Big Picture Classes Blog Posts

No Bored Kids!!

2013-05-24T00:00:00-07:00

If you're currently parenting one or more children who are afflicted with summer boredom or if you know someone who is we'd like to introduce you to Tami Morrison's proven summer solution.

Since 2009, Tami has delighted more than 1,245 children and families worldwide in her wonder-inducing workshop series, Kidding Around: A summer memory-keeping adventure for kids.

This summer, for the first time ever, Kidding Around is available for up to 8 straight weeks! Choose for yourself:

Option 1: Best of Kidding Around

Compilation of best prompts from past Kidding Around workshops

4 weeks: June 6 through July 3

$25

Learn More

Option 2: Kidding Around 4

All-new prompts and creative challenges from Tami Morrison

4 weeks: July 4 through August 1

$25

Learn More

Option 3: Eight weeks of Kidding Around

Both 4-week sessions, back to back!

8 weeks: June 6 through August 1

$40 (A $10 Savings!)

Learn More

Storytelling: Listen

2013-05-22T00:00:00-07:00

This month I invite you to watch this TED talk: 5 Ways to Listen Better, by Julian Treasure.
In fact, I think you should watch this video twice. Once to get the gist and the second time to decide how you will apply Julians expertise.

Silence
Mixer
Savor
Position
RASA

Step off the beaten path on your journey to inspired scrapbooking this month and think about how could you employ one of Julians tactics listed above. Only by asking and then truly listening will we be able to hear the stories we most want to tell.

Storytelling Archives

Savor the Gifts layout challenge

2013-05-21T00:00:00-07:00

As I have been viewing the loss and destruction caused by tornados in the mid-west, especially Oklahoma, I have been reminded of what I value most. As scrapbookers we speak the same language and we support and encourage one another to document our stories. The layout that moved me and made me want to stop and make a layout, is the one below made by Karen Grunberg. It was orginally created as part of our 2013 Creative Crop and her challenge was to use your own handwriting, I was drawn to the title, the story of the page, Savor the Gifts of the Present Moment.

My challenge to you is to TAKE A MINUTE out of your day and make a page like this!!! regardless of your to-do list, the places you have to go, the messes that need to be cleaned up, just do it!

I am going to do it (after I get my BPC work done for the day) before I make dinner, take Caden to soccer, finish the laundry, and on and on. Join me! Make your own page and upload it to the student sharing gallery and help motivate others to make this page as well.

Thanks Karen for making this page and sharing it with all of us

Sneak Peek of Finding Your Photo Style Classroom

2013-05-20T00:00:00-07:00

Hope you getting to the know the six talented photographers who are participing in our NEW Finding Your Photo Style workshop that starts on Thursday, May 23. (if you missed it see the archived links below) Today I get to share a sneak peek of the classroom.

Each time you login to the class you see the welcome page where the teachers communicate their plans for class that week.

The assignments, videos, and handouts in the class are robust and timeless. See part of Maggie Holmes content below.

Handout Sneak Peek

FYPS Handout Maggie SneakPeek by bigpictureclasses

Video Sneak Peek

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The randomly selected six winners of a spot in this workshop listed below

Vigreer
Lwoods87
Family Scrapper
JeanneWilliams
Roberta
iMel

Class starts Thursday, register here!

Meet the Photographers

Meet Photographer Elizabeth Dillow

2013-05-18T00:00:00-07:00

Elizabeth Dillow is a professional photographer, author, scrapbooker, and blogger who lives in Cheyenne, Wyoming with her husband, three daughters, and seven-year-old Australian Kelpie rescue dog. Shes had a camera in her hand since 1974there is proof, even though it was upside downand cant remember a time where she wasnt documenting family, friends, and daily life. She takes a camera with her everywhereright side up these days, fortunatelysecretly believing it to be just as important as any attached appendage. She is a frequent instructor at Big Picture Classes, the author of the print book The Scrapbookers Almanac and most recently, the eBook Meaningful Minis: How to make little scrapbook albums with lots of heart.

What do you believe with all of your heart?
People matter.

What do you teach, write, blog, and talk incessantly about?
How important it is to photograph and document your regular, ordinary life for your family and for future generations and about stuff Apple makes.

