ALLISON DAVIS has always been one of my favorite scrapbookers. Ali was a member of the 2008 and 2009 Dream Teams for CREATING KEEPSAKES magazine. I always enjoy her layouts in CK and my eye immediately goes to them because she scraps like I scrap. In fact, when she was a guest BLOGGER for CK in July 2009 and described the way she scraps, I could have written the exact same thing about myself:
“I am a two-page, multiphoto kinda gal. Mostly because I take too many pictures and have way too much to say for any other format. I try to fit lots of pictures on my layouts. This can be blamed on my complete lack of control over the photo selection process. It’s just so hard to narrow it down to only a few!”
Her books are called “Sketches for Scrapbooking” and here is more about them, from Alison’s website:
“Each volume of “Sketches for Scrapbooking” contains 30 exclusive sketches designed by Scrapbook Generation’s Debbie Sanders and Allison Davis. All sketches have a key that indicates which areas are stripes, small patterns, large patterns, contrasting cardstock, etc to make paper selection super easy. Photo sizes and paper measurements are included on each sketch.”
You can purchase them HERE. As of now, there are Scrapbooking sketch books, volumes 1 through 5 ($12.99 each) and even a sketchbook for cardmaking ($12.99). The sketchbooks are by Allison Davis and Debbie Sanders, and the cardmaking book is by Stacey Atchley, all from the SCRAPBOOK GENERATION store.
What finally reminded/convinced me to purchase some of these books was THIS thread at 2peas. I love the idea several Peas have posted about how they tear the books apart and sort them in binders by the number of photos per sketch. And here are a couple reviews that really sold me:
“Not only does she give photo dimensions, but also the dimensions for the various paper pieces that are used on the layout along with positioning information.”
“I so love these sketch books! I think I have almost every sketch book made these are the easiest to use and the layouts are so good when completed. They are also the quickest to finish, I have probably finished about 40 pages in the last 6 weeks which is alot for me.”
Holy scrapbooking, Batman! Forty pages in 6 weeks!?!?! That totally rocks. These books remind me of my beloved EASY PATTERNS for SCRAPBOOKING by BRENDA ARNALL that I’ve mentioned MANY TIMES. Of course, I admire and adore the work of those scrappers who can spend hours on one layout and create an artistic masterpiece, but that’s just not how I scrap. I might look at their layout and take one element to use on mine, like a paper flower, a photo arrangement, or a color scheme. But I take so many photos and have so many events, vacations, and other projects I want to scrap, I need to keep it moving. It sounds like these sketch books will be perfect for me.
You can see a preview of her upcoming DVD “Scrapbooking with Allison Davis” HERE and PRE-purchase it HERE ($19.99).
The shipping is ONLY $2.99 no matter how many books you order, so why not order several at once? I just purchased all 5 of the sketchbooks, and plan to get the cardmaking book and DVD in the future. How about you? Do you have these books already or plan to get them?
ETA 4/5/10: I noticed that Melissa/Scrappy Jedi, who left a comment on this entry, has also written a review of these books. Go check it out HERE.
ETAA 4/5/10: I started a THREAD on 2peas to let the girls know they totally enabled me to buy these 5 sketchbooks, and one of the Scrapbook Generation girls posted this: “Is this a good time to tell you that we’ll have volume 6 ready for sale on July 1?” So there’s a heads up for you Allison David sketchbook fans!
ETAA 7/12/12: The plans for the DVD were “scrapped” {bwahahaha … scrapped!} but they have added lotsa’ more sketch books. There are now:
Sketches for Scrapbooking (all two-page layouts): Volumes 1 through 8
Sketches for Scrapbooking: One Page Sketches: Volumes 1 and 2
Sketches for Scrapbook: Travel Sketches
Sketches for Cardmaking: Volumes 1 and 2
Now instead of $12.99, each sketch book is $15.99. They’re still very popular and very much a part of my own scrapbooking. Here is an update from one of the Scrapbook Generation team, who posted it at 2 Peas on 06/17/12:
Several of you are right!
— Of the “regular” Sketches for Scrapbooking double-page books, volume eight is the most current.
— The most recent books are volume one of travel and volume two of Allison’s one-page series, both of which came out in January of 2012.
Our schedule in the past has been to do at least one book every six months, coming out with new books in January and July. We will not be publishing new books this July because we are working on a huge project involving sketches that requires every bit of our time and energy right now. That’s why we’re cutting back on some other time-consuming activities like retreats.
I’m actually dying to tell what the newest project is, but we have to pass a few more hurdles before we do a big announcement. (We learned our lesson with the DVD disaster a couple of years ago!)
When we do finally get to let you in on the secret, I think it will have been worth the wait!
Sounds exciting!
