote it out. I decided that I would live in the mountains and every morning I would wake up, look out my picture window, and gaze on the valley below. I would spend time reading the Scriptures, praying, and meditating. I would run a successful business from home and interact with interesting people. I would wear comfortable clothes. When I left my home, it would be because I wanted to and because I had fun things to do. I would have a small circle of very good friends, and we would support each other and do things together. We would own a home and be out of debt.

The last thing I wrote was the most important. I said, “I am in control of myself and my life.”

At the time, it felt like the biggest, craziest, impossible dream in the world. I couldn’t imagine how I could achieve it.  But there it was… all written out and declared. I had put in my order.

I stumbled on this exercise a short time ago, and was startled at how much of it has happened. Actually, most of it has happened. I think there is something about putting your deepest desires down on paper this way. Knowing what you want, Heaven starts bringing you opportunities that you can use to get what you want, if you dare to grab them.

In my case, a year after I wrote out my Perfect Day essay, my first opportunity arrived in the form of a layoff from my job. This pushed me out of the comfortable nest I was in and opened me up to new opportunities.  My next job required that I do a lot of Internet searching of the scrapbooking industry, and in the process, I came across the very beginnings of the digital scrapbooking industry. It didn’t take long for me to see that I could bring a lot to the industry – and the rest, as they say, is history.

Scrap Girls was the vehicle I needed to fulfill my Perfect Day dream.

ASSIGNMENT

Write out your perfect day. Dream big. Write it down, just as you would have it. Possible things to include: Where will you be living? What location? What kind of home? What do you wear? How do support yourself? What people are in your life? How do you interact with them?

LIFE PLAN

Now that you have determined your legacy goals and have dreamed what your Perfect Day would be like, you will have the foundation for determining your Life Plan. A Life Plan is a skeleton, a high-level document containing target years for certain achievements or goals to be finished.

When I initially wrote my Life Plan – back in 2002 – it included things like finishing the home remodeling job we were engaged in, getting the backyard finished, paying off our non-home debts, going on a “real” family vacation (we had never had one up to that point), and building a back-up savings account.

First, I wrote a list of things I’d like to accomplish, and then I decided what a reasonable time frame for each item would be. This is important to do because if you get over-ambitious and try to do too much at once or finish too quickly, you will get discouraged and you will abandon your dreams.

I had my Life Plan taped to a cabinet door in my office for years and years. I finally took it down because I had achieved most of the goals (and the paper was looking pretty ratty). I realized a few weeks ago that I need to develop a new one. It takes some time to do – lots of thinking and considering involved – so I haven’t finished mine yet. I know the power of doing this, so I want to make sure I am “ordering” the right things.  But here is what I have included so far.

Please notice that the chart requires that not only do you list out the years, you indicate how old you will be. This is very helpful in determining how quickly you need to accomplish certain things. When I did my first one, I also listed the ages of my children each year.

When I worked on this new version, I indicated that I want to retire at age 65. The chances of that happening are not that great, because there is every indication that the retirement age will be raised, and besides, I enjoy working. I think it keeps you young to work. But it is still a good goal to have. If I want to keep working after I am 65, that’s great. But I’d like to have the option to retire, if I wish.

The chart is a visual reminder that age 65 is only 10 years away. My heart kind of dropped when I saw what a short time I have. (The five-year review I completed earlier in this process made me see how quickly five years passes.) I realized that I need to get more serious about getting my home paid off and savings in the bank. If I don’t get serious about it, I won’t have any options. I will have to work for a long, long, long time.

5 YEAR PLAN

After you have mapped out your Life Plan, you will be ready to develop your 5 Year Plan.  A 5 Year Plan is a bird’s-eye view of the major goals you wish to accomplish each year. These goals should help you realize your Legal Goals and your Life Plan.

For instance, building out my Life Scrapbooks is one of my Legacy Goals. I have made sure that not only have I included this in my Life Plan, I have then put some high-level actions I want to accomplish in my 5 Year Plan. I am careful that I don’t become over-ambitious in what I can accomplish each year. Having my Life Plan mapped out helps me see that I have time. I don’t have to do everything at once – or even in one year.