When did you get your start?
With a camera: 1974; with scrapbooking ephemera:1978; with an SLR: 1990; with modern scrapbooking: 2003; with a DSLR: 2004; with a blog: 2005; with Big Picture Classes: 2006

GIVEAWAY

We are giving away six spots in Finding Your Photo Style, you can enter each day using the form below.
Giveaway closes Sunday 5/19 at midnight PT winners announced Monday 5/20
**if you win a spot and have already purchased the class you will be reimbursed**

BPC Giveaway: Finding Your Photo Style

PromoSimple.

Meet Photographer Tracey Clark

2013-05-17T00:00:00-07:00

Tracey Clark is a photographer, writer, mother, collaborator, and founder of Shutter Sisters. She is the author of four books including her most recent, Elevate the Everyday: A Photographic Guide to Picturing Motherhood. Tracey writes for Babble Voices, teaches at Big Picture Classes, advocates for Shot@Life and is raising both a teen and a tween which makes for a pretty awesome balance of everything shes passionate about. She lives in sunny So Cal with her family and their two adorable dogs.

Who are you?

Light stalker and seeker of beauty in even the most ordinary things.

Who has inspired you, personally or professionally, to be who you are?

Almost everyone I have surrounded myself with in my life has helped me become and be my truest self.
What do you believe with all of your heart? That perspectiveand lovechanges everything.

GIVEAWAY

We are giving away six spots in Finding Your Photo Style, you can enter each day using the form below.
Giveaway closes Sunday 5/19 at midnight PT winners announced Monday 5/20
**if you win a spot and have already purchased the class you will be reimbursed**

BPC Giveaway: Finding Your Photo Style

PromoSimple.

Meet Photographer Rebecca Cooper

2013-05-16T00:00:00-07:00

Rebecca Cooper is a 32-year-old wife and mother of four. As a professional photographer, shes captured thousands of beautiful portraits, but she finds the most joy and fulfillment in snapping everyday photos of her own family and documenting her ordinary life. She believes that pausing to take these shots increases her appreciation for the details of her life, making them seem almost magical. Rebecca is also a three-time eBook author, the author of the print book Real.Simple.Scrapbooking. and a popular blogger, Simple as That.

Where is your favorite place on earth?

Outside in the sunshine.
Where do you go to be inspired?
Sometimes my quiet cozy bedroom. Sometimes Pinterest

.
Why are you here at BPC?
To share my love for photography + hopefully inspire you to find new ways to photograph the everyday.

GIVEAWAY

We are giving away six spots in Finding Your Photo Style, you can enter each day using the form below.
Monday 5/20
Giveaway closes Sunday 5/19 at midnight PT winners announced
**if you win a spot and have already purchased the class you will be reimbursed**

IF THE GIVEAWAY FORM DOES NOT LOAD LEAVE A COMMENT TO ENTER GIVEAWAY

BPC Giveaway: Finding Your Photo Style

PromoSimple.

Meet Photographer Kate T. Parker

2013-05-15T00:00:00-07:00

Kate lives and shoots outside Atlanta, Georgia. Her two daughters and everyday life with her family are her inspiration and favorite things to shoot (even though they hate it.) Currently working with families, weddings, fine art and commercial work, Kate tries to find a way to impart her aesthetic and sense of beauty across them all. Her photographic goal is capture a sense of honesty and truth in her subjects while not taking life too seriously and making sure theres enough time to get a run in.

Where is your favorite place on earth?
Grayton Beach, FL surrounded by the white sand, green water, my husband and two girls, sunscreen on my back, sand in my toes and salt water in my hair.

What do you believe with all of your heart?
Trust your gut. Follow it, believe it. It doesnt lie. Hard work is rewarded. Everything feels better after a run. Poop jokes are always funny.

Where do you go to be inspired?
Anywhere new. New places, new light, new people, new activities are always inspirational.

GIVEAWAY

We are giving away six spots in Finding Your Photo Style, you can enter each day using the form below.
Giveaway closes Sunday 5/19 at midnight PT winners announced Monday 5/20
**if you win a spot and have already purchased the class you will be reimbursed**

BPC Giveaway: Finding Your Photo Style

PromoSimple.

