SYW125 – Full-Page Photos with Nancy Damiano

Nancy Damiano 0:00

If you ever watch someone go through your scrapbooks, who's not a scrapbooker, they always hold the scrapbook closer to their face to look at the pictures, to peer at the pictures. Some of them will look at the story. Nobody looks at the embellishments. And so, for its longevity, for its meaning, I always want that photo to be, you know, centerstage.

Jennifer Wilson 0:24

Welcome to Scrapbook Your Way, the show that explores the breadth of ways to be a memory keeper today. I'm your host, Jennifer Wilson, owner of Simple Scrapper and author of The New Rules of Scrapbooking. This is Episode 125. In this episode, I'm joined by Nancy Damiano to discuss the creative techniques that keep her inspired, including her celebration of photos with full page prints and enlargements.

Jennifer Wilson 0:54

Hey, Nancy, welcome to the podcast.

Nancy Damiano 0:56

Hi, it's great to be here.

Jennifer Wilson 0:58

I am so looking forward to our conversation I've admired your work for it seems like so many years. And I'm just, I'm, this is gonna be a really, really good one as part of our photos journey here at Simple Scrapper. But could you share a little bit about yourself to just introduce Nancy to our audience?

Nancy Damiano 1:17

Sure. I'm Nancy Damiano. I live in Central New Jersey. I am wife, mom to one teenage boy, I have two bonus children, my niece and nephew who are a really big part of our daily life and stories. I've been scrapbooking since 1996, on and off mostly on.

Jennifer Wilson 1:40

Very fun. You are, yeah, you're, you have such awesome skills in scrapbooking. And I think we're gonna really highlight that today with the particular topic we're getting into. But before we jump into that, we always like to talk with our guests about what is one or maybe two things that's exciting you right now in scrapbooking. It really could be anything.

Nancy Damiano 2:02

So right now I'm working on a really mini traveler's notebook. It's an actually a four by six book, I have a subscription to everyday explorers. And they do a monthly mini album kit. And last month was my first month and I'm really enjoying that process of working in this tiny little book and telling stories on a specific topic.

Jennifer Wilson 2:25

Ah, so fun. I love those little books. I've done so many, many books over the years. And they're always just, I don't know, just little fun treasures. And yeah, I love switching up sizes in general and always, you know, is something fresh to do.

Nancy Damiano 2:39

Yep. I love that in one little book, I have an entire story start to finish.

Jennifer Wilson 2:45

Yes, yes, it's nice to have closure on something, sometimes. So and of course, we always like to talk about our storytelling Bucket List. These are special stories, sometimes big stories, ones that you want to make sure get captured. So Nancy, do you have a story on your memory keeping Bucket List?

Nancy Damiano 3:05

I do. I have one that I've been putting off for about two weeks right now because I have such a perfect picture of this moment. And it's a moment between my son and my dad, the first time they hugged since 2019. We've had to keep them very separated. They're both very high risk for COVID. And they're both finally vaccinated. And it was the first reunion. And I knew he was gonna give him a big hug. But I was at the right place at the right moment. And the expression of my son's face and the embrace between the two was really captured. It's such a beautiful picture that I've kind of been putting like, I want to tell the story. But I want to tell it so perfectly in a way that I've been sort of putting it off, but I don't want to lose the story with time. So that's that's on my desk. It's looking at me right now. And I hope to tackle that in the next week or so.

Jennifer Wilson 3:57

Yeah, I think that we're all gonna have a lot of those. Yeah, back to normal reunion stories. As we're seeing people we haven't seen in so long. I haven't seen my parents since last March. Yeah. And so we'll be seeing them this July. And so we'll have stories related to that, too. So...

Nancy Damiano 4:14

So have your camera ready and try to capture it because if you get it, you're going to get a really good shot.

Jennifer Wilson 4:20

Yeah, I think I'm going to now I'm going to put my husband in charge, like we need to get a photo here. So Sounds like a plan. Ali right, so the reason I wanted to have you on the show today was to talk about something really specific that we, many of us sometimes do in our scrapbooking, and that is using full page photos. And it could be like literally the entire page or sometimes it could just be an enlargement that spans top to bottom right to left. But I wanted to talk both about kind of a creative and the technical aspects of it. But but to give our audience some context, can you share just a little bit about the types and sizes of pages that you are working on these days, so we can kind of get more of a visual.

