Chalk Talk with Paula Gilarde

Today I'm chatting with Paula Gilarde! Paula is well-known for her awesome scrapbooking pages. Paula creates paper, digital, and hybrid (paper plus digital) layouts. I thought she would be the perfect person to ask how to incorporate the crafts our children create and other memorabilia on scrapbooking pages.

1. What are some ways to showcase memorabilia such as pamphlets or crafts in our scrapbooks?

I often scan or photograph bulky items in my scrapbooks. I do this for digital or traditional scrapbook pages. I have occasionally included the piece of artwork but generally my kids like to keep it for themselves so I duplicate.

2. Do you have any examples?

He hearts art - I scanned my son's drawing and printed it onto cardstock

She makes art - I used my daughter's drawing and cut it up. That didn't go over too well with my daughter when she saw it so I generally scan now!

When Pigs Fly - I scanned the cartoon that my daughter drew and used it in my digital layout

Write - I took photos of the multi-page story my daughter wrote when she was in kindergarten.

3. If you take photos of crafts, what do you do with the originals?

If I don't want to keep the originals I let the kids have them = they hang them in their rooms or use them when they are playing school.

4. Do you have any hints for scrapbooking summer events and vacations?

I find digital scrapbook templates are the easiest way of incorporating a lot of photos on a page -- generally for events and vacations I have lots of photos. I'm a fan of Lynn Grieveson's two page templates - often the templates can be used individually or together as a two-pager layouts.

5. How do you get started on a page? Do you have a plan before or does the page just evolve?

I don't always have a plan. I'm usually much faster when I do have a plan though! Using ads for inspiration (photo placement especially) is one of my favorite jumping off points. I'm also a  big fan of using digital scrapbooking templates.

6. Since you do both digital and paper scrapbooking, how do you create your finished albums? Do you combine the two into one album? Create theme scrapbooks?

I paper scrap, digi scrap and I also do hybrid scrapbooking which combines the two. My paper and hybrid pages are all in the same albums -- I use the American Crafts D-ring albums because it's so much easier to move pages around. This is important to me since I don't scrapbook chronologically. I usually print my digital layouts in Shutterfly 8x8 albums.

7. What is your favorite recipe?

My favorite recipe: Layered Bean Dip from Cooking Light. This is so easy to make and so yummy!

Ingredients

• 1  (16-ounce) can fat-free refried beans
• 1  (15-ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1/2  cup  reduced-fat sour cream
• 1  cup  bottled salsa
• 1  cup  (4 ounces) preshredded reduced-fat Mexican blend or cheddar cheese
• Chopped cilantro (optional)

Preparation Preheat oven to 375°. Combine beans; spread in an 8-inch square baking dish. Spread sour cream over beans; top with salsa and cheese. Cover; bake at 375° for 20 minutes. Uncover; bake 10 minutes or until bubbly.

My name is Paula Gilarde and I live outside of Boston, Masschusetts with my husband Matt and my two children Molly and Tommy (7 and almost 6). I am an equal opportunities scrapbooker, spending most of my free time making paper, digital, or hybrid scrapbook layouts. I blog at Live.Scrap.Repeat. My work has been published in Simple Scrapbooks, Scrapbooks Etc., Creaking Keepsakes, and other idea books and magazines. I was named a member of the Creating Keepsakes Hall of Fame in 2007. I also teach a self-paced class called "How to Use Photoshop (Elements and CS) for Digital Scrapbooking."