Booking Memories

Remember all those glorious summer images? Tanned faces, big happy smiles, sunsets and family celebrations. All of them are stored away safely in your memory—your hard drive memory, that is.

So to bring them to life, we know a few ways to help:

Scrapbooks By Design first opened in November 2003 on Queen West and was the first scrapbook store in Toronto. Its large 5,000 square foot space caters to scrapbookers across the GTA who are drawn there because they have so much to offer. Fear not if thou has not scrapbooked before (or you don’t have time to make a career out of it). Scrapbooks By Design has options for you too. Check out the calendar and look for Scrapbooking 101 classes for beginners. The Friday night Crop Nights is a drop in for anyone to avail of their supplies and expertise ($8). If you are feeling pressed for time and rather uninspired but you really want your own scrapbook, the gals at Scrapbooks by Design can make it for you ($15–20 per page + materials). They also have a fab online store if you are already a scrapper.

Does your book club or gourmet club need a new idea for an evening out? Urban Scrapyard is a lovely venue in North Toronto where you can book a private party and catch up with the girls while creating a home for your summer shots (multi-purpose parties are so “in”). They too, offer a Crop Night every Thursday evening. For virgin scrappers, the ladies at Urban Scrapyard recommend a private one-on-one session with them ($30 for 1.5 hrs).

Photobooks are the digital cousin to the scrapbook. They are simple and easy (don’t quite have the homemade touch) and they offer another lovely way to house your dripping-ice-cream-all-over-the-face pictures from the summer. My Publisher is a site we’ve used that is easy and well-priced. You can design the layout of the pages online and then the book is sent to your address. The end result is a professional looking hardcover book filled with your family and friends. Now that’s a coffee table book! ($30 for a 20 page book including 240 photos!) www.mypublisher.com

You know we love Smilebox, but you might not know about all of the great new applications and designs they have added. What’s different about Smilebox is that it is a virtual scrapbook. You pick your favourite design (no cutting and pasting), add your photos and then send to as many people as you like. So if you have lots of friends and family with whom you want to share your shots, Smilebox might be for you. They offer photobooks which you create for free and print out yourself. You can get started with Smilebox here.

Scrapbooks and photobooks make great thank-you-for-having-us-to-your-cottage gifts, a wonderful baby shower idea, and gifts for grandparents, teachers or yourself.

The hard drive is no place to keep your treasured summer memories. Go now while the memories are still fresh.

Scrapbooks By Design
www.scrapbooksbydesign.ca
1783 Queen St. East
(416) 690-7447

Urban Scrapyard
www.urbanscrapyard.com
802 Eglinton Avenue East
(416) 424-2802

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