Nancy Damiano 5:03

Sure. So currently, I am doing a Heidi Swapp, Storylines Memory Planner. So that is day to day stories. So it's weekly, it's every week, I have about six or seven different stories about what happened in that week. They're tiny little pictures, they're only two by two. And then it could be anything from I mean, the story of my dad hugging my son, for example, is in there in a tiny two by two. There's also what we ate that week, plants that I'm growing, just everyday, what I'm creating, what we're doing, watching, reading, and all that good stuff. So I keep up with that week to week. From that Storyline Chapters, it's about a seven by nine book, I will take stories from those weekly stories that are bigger. And then those go in my Life Crafted album. That album is a traveler's notebook size. So I believe it's four by eight and a quarter if you're using the page protectors, five by eight and a quarter is because I tend to scrapbook outside of a page protector. Which means my photo or my page doesn't go into plastic sleeve, it's actually hole punched and put right into the album. And I'm just enjoying that process right now.

Jennifer Wilson 6:20

So I'm curious kind of, when did you find yourself transitioning from more full size layouts to these smaller scale projects?

Nancy Damiano 6:29

So probably at the end of 2020, I had actually taken a good scrapbooking hiatus between 2018, 2019 my life just got really busy. I had done so many hundreds and hundreds of pages. When I came back, I just started to watch different YouTubes I found Heba from My Little Journal, and she was doing traveler's notebook. And I was like, Oh, that's how I'm going to jump back in, you know, this is totally doable. It's so small, I can churn these pages out quickly. And that's where it kind of started so and then I found the traveler's notebooks, I think I bought one. But I find it very confining, because you can't move things around. And once you put down very bulky embellishments, it's difficult to stamp on the pages. So I had a lot of troubles with that. But what I found was the Life Crafted album, which was that size, but ring bound, and I was like, Oh, this I can do. And that's how I naturally progressed. Then probably about maybe three months ago, also Instagram, I saw the memory planner, and I saw on Instagram, Veronica Creates had done a memory planner in a very linear, clean, beautiful style that I love. And I was like, oh, instead of Project Life, I can keep this memory planner and still have all those little stories, and then have these, you know, traveler's notebook size Life Crafted albums to tell my bigger stories. So that's how everything gets told right now. And that was the evolution.

Jennifer Wilson 8:00

Yeah, I love this concept. And and I kind of I think I have my own version of it, where you're, you're doing something regularly in a a more minor way. I mean, it's still significant. It's still creating, but you're doing it so that you can capture what's going on in your life. And then that becomes a way for you to audition. Okay, here are then photos or stories that I want to take and actually do something bigger with and allows you to really stay connected to, to your stories and to the process. And to me, it's always been more inspiring that way, because if I'm only looking at all these photos, and I'm not doing some sort of Project Life type thing, whether it's, you know, pocket pages or in the Storyline, and I'm actually doing a photo book, if you're not doing something like that, I don't feel like you're as connected to the everydayness of it I guess.

Nancy Damiano 8:51

Absolutely. I, before I did Project Life, but mostly for vacations and birthday parties and celebrations and things, but I think I was missing a lot of the every day just just different things. You know, like what's cool on Netflix? What, what am I obsessed with right now. And I think that's a really important part of our story that we overlook, because it's just, you know, just a regular Tuesday.

Jennifer Wilson 9:15

Well, we're not always photographing those things either.

Nancy Damiano 9:17

Exactly true. Yeah, at the end of the week, usually on Sundays, I've kind of developed the habit because I'm doing the memory planner. So on Sundays, or sometimes Monday morning, I'll look back at my camera roll for the whole week. And I'll jot down the pictures that I definitely want to put in my memory planner, along with the little stories that happened. I don't go farther than that, because I'll forget the details. So that also keeps me on track.

Jennifer Wilson 9:44

That's, that's a feeling we all want to have and are always looking for, have strategies for getting there. How can we, whether it's, you know, an actual system of where you're writing it down or some sort of time, time system that's causing you to pause and actually take the action to write. So I was, like I searched my email to see like where we had crossed paths over the years, I noticed that we were on an episode of Paperclipping Roundtable in 2013. And I honestly have no idea what we talked about other than it was about pocket pages, apparently.

