There really is an art to being able to get inspiration from other people’s pages and create something that is still your own. Michelle Meisenbach teaches scrapbookers how to do just that in Lifted, presented by Paper Therapy.
“Lifted” features the layouts of Meisenbach, a long-time instructor at Mesa’s Scrapbooks, Etc. store, and two of her fellow Scrapbooks, Etc. instructors, Angie Dunn and Dayna Behning. Their hands-on instructing experience means the book is mostly filled with do-able layouts that aren’t intimidating to beginning scrapbookers but that are pleasing to the eye and appealing to somewhat more advanced scrappers as well. Their style is simple and graphic, lending itself to easy lifting.
The book is divided into sections for how different parts of a layout can be lifted, but the section divisions are almost unnecessary. The real meat of the book is the two-page spreads (48 by my count) that each show three layouts. One layout is the original and then there are two lifts from it. Each lift is accompanied by a written explanation of how the inspiration was taken from the original and altered to make the lift fit the needs of the layout being scrapped. There is also a set of three sketches for each set, breaking down the original layout and the two lifts into their basic “nuts and bolts” outlines for better understanding of their designs. (They’re basically a sketch if you want to use them that way too – and I love sketches!)
Advanced scrapbookers with good knowledge of design are probably beyond this book (the same situation that many of them have with classes at conventions and other events). But medium to beginner scrapbookers, who like to look at magazines but don’t know how to translate that inspiration to their own scrapbooking (or who want to get better at it) will likely find this book very instructional. They can learn how to take inspiration from scrapbooking books & magazines, and even find inspiration in the pages here while they learn if their style is graphic/simple.
Meisenbach deserves a lot of credit for creating in “Lifted” a book that is truly instructional in a way useful to the typical scrapbooker. Too many (not all, but too many) books and magazines in scrapbooking these days are just crazy eye-candy and not really practical for most scrapbookers. I think that real, unintimidating instruction like “Lifted” is the sort of thing that scrapbooking needs more of to stop scaring off consumers.
And I know I say this all the time but it always makes me happy to see a spiral binding on a scrapbooking book so that it is easy to lay out on my scrap table to use while I am scrapping. It may seem a small detail but it makes a book so much more usable.
Lifted is available for consumers at Scrapbook.com. For wholesale inquiries, contact Paper Therapy.
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