Here is the beginning of my 5 Year Plan. My actual plan will include other items I have not included in this sample because I have many goals that are private or confidential. But this should get you started.

Today, we have discussed how you can determine what your large goals are and when you want to accomplish them. We have then talked about how to take your Legacy Goals and your big target Life Goals and break them down into a 5 Year Plan.

Tomorrow, we will discuss how you then break this down further into a 1 Year Plan and a Monthly Plan.

Talk to you then!
Ro

Layout Supplies:

ScrapSimple Digital Layout Album Templates: 8.5×11 Legacy Planner Mini
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/24772/

8.5×11 Basic Neutrals Paper Biggie 2201
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/24778/

Note: When I made my Perfect Day layout, I used some of the extra dividers and body containers I included with the Legacy Planner template. (I wanted to make it customizable for you.)

Here are some other Digital Layout Templates that would be nice to use when making a Perfect Day essay layout. They would work perfectly for this project because the layouts are all clean with plenty of journaling space.

ScrapSimple Digital Layout Templates: Family News
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/14086/

ScrapSimple Digital Layout Templates: Journal It
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/12511/

ScrapSimple Digital Layout Templates: Just Write
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/9300/

ScrapSimple Digital Layout Templates: Simplified
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/8719/

This one could easily be used. Just leave the calendar portion off.

ScrapSimple Calendar Templates: 8.5×11 Clipboard Perpetual
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/10433/

ScrapSimple Digital Layout Templates: A Waltz To Remember
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/8961/

ScrapSimple Digital Layout Templates: Chronicles
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/16422/

ScrapSimple Digital Layout Templates: Cornered
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/6490/

ScrapSimple Digital Layout Templates: Curled
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/5965/

Note: taken from the December 30th, 2011 newsletter

Sometimes, members of a group break out in smiles and nods, seeming to all recall the same thing together. Sometimes, someone in a group starts to cry and the person closest to them grabs them and holds them close until relief is found. Sometimes, someone in a group says something that causes the members to choke back tears.

Wanting to know what’s going on, you step closer and closer to one of the groups until you can finally hear what’s being said. You realize that the stories they are telling sound familiar and you wonder why. Suddenly someone says something that sends your head reeling. This is your family. These are your friends. They are talking about you because you have died.

Can you see it?

Now, imagine that this scenario was true. What would you want your family and friends to say about you? What would you want to leave behind as your legacy?

By legacy, I’m not talking in terms of “I have four children and four grandchildren” or “I have left my family $10 million. Your children and grandchildren are not you. They are individuals who make their own decisions and who will leave their own mark on the world. You cannot control them anymore than you can control the wind. And any money you leave behind can quickly be spent or frittered away.

Your legacy is something much more – the long-lasting impact of who you are and what you have done for them. Your legacy is the example you want to set, the things you want to teach, the feelings you hope they will have, and the temporal conditions you want to leave them with. You build your legacy throughout your lifetime.

My father passed away in 2008. He left us a legacy of a good name, integrity, honesty, love, loyalty, faith in God and in the church he loved. He taught us to treat people well. He taught us to pay our bills. He even taught me how to handle customer service. (He owned a department store.)

Dad also felt that it was important that he leave his temporal affairs in complete order with every bit of documentation required to take care of the last details close at hand. He made sure that even though he was not a wealthy man, he set up a trust that prevented any disagreements between his children about what would happen with his money and possessions once he was gone. When we went through his things, we discovered that he had even signed the title on his car so that my mom could easily put the title in her name.

It was hard to lose my dad. I’ll miss him as long as I live and look forward to the day I’m reunited with him on the other side of the veil. But he made sure that the grieving process we went through was not clouded by financial chaos, disharmony, and questions such as, “Did Dad really love me? Did he know that I loved him?”

As the people he knew came to speak to us at the viewing prior to his funeral, they told us stories of how Dad had helped them, how Dad had wisely counseled with them, and how much they admired him and his quiet integrity. They told us how blessed we were to have such a father.

Dad did not leave us money or things, but Dad left something much better. Dad left us the legacy of his example of how a man who cares for his family cares for them until his last breath is drawn.

You may be thinking, “All this talk about death and dying is depressing me, Ro. Can’t we talk about scrapbooking now?”