Nancy Damiano 10:19

Yeah, I remember that I do remember that.

Jennifer Wilson 10:21

But I don't see you creating in pockets as much. And so I'm curious if that's just something that you don't enjoy as much where you dabble it like December Daily time? How do you feel about pockets in the suite of these smaller scales you're working in?

Nancy Damiano 10:36

I'd like the pockets, I probably don't reach for them as much as I should. Where the pockets are going to come into play as definitely, just like you said, like December Daily, October daily, my vacations. I mean, we haven't gone on vacation in a year and a half or two now. But my next vacation will definitely be in a six by eight album. I because I need the size. I need the real estate. And I'll probably utilize the pockets because I can fit a lot more pictures. And yes, that's when when those come into play, so I haven't had use for them since December Daily. But I will this summer.

Jennifer Wilson 11:10

Oh fun. Yeah, that you're kind of thinking about the intersection between the type of stories that you want to tell and maybe how that connects with the formats that you choose for. We talk a lot about that here on the podcast inside our membership, because sometimes, you know, we have all these options. And how do we pick? Well, sometimes the story can really drive that choice. Whether it's more minimal, because you have a lot of words to use, or you want to include a lot more photos. So we need to find strategies to do that.

Nancy Damiano 11:41

Sure, sure. Yep. Lots of stories, lots of pictures mean the bigger album. Yes, for me, anyway.

Jennifer Wilson 11:48

Well and it's so funny to think about 2013. That was eight years ago. Oh my gosh.

Nancy Damiano 11:52

Pocket scrapbooking had to be at its height at that time. And it was probably exclusively 12 by 12, if I remember correctly.

Jennifer Wilson 11:59

Oh, yeah. It was Yeah, it was just such a such a time for it. And I think there was the pull to do the the true weekly Project Life. Like we're going to show up, and we're going to do this particular spread and even like photo per day, like, yeah, there's this many pockets. And so there's going to be one photo for each day of the week plus an extra title pocket and one filler card. I don't know, I feel like it was very structured. So...

Nancy Damiano 12:27

It was I remember that Project 365. It was one picture per day, 365 days, I probably made it to, you know, day 90, maybe.

Jennifer Wilson 12:37

Transitioning more into full page photos. Why do you enjoy including these in your albums, I want to just like, give some of that deeper, kind of both creative and meaning context. Before we go in further.

Nancy Damiano 12:51

I think that using the one enlargement, as my entire page adds a lot of impact to the story. So there's three things that I'm always looking at the photo, the story and the embellishment of the fun things I want to use. I always want the photo to be, almost always, I can't say always, sometimes the story does, you know, outweigh the photo. But I think when you look, if you ever watch someone go through your scrapbooks, who's not a scrapbooker, they always hold the scrapbook closer to their face to look at the pictures, to peer at the pictures, some of them will look at the story. Nobody looks at the embellishments. And so for its longevity, for its meaning, I always want that photo to be, you know, centrestage.

Jennifer Wilson 13:39

You know, that's a really important point. Because I remember back in the day, I actually started as a digital scrapbooker. And in that time, like 2008, 2009 it was really popular to use these tiny photos like smaller than two by two. And I'd show my finished creations to my husband. I was so proud. He's like, could the photo be like five times bigger? Okay, that's what he cared about. He didn't care about the the artistic process I put into it, or really even the words he wanted the photo.

Nancy Damiano 14:09

Yes, yes. I remember that style. It was the postage stamp. The picture looked like yes.

Jennifer Wilson 14:15

Sometimes literally it wasn't a postage stamp frame too. So it was just yeah. And, and certainly, I love a good photo collage with smaller photos. But it's really the the additive of that that makes the I don't know the visual impact. But these large photos. They've been some of my favorite pages to make over the years too. Whether it's, you know, in that smaller format or up to you know, full even 12 by 12.

Nancy Damiano 14:44

Absolutely.

Jennifer Wilson 14:44

So actually, I'm curious about that. Did you do full page 12 by 12 when you were doing larger layouts?