Meet Photographer Maggie Holmes

2013-05-14T00:00:00-07:00

A scrapbooker since high school, Maggie is passionate about scrapbooking and loves the fact that she can record all of her special family memories and create art at the same time! She currently designs for Studio Calico and is also on the Creating Keepsakes Dream Team. Her inspiring layouts and ideas can be found on her website at MaggieHolmes.com. She lives in Arizona where she is a professional photographer and mother of five amazing children. She feels blessed to share her talent with others and capture meaningful photos for her clients. She also teaches others how to capture amazing images themselves through her online photography workshops. Maggie loves to read, organize, and decorate her home. Always juggling many projects at once, when Maggie gets a quiet moment, its usually spent dreaming up the next project (while snuggling with her babies, of course).

Where is your favorite place on earth?
Our home

Where do you go to be inspired?
Clothing and home catalogs/storesJ.Crew, Anthropologie, Land of Nod, West Elm.

Why do you love your life?
Because I get to do what I love every single day, all while being at home with my family. I truly feel blessed that it all meshes together so I can be a mom and be creative all at the same time.

GIVEAWAY

We are giving away six spots in Finding Your Photo Style, you can enter each day using the form below.
Giveaway closes Sunday 5/19 at midnight PT winners announced Monday 5/20
**if you win a spot and have already purchased the class you will be reimbursed**

IF THE GIVEAWAY FORM DOES NOT LOAD LEAVE A COMMENT TO ENTER GIVEAWAY

BPC Giveaway: Finding Your Photo Style

PromoSimple.

Meet Photographer Andrea Jenkins

2013-05-13T00:00:00-07:00

Andrea Corrona Jenkins is one part photographer, one part writer, one part teacher, one part (modern) dancer and one hundred parts mama. She lives with her spectacularly bearded husband and two children in Portland, Oregon in a small cottage filled with too many collections and probably too many legos.

Where is your favorite place on earth?

Italy, where the alleyways are filled with hanging laundry and the color there is so good you can almost taste it.

Where do you go to be inspired?

Downtown. I walk the streets, take time to notice color, light, patterns, people. Works every time.

When did you get your start?
I took my first photography class when I was in high school but was immersed in the study of dance at the time and couldn't think of anything else. So I devoted my twenties to the study of modern dance but my thirties have been all about photography. I was 29 when I finally found my way back to my camera. After my first child was born, I found that photography was something I could do with a baby attached at my hip. I began to shoot everyday and then I began to share work on my blog (and elsewhere online). Really, it grew out of that place.

Discover more about Andrea on her blog, Hula Seventy and learn from her in Finding Your Photo Style

GIVEAWAY

We are giving away six spots in Finding Your Photo Style, you can enter each day using the form below.
Giveaway closes Sunday 5/19 at midnight PT winners announced Monday 5/20
**if you win a spot and have already purchased the class you will be reimbursed**

IF THE GIVEAWAY FORM DOES NOT LOAD LEAVE A COMMENT TO ENTER GIVEAWAY

BPC Giveaway: Finding Your Photo Style

PromoSimple.

What gift would you give her?

2013-05-09T00:00:00-07:00

More Stacy Julian love today! The question I want you to answer is, What would you give her? It could be a book, a card, a trip, anything you can imagine.

Can't wait to read what you come up with!

Has she changed your scrapbooking?

2013-05-08T00:00:00-07:00

How many of you have had the chance to attend a Stacy class or presentation in person? Then you know she has a gift for public speaking. She has traveled the world speading about scrapbooking and how it enhances our life. Please share how she has changed scrapbooking for you.

Lesson's Learned from Stacy

2013-05-07T00:00:00-07:00

What lesson's have you learned from Stacy?

Share below or on our Facebook wall, or on your own blog (just post a link in either place)

Celebrate Stacy's Birthday with Us!

2013-05-06T00:00:00-07:00

We are so excited to invite you, our best BPC members, to help us celebrate our founder, Stacy Julian. It is her birthday week and we want to celebrate her and her contributions to our industry and need your help.

To participate

leave a comment on the blog sharing a favorite Stacy story,
stop by the Facebook wall and post a photo of you and Stacy or
share something she inspired you to create on the above or on your personal blog

Can't wait to see what you have to share!

(and stay tuned for more Stacy love all week long)

Winners from Class Giveaway Week

2013-05-04T00:00:00-07:00

Thanks for participing in our week long giveaways. The winners are posted in the original post, and also below.

CLASS WINNERS

Textuality and Two Views Heaney
28 Sketches: Round 2 and Stretch Your Sketches 2 eBook Patsyanne and Jen in MD
Multi-Photo Solutions and Finding Your Photo Style Cathy H
Kidding Around 4 and Camp Scrap Kristin409

PRODUCT WINNERS

Amy Tangerine product pack TJButler
Simple Stories Snap products Denise
Martha Stewart Workstation scrappergal
Close to My Heart Stamp set Terikat

Thanks for participating!

