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Rating: 
Summary: Innovative designs for photos, plus recaps with a twist.
Review: On the heels of their first photo cropping book (Creative Photo Cropping for Scrapbookers), Memory Makers raises the bar yet again with Cutting Edge Photo Cropping for Scrapbookers. The title is a fitting description of the samples inside, which showcase the latest, most innovative photo cropping ideas out there. CEPC will show you how to turn your photographs into works of art for your scrapbook page. Borrowing techniques and concepts from varied sources, the Memory Makers magazine folks have, to use another cliché, really pushed the envelope on what can be done to make your photos the focus of your layouts. Your tools are usually as basic as scissors, rulers, craft knife, paper trimmer and a cutting mat; now and then more specialized items are called for, such as punches and puzzle templates. The step-by-step illustrations will instruct you easily. And although the finished piece will appear to be anything but simple to the viewer, you will be able to complete most of these without any aggravation or special training. The look of your picture art will be clean, fresh and graphic. Now a word to croppers who have already read the first photo cropping book by Memory Makers. This second offering does offer over one hundred new photo cropping ideas as the cover promises. However, many of them are redux of ideas from book #1 with variations and twists. For example, weaving strips of b&w and color copies together - that sounds familiar, doesn't it? But here we see it used in new silhouettes and layered with other cropped shapes. Other déjà vu techniques include mosaics, self-framing photos, photo letters and slicing lines and curves into the photos. Note again however that these are all-new examples and they are expanded upon from the original. There are also a lot of truly new techniques, such as making shadowboxes from photos and adding dimension by curling. You can still come away with fresh inspiration. There are areas of CEPC devoted to using photos to make embellishments and page accents, such as tags, shaker boxes and hinged doors. While I did enjoy these charming techniques, I question that they really had a place in a book that is professing to make the photos the stars of the page, not sideshows. However, they still did involve photo cropping. CEPC would be a great book for first-time scrappers who need inexpensive ways to make standout pages, or anybody looking for more fabulous layout ideas. Croppers who already own the first book however may want to pass on this one.
-Andrea, aka Merribelle.
Rating:
Summary: Innovative designs for photos, plus recaps with a twist.
Review: On the heels of their first photo cropping book (Creative Photo Cropping for Scrapbookers), Memory Makers raises the bar yet again with Cutting Edge Photo Cropping for Scrapbookers. The title is a fitting description of the samples inside, which showcase the latest, most innovative photo cropping ideas out there. CEPC will show you how to turn your photographs into works of art for your scrapbook page. Borrowing techniques and concepts from varied sources, the Memory Makers magazine folks have, to use another cliché, really pushed the envelope on what can be done to make your photos the focus of your layouts. Your tools are usually as basic as scissors, rulers, craft knife, paper trimmer and a cutting mat; now and then more specialized items are called for, such as punches and puzzle templates. The step-by-step illustrations will instruct you easily. And although the finished piece will appear to be anything but simple to the viewer, you will be able to complete most of these without any aggravation or special training. The look of your picture art will be clean, fresh and graphic. Now a word to croppers who have already read the first photo cropping book by Memory Makers. This second offering does offer over one hundred new photo cropping ideas as the cover promises. However, many of them are redux of ideas from book #1 with variations and twists. For example, weaving strips of b&w and color copies together - that sounds familiar, doesn't it? But here we see it used in new silhouettes and layered with other cropped shapes. Other déjà vu techniques include mosaics, self-framing photos, photo letters and slicing lines and curves into the photos. Note again however that these are all-new examples and they are expanded upon from the original. There are also a lot of truly new techniques, such as making shadowboxes from photos and adding dimension by curling. You can still come away with fresh inspiration. There are areas of CEPC devoted to using photos to make embellishments and page accents, such as tags, shaker boxes and hinged doors. While I did enjoy these charming techniques, I question that they really had a place in a book that is professing to make the photos the stars of the page, not sideshows. However, they still did involve photo cropping. CEPC would be a great book for first-time scrappers who need inexpensive ways to make standout pages, or anybody looking for more fabulous layout ideas. Croppers who already own the first book however may want to pass on this one.
-Andrea, aka Merribelle.
Rating:
Summary: Very inspiring
Review: This is one classy book Jam-packed with ideas, I found it to be very inspirational.
This is the first cropping book that I have purchased, so I am not sure how original the ideas may be. I certainly had never thought of many of the ideas before. In particular, I like the triptych design, the montage in the shape of a fashion dummy and the myriad of ideas for creating mosaics.
The instructions are clear and easy to follow and the addition of templates to copy is a great help. All in all, a highly recommended book.
Rating:
Summary: Very inspiring
Review: This is one classy book Jam-packed with ideas, I found it to be very inspirational.
This is the first cropping book that I have purchased, so I am not sure how original the ideas may be. I certainly had never thought of many of the ideas before. In particular, I like the triptych design, the montage in the shape of a fashion dummy and the myriad of ideas for creating mosaics.
The instructions are clear and easy to follow and the addition of templates to copy is a great help. All in all, a highly recommended book.
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