Nancy Damiano 14:50

I did a handful. They're awfully expensive to print out.

Jennifer Wilson 14:54

Yeah.

Nancy Damiano 14:55

Yeah, I need a lot of forethought for that. But I think Ali Edwards was doing it many years ago. And it was cool. Again, it had tremendous impact. And even if it was a photo of your kitchen just because it was so big, it was like, Wow. So I have a handful, handful.

Jennifer Wilson 15:11

I remember a few times when I had like the 12 by 12, I've taken the time, I ordered it from Persnickety Prints. And then I felt so intimidated to actually make the page because like, I have this full page photo. And there's no do overs here. So yeah, once something's down, it's down. So how do you decide when you're going to include a full page photo in your album? And are you typically thinking about this as a single page, or are you always thinking about the spread?

Nancy Damiano 15:41

Generally, I'm thinking about the spread. Like I said, when I go through my camera roll for the previous week. And as I'm looking at the pictures, I usually make sure it's the morning time as I'm having my coffee. I think you need quiet, not only to recall the stories, but sometimes you'll pass a picture and you'll remember something or I get a certain feeling about a picture. And then I go Oh, yeah, that story. And I'll write it down in a journal that I keep. And that's how I know use this picture tell this story. It's not when I sit down to scrapbook, it's when I'm quiet and I'm just looking at pictures. You know, almost fishing for stories, I guess.

Jennifer Wilson 16:21

Yeah, I think I mean, that's a really important point. Because when we do get quiet and we we sit with, whether it's sitting with our supplies, or photos, or our journal, some of the best stuff comes out then. When we're not not pushing to make something happen.

Nancy Damiano 16:39

Right. Yeah, by the time I sit at my desk, and I have all my cool embellishments, or the latest thing I bought, that is not for me, it doesn't work for me to try at that point. To think of the story in the picture, I better have that already written down somewhere or a plan for it. I guess I'm a planner. That's how I create.

Jennifer Wilson 16:58

Well, I think having the story in mind helps you then choose the supplies. Because you can say, well, this, this goes with the mood. I have the direction that I want to take this story versus this, this, well this definitely doesn't.

Nancy Damiano 17:10

Right, right. Absolutely. Yeah, it's difficult to sit down with new product and then try to, you know, squish a story into this cool product that you've got. That's, that's, that's a hard way to create. I haven't been too successful doing it that way. I'm definitely story first.

Jennifer Wilson 17:27

So when you're thinking about this spread, are you thinking about? I mean, if you have we have large photo on one side, does the journaling typically typically go on the photo, or does it go on the other page?

Nancy Damiano 17:39

So both. Sometimes the story is so large that it doesn't fit just on the photo, and I have to add some also to the left side or right side of the spread. So it depends, each story is different. And the picture too, it depends on the picture. If I have enough white space in a photo, to add a long story, then I can use it. If I don't, then my journaling naturally falls to the other side.

Jennifer Wilson 18:06

And do you find kind of looking at this spread? Like how does that compare to other projects that you work on and trying to figure out the composition? Because sometimes I think a photo can be you know, especially if it is busier? You know, there's a lot to look at how do you make sure everything feels balanced? So I know it's kind of intuitive, but yeah, how you think about it?

Nancy Damiano 18:28

It is. But like so if I have a close up of, well the closeup of my son hugging my dad, right, that's two really large objects on the right side. So I can actually do something really tiny, tiny little embellishments all over the left side, I can do a little grid, I can add a lot. But if my photo was of something, I don't know, the pool outside with a bunch of kids and a lot of little items and a barbecue going on. And you have a lot going on then naturally to me, the left side would be something that's a little bit bolder, a little bit cleaner. Your eye always needs a place to rest. So whether it's on the photo, because it's just these two large objects, or it's on the journaling side where you've kind of left a nice amount of white space and room to breathe.

Jennifer Wilson 19:21

Oh, that's like that's brilliant. Thank you. I think sometimes design can be the hardest part. And the more that we can pick up these little little tips to thinking about whether it's contrast or visual weight or having a place for your eye to rest. I think those are really important for finding your own happy place and finally knowing when it's done and how to make some of these choices sometimes. Quite more on the technical side, what's your process for printing these photos?

