Monday, August 29, 2011

Reduce Photo Paper Wastage (Idea 1 of 3)

The way I see it, scrapbooking is already a pretty green hobby.  I mean, it's all about using scraps, after all.  :)  Still, I'm always looking for ways to make my projects even more environmentally friendly.  One thing I've been concerned about lately is the amount of photo paper that I end up throwing in the garbage.  Unlike scrapbooking paper, photo paper cannot be recycled--at least, not where I live.  I like to crop my photos so that I can fit more on a page, but that leads to a lot of waste.  So, I decided to challenge myself to reduce my photo paper wastage.  Thus far, I've come up with three ideas, and in this post I'll share my first idea with you.

My first idea is to print smaller photos.  That way, I won't have to do so much cropping.  Here (below) is a layout called "Penny Carnival" that I made with wallet-sized photos.

Supplies: cardstock (Wausau Paper), patterned paper (all from October Afternoon), alphabet stickers (all from October Afternoon), ink (Memories by Stewart Superior), buttons (all from October Afternoon), chipboard and ticket (from October Afternoon "5 & Dime" miscellany pack), thread (DMC), adhesive (3M dry and 3M foam adhesive).

This was a fun layout to create.  I feel like I put a lot of photos and embellishments on the page, yet it does not feel too cluttered.  After this successful first attempt, I will definitely be doing more layouts with wallet-sized photos in the future.  But I still have other ideas about how to reduce my photo paper wastage, so check back later in the week for two more posts on this topic.

As always, thanks for stopping by to check out my blog.  And if you have any tips about how to reduce photo paper wastage, please leave me a comment to let me know!

4 comments:

BabyBokChoy said...

You have a new profile photo! :) very cute. Your layout is so adorable! I am into grids :) So this is what I do: use Picasa, there's a feature called "collage", basically, it combines several photos into one, the size, you choose. So I collage 2-4 photos into one photo and it can be printed on a 4x6 or 5x7. But each print has actually several photos :) That way, they are wallet size but I don't have to pay wallet price at printing services :)

Denise Price said...

Good tip, Jing-Jing! Thank you. I do something similar to get wallet-sized photos, but I have the collages printed at Walgreens. I will have to look into Picasa, though--it sounds more flexible than the collage options available at Walgreens

Actually, it's funny that you should mention collages, because that's what my next post will be about. It will have to wait until tomorrow, though; I need to go read bedtime stories now. But before I go, let me say thanks for your kind words about my new profile pic and my LO. I'm not totally satisfied with how I photographed the layout--it looks kind of off-kilter to me--so I might try to get a better photo of that tomorrow too. Have a good night!

Linda said...

What a great idea and a wonderful page. Do you print them yourself or have them printed?

Denise Price said...

Thanks, Linda! I don't have a color printer, so I have my photos printed at a Walgreens store. I use their collage option to put two photos on a 5x7" print. The only problem with this is that there is a thin white border around the photos, which I need to trim off. Still, it's better than trimming off a huge chunk of a 5x7" photo to get a smaller size.