Giveaway: Camp Scrap + Kidding Around 4

2013-05-02T00:00:00-07:00

Today's class giveaway is for a spot in Camp Scrap and Kidding Around, something for you + something for the kids!

BPC Giveaway: Camp Scrap + Kidding Around 4

PromoSimple.

Make sure you sign-up for the FREE 2013 Creative Crop, the fun starts Saturday.
Get a glimpse of some past Creative Crop challenges here.
For more giveaways LIKE our Facebook page!

Product Giveaway

PromoSimple.

Giveaway: Multi-Photo Solutions + FInding Your Photo Style

2013-05-01T00:00:00-07:00

Welcome to day 3 of Giveaways!! Today's giveaway is for a spot in Multi-Photo Solutions and Finding Your Photo Style.

BPC Giveaway: Multi-Photo Solutions + Finding Your Photo Style

PromoSimple.

GIVEAWAY CLOSED

WINNER: Cathy H

Make sure you sign-up for the FREE 2013 Creative Crop, the fun starts Saturday.
Get a glimpse of some past Creative Crop challenges here.
For more giveaways LIKE our Facebook page!

Giveaway: 28 Sketches 2 + Stretch your Sketches

2013-04-30T00:00:00-07:00

Welcome to day 2 of our class giveaway week. Today the prize is a workshop + our new eBook.

28 Sketches: Round 2 + Stretch Your Sketches 2. Enter below.

GIVEAWAY CLOSED

WINNERS: Patsyanne and Jen in MD

BPC Giveaway: Sketches

PromoSimple.

Make sure you sign-up for the FREE 2013 Creative Crop, the fun starts Saturday.
Get a glimpse of some past Creative Crop challenges here.
For more giveaways LIKE our Facebook page!

Today's product giveaway is below,

Product Giveaway

PromoSimple.

Bonus Giveaway: Everyday Storyteller 2

2013-04-29T00:00:00-07:00

Everyday Storyteller 2 is a brand new idea book offering more than 100 tips, tricks and techniques for scrapbooking. Go behind the scenes with 33 of your favorite memory keepers to see how they capture moments, tell stories and document their best memories. Sign up for the VIP list to be the first to know when the book is released and receive an exclusive discount.

GIVEAWAY

Each book contributor participating in the blog hop is giving away an eBook copy of Everyday Storyteller. Use this entry link or click the graphic below to complete your entry form. You must enter by 11:59pm PDT on April 30, 2013 to be eligible. You may enter from each stop. Winners will be contacted directly as well as posted at everydaystoryteller.com on May 1, 2013.

Tangie Baxter Kerri Bradford Joscelyne Cutchens Catherine Davis Patty Debowski Lisa Dickinson Karla Dudley Leah Farquharson Karen Grunberg Jenni Hufford Donna Jannuzzi Amanda Jones Mandy Koeppen Riikka Kovasin Kami Leonard Amy Mallory Amy Martin Ann-Marie Morris Celine Navarro Lynnette Penacho Kelly Purkey Krista Sahlin Linda Sattgast Cindy Schneider Wendy Smedley Elisha Snow Amy Sorensen Neisha Sykes Jill Sprott Laura Vegas Allison Waken Crystal Wilkerson Jennifer Wilson Patty Debowski Lynnette Penacho Elisha Snow Wendy Smedley Neisha Sykes

e sure to Make plans to JOIN the Launch Party

When: 8-10:30pm CDT on Friday, May 3
Where: everydaystoryteller.com/party

Giveaway: Textuality + Two Views

2013-04-29T00:00:00-07:00

In anticipation of our FREE Creative Crop it is time for GIVEAWAY WEEK. We are kicking it off with our 3rd annual class giveaway week with a workshop and a self-paced class prize for one lucky winner.

To enter leave a comment sharing your favorite font.

GIVEAWAY CLOSED

WINNER: Heaney

Giveaway Closes Thursday, May 2 at noon PST

Make sure you sign-up for the FREE 2013 Creative Crop, the fun starts Saturday.

Get a glimpse of some past Creative Crop challenges here.

For our Daily product giveaways LIKE our Facebook page or enter below.