Nancy Damiano 19:54

I have an Epson Picture Mate for my smaller photos. And then when I do full page, I also have another Epson printer that I use for my five by eight and a quarter.

Jennifer Wilson 20:09

And are you typically printing on, like, do you put that five by eight and a quarter on a larger canvas? Or are you cropping your photo paper down first and printing it exact size?

Nancy Damiano 20:20

No, I use Photoshop to crop them down first, to that size, and then I print them out.

Jennifer Wilson 20:26

All right. All right. And do you prefer, you mentioned earlier that you are creating both inside the page protector and outside. When we're talking about full page photos, do you have a preference or a way that you're leaning these days?

Nancy Damiano 20:42

These days, I'm definitely leaning outside of the page protector, for sure.

Jennifer Wilson 20:46

What do you think makes that so fun?

Nancy Damiano 20:49

I think it's because there's no plastic between my eyes are my fingers and the actual page. I just like the idea of that. It's just the texture. I'm very, I love textiles. And so I like that.

Jennifer Wilson 21:10

You know what, I love when you're, I'm assuming that when you have outside the page protector, you end up adhearing front, front and back pages together, right? And then you punch the holes, that's what I typically do. I love that thickness, and feeling of the photos. And there's definitely a satisfaction there. I get that.

Nancy Damiano 21:29

Absolutely.

Jennifer Wilson 21:31

I also have, I was just talking about this as a friend, we have this like tiny conspiracy, crafty conspiracy theory, that those designers who are on teams or more prominent in the industry started going outside the pocket just to take photos easier, because there was no glare from the page protector.

Nancy Damiano 21:49

And you had to take out all the little pictures before you took the photographs. Absolutely.

Jennifer Wilson 21:55

I mean, it's just it's true. And also, it's fun at the same time. But there, I think there is some element of truth to it, because it makes everything a little bit easier

Nancy Damiano 22:03

Somewhat. And I also think too, some, if you couldn't find the page protector size that you needed. Not a problem because you don't need a page protector at all.

Jennifer Wilson 22:14

Well, it allows you also the more flexibility to change up page sizes even more dramatically. If you want to make it narrower or you make a mistake, and all of a sudden the pages narrower. It creates that visual interest without being bound to various page protector sizes. So we've talked a little bit about this. But when you're thinking about, thinking about whether to include a photo that's large. Or where you're going to add the type journaling, where you're going to put the embellishments. Like can you talk more about how you're thinking where that's all going to go? Because I did notice before that you had, you do type a lot of journaling on top of it.

Nancy Damiano 22:54

I do, sometimes I do. Last weekend, for example, I very intentionally took a shot of the kids in the pool and the three kids. The kids and the pool are, the kids are actually at the upper third of the photo. And then the rest is just blue water. Because I already knew what I'm going to do. And I'm going to compare it to a picture of them when they were really young and, and pulled together to and how you know, life has changed between when they were three, four, and five with the little floaties. And now that they're teenagers. But when I took that photo, I already knew what I was going to do. And that happens, you know, sometimes because we look at telling stories very intentionally. So sometimes I take my photos with a lot of intention behind them.

Jennifer Wilson 23:42

You know, that's Yeah, I think that's so handy. And I do that too. But I don't know that I was really doing it consciously. It was more of a, it's more of a subconscious habit by now. But definitely, there's some photos where I can see Oh, look, there's nice whitespace let's type there. But then the more that I do that, the more that I'm like, Okay, let's shift the camera a little bit to include twice as much sky, or grass, or pool, or whatever, so that you can have that white space in the photo. It's not only good for the journal length, but just also to have a cleaner photo. I think the more that you think about what you're leaving out sometimes to kind of visually self cropping with your body and the movement and the choices that you make can make a cleaner, more visually striking photo. Because you're including more whitespace and just reducing the clutter, I guess.

Nancy Damiano 24:39

Sure. And you don't always have to fill it with journaling. I find it, blue sky I like for a lot of titles. The blue sky with a yellow alphabet on top of it looks great all the time.