If this is how you are feeling, I’d like to ask you to step back a little bit and ask yourself why you scrapbook. Are you doing it because it’s a fun, rather artistic hobby? If so, great. It’s neat to have creative outlets.

I scrapbook for different reasons.

While I do enjoy the digital scrapbooking process very much, I have always scrapbooked because I want to leave something meaningful behind me. I want to tell my stories, explain photos, share memorabilia, and allow them to know exactly who I am. Scrapbooking layouts, when created with my legacy in mind, are a good medium for doing this. Besides, they are fun to look at, so the journaling and date information because easier to absorb.

LIFE SCRAPBOOK APPLICATION

As part of my Life Scrapbook project, I decided to review my Legacy Planning. Because I find it difficult to brainstorm in a linear fashion (making ordered lists off the top of my head), I used a process named Mind Mapping.

When you create a mind map, you put the main goal – or outcome – in a center bubble. Then you start drawing out big categories that relate to that concept and connect them with lines. After that, you draw out things that relate to the categories and keep going out as long as you need to.

In 2001, I released my first book - Up the Down Hill: One woman’s struggle to survive major depression. I found the process quite complicated so I mind-mapped it first. Then, as I completed each task, I crossed it off.  My mind map helped me tremendously.

Here is the draft mind map I made as part of my legacy planning process.

After I sketched it out, I decided to formalize it by putting it in a digital scrapbooking layout that I could print out and put in my Life Scrapbook. Not only would it serve as a reminder to me of my life’s overall goals, I think it is a neat way of telling my family what I felt was important. I can just imagine what they will think when they see it after I’m gone.

To make it easier for you to do the same thing, I have included a template for a legacy mind map in my template set, ScrapSimple Album Templates: 8.5×11 Legacy Planner Mini. The template isn’t in finished form. It contains all sorts of connectors, arrows, lines, and shapes that you can duplicate and move about at will to recreate your own legacy mind map.

Here is my finished legacy mind map.

As you can see, I broke up my legacy into three main areas:

1. Self. This covers things like my relationship with God, the attributes I hope to have (or acquire), and the methods I will use to pass my life experiences down.
2. People. This acknowledges that various groups of people have a major role to play in my life. I have reminded myself that I wish to be useful, helpful, and loving to the people in my life.
3. Temporal. This covers the practical things in my life. I have three temporal legacy goals – to be debt-free when I die, to have all of my legal ducks in a row (a current trust, etc.), and to have all of the necessary paperwork done and gathered together. If I accomplish these things, my family won’t be unnecessarily burdened by my death.

Once my mind map was completed, I built out a document I call, “My Legacy Goals.” This document contains fleshed-out statements about what each big legacy mind-map item means. It could be compared to a life mission statement, only I have various areas of my life clarified.

The top item, “To Know and Honor Who I Am,” covers things such as my relationship with God, what I believe, the significance of my body and why I should take care of it, and my understanding of my purpose.

The next item, “To Love and Be Loved,” covers things such as relationships with people, how they impact my life, and how I hope to impact theirs.

The last item, “To Leave Behind That Which Matters Most,” covers things such as how I hope to leave my family records and a clean financial slate.

Today, we have discussed how to determine what your big-picture legacy goals are. Tomorrow, I’ll teach you how to translate or break that down into definable goals.

Talk to you then!
Ro

Layout Supplies:

ScrapSimple Digital Layout Album Templates: 8.5×11 Legacy Planner Mini
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/24772/

8.5×11 Basic Neutrals Paper Biggie 2201
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/24778/

Other goal-setting and resolution items available in the Scrap Girls Boutique

Brush Set: Goals
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/7728/

ScrapSimple Calendar Templates: 5.25×8 Life in Action Planner 2012
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/23099/

JIF 6: 12×12 Intentional
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/21624/

Dreamer Collection
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/12787/

Everyday Moments Planner Paper Mini
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/22206/

8.5×11 Everyday Moments Planner Paper Mini
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/24773/

Scrap Pack Biggie: Moments
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/16550/

Assemble Your Own: Agenda 7×10
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/16445/

ScrapSimple Embellishment Templates: Agenda 7×10
http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/16446/

Note: taken from the December 29th, 2011 newsletter