Jennifer Wilson 24:50

Yes, yes, yes. Now when you are embellishing on your photos, do you have any things that you do or don't do? I know that sometimes like, writing, like, handwriting on photos can be, you know, pretty fun because it's slick, typing is fun. Sometimes when I'm embellishing, I get a little nervous, because really once you would adhere it, it's gonna stick forever.

Nancy Damiano 25:14

It is it's done, or you're going to print another picture.

Jennifer Wilson 25:17

Yes, I have done too.

Nancy Damiano 25:18

Many times. Many times I use a ruler to kind of space out my alphabets. I've also seen, I did pick them up at a craft store. They're actually for planners, but they're made out of this thick plastic but stickers don't stick permanently to them. So you can plan out your planner pages, but I use them for this smaller scrapbooks. So sometimes I use those to give me an idea where on a picture it's going to go. But you know, sometimes I mess up too. And I just reprint my picture and start over.

Jennifer Wilson 25:54

Yeah, or suddenly something larger goes there.

Nancy Damiano 25:57

Exactly. Or I cover it up.

Jennifer Wilson 26:01

Yeah, I have to include a link in the show notes for that Planner Tool. But I've certainly just used a ruler before to like, lay out my letter stickers to see, okay, how wide is this really going to be? So I make sure that the first one goes down in the right spot.

Nancy Damiano 26:16

Exactly. You can always use the backing of stickers of old stickers, you know, the clear, I have several of those laying around sometimes, you know, in a pinch, I'll use that.

Jennifer Wilson 26:27

For sure. Sometimes, what did, I stuck something on something recently assuming that, oh, it's just gonna come up, and then it was, oh, it's not coming up.

Nancy Damiano 26:36

That's when you use the wrong side.

Jennifer Wilson 26:40

So one of the things I thought was particularly notable in your pages as you've been doing so many fold outs, and not even just fold outs with cardstock, but fold outs with full page photos that are being folded. So I'm wondering, are you scoring the photo itself? Or are you putting two photos together? Like I know photo paper and photo paper can sometimes be finicky. So I'm curious if you have any tips and secrets, here.

Nancy Damiano 27:07

It is. I use a bone folder and a scoring mat. That definitely helps me. I score on the white side of the photo, not on the printed side of the photo. I also use matte photo paper, I think it's Luster actually, it's called Epson Luster. Which has a little bit more bend to it. The more high glossy you get with your photo paper, the more it's going to crack and you're not going to be able to fold it. So that would be my tip.

Jennifer Wilson 27:33

Oh, perfect. So helpful.

Nancy Damiano 27:35

Yeah.

Jennifer Wilson 27:35

You've already shared so many wonderful, helpful tips in this episode already.

Nancy Damiano 27:39

Great. I'm glad.

Jennifer Wilson 27:41

Are there any other like more technical tips you want to share?

Nancy Damiano 27:45

Learn Photoshop, I know it's a pain. I resisted for many, many years. But if you learn the basic skills, and it will go a long way. It will really help you turn, maybe basic everyday pictures that you don't think are so great. And when you take a turn and know how to crop them and do different things to them in Photoshop, you're going to get a great picture out of it.

Jennifer Wilson 28:11

It is and I think that there's this idea that you have to like quote unquote, learn Photoshop. No, you need to learn how to do the things that you want to do in Photoshop. And over time, you can add to those skills. But you don't have to know how to do every single thing in the program and master it in order to start using it really effectively.

Nancy Damiano 28:29

Exactly. Just learn little bits and nuggets. And then you're going to naturally want to know, hey, how do I do this and you Google it and you watch three YouTube videos and you'll figure it out. It's not as difficult as it seems, when you first start out once you get the hang of it.

Jennifer Wilson 28:44

So I'm curious, where did you turn when you were starting to learn.

Nancy Damiano 28:47

The first thing I took was an Ali Edwards class, it was a hybrid class because I was really interested in learning how to do hybrid scrapbook pages, I saw this huge world of limitless colors and fonts and icons that I could use. So I took one of her very first, this was maybe a year and a half ago. And I got enough of that class to get me started. And then I just naturally progressed from there and, and like I said, I YouTube different things when I want to learn, you know how to do this or that. It's a lot of trial and error. You got to put the time in. I'll tell you this But it's worth it.

Jennifer Wilson 29:24

Well and I love that you started with a scrapbooking source. Like let's learn the things that I need to do for my hobby and the projects I want to create rather than just some random you know, LinkedIn learning, like learn Photoshop from scratch type of thing.

Nancy Damiano 29:39

Yeah, I would not recommend that. I did try that. But it was so overwhelming that I was like oh, forget this. I'm not I'm not going to ever be a digital scrapbooker. But when I learned just maybe three little techniques that I could use right then and there. It was just, it just opened a different world for me.

Jennifer Wilson 29:56

So okay, on this note of Photoshop, can we talk a little bit more about your hybrid process? I'm particularly looking at your memory planner, and you're including typed journaling. So are you, tell me how you are, are you printing on vellum? How are you doing this?

Nancy Damiano 30:13

It was not my mind. Again, this was Veronica Creates on Instagram. She's wonderful. Should check out her Instagram feed. I got the idea from her. She is using matte label paper. So it's just like, yeah, some off brand. I bought it on Amazon. The trick is that it has to be matte and has to be clear.

Jennifer Wilson 30:32

Yeah.

Nancy Damiano 30:33

I could tell, and I did buy a different brand than the one I currently have. And it didn't work for my printer. And well, you know what, I just set it to the side. And this, I can tell you that this brand that I'm using works with an Epson printer, it doesn't smear, you can stamp on it. It's it just blends right into the background into white backgrounds beautifully.

Jennifer Wilson 30:54

Yeah, it looks like you've typed directly on the page.

Nancy Damiano 30:57

It does, I get that question all the time. You know, probably because in the photograph, it melds even more, but I can tell you that even in person, it's almost like you're saying it is almost like vellum.

Jennifer Wilson 31:08

Yeah.

Nancy Damiano 31:09

And I know that they make adhesive back vellum. But I think it's very expensive, like $2 or something a sheet and I can't afford to do that with the amount of journaling that I do. So I don't know, I bought a pack of I think it's 50 sheets for 20 bucks.

Jennifer Wilson 31:24

Yeah, I think I have some of this tucked away somewhere I'd found these kind of mixed media printables that you could use as you know, background elements without the mess. And I wanted to play with those. But I never ended up doing anything with it. But now I'm like, Oh, I could do journaling with that, too. That sounds so fun. It is. Now, when you are printing like on a tag or a journaling card? Are you using the sticker paper for that? Or are you printing directly on it?

Nancy Damiano 31:55

So both. It depends, sometimes if I have the digital file for a journal card, I would definitely rather use the digital card and, you know, get it done at one time and print them out. But sometimes I don't have the digital image of that card. Or, for example in the small four by six Field Notes notebooks that I'm doing right now the little mini albums. I'm using them. I'm using the vellum the I'm sorry, matte sticker paper in this.

Jennifer Wilson 32:23

Oh yes, I'm just I'm eating up your Instagram feed here and will of course include the link to that in the show notes as well as any you know, fun items that you've mentioned as well. You're just yeah. Feeling so inspired right now to create some more things because I am such a fan of hybrid journaling it not only you know, it looks tidy on the page. It avoids all of the handwriting insecurities that some of us have. And you can fit so many more words on the page at the same time.

Nancy Damiano 32:53

Yeah, I think that's that's the major reason why I do it. I I'm okay with my handwriting. But I would never be able to write everything I want to say.

Jennifer Wilson 33:02

Otherwise, yeah, no way. Yeah. All right, Nancy, this was so delightful. Can you share where we can find you online and anything new or fun you have coming up in the future?

Nancy Damiano 33:13

Sure. I'm Nancy Damiano. Just my name on Instagram, that is where I share everything. Fun and interesting, another, another four by six Field Notebook. This one is on pep talks. And I'm really looking forward to digging into that project.

Jennifer Wilson 33:30

Oh, I can't wait to take a gander at what you create with it. And to all of our listeners, I hope you remember that you have permission to Scrapbook Your Way. If you like the podcast, you'll love being a member. When you join you'll get access to weekly Zoom crops, bimonthly retreats, and a huge content library. You can head over to simplescrapper.com/membership to learn more and join our creative community.