Karen's Review	Renee's Review	Tammy's Review	Stephanie's Review	Pomaika`i's Review

Review by Karen

When I was asked to review the book "Ethnic Scrapbooking" by Lisa M. Sanford, I was a bit concerned because I could be the poster child for not ethnic. But as I started reading the words Lisa wrote I discovered that I am quite ethnic. I have a rich history, although different from the author's. I noticed that Lisa embraces, page after page, who she is and where she came from. This makes this book very approachable.

The book itself is spiral bound with has six sections and 116 pages. The pages are a heavy weight and have a matte finish to them. Because of the spiral binding, the pages open flat or can be turned under so that only one page is facing up. This is a great feature that allows you to have the book open while you are scrapping.

The sections are:

• Heritage and Tradition
• Everyday Living
• Culturally Speaking
• People
• Places
• Bonus

I mentioned that I felt as though I could be the poster child of not ethnic. I'm a blond haired woman with olive skin. After flipping through just the first pages, I began to wonder where that olive skin came from. I really love how this book was created in such a way that it makes you think about you, not just the layouts in the book. In just the first few pages, I came across a layout called Sierra Leone. Lisa's sister had traced her family's DNA back to the people in a tribe in Sierra Leone. I was very quickly drawn to the thought that someone would be able to know their DNA ancestors, even if they lived half way around the world. My first layout shows that I don't know my DNA roots. I'm so glad that Lisa included her layout in the book, because I am so proud to have this layout in my albums.

Title: Missing Link
Products used: Cardstock Iced Cobalt, Herbal Garden Light (Prism Prismatics)
Stamps (Daisy Bucket)
Ink (VersaMark)
Chipboard (Maya Road)
Alphabet stickers (American Crafts)
Other (Glimmer Mist, Tattered Angels)
Inspiration from Ethnic Scrapbooking
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech, Permanent Bond Glue Runner)

Page after page are layouts that make you stop and think . In the layouts found on pages 42-43, Lisa talks about incorporating physical traits into your pages. But more than that she shows you how to embrace your uniqueness and look for the roots to that uniqueness. And what is more unique about a person than their name and where that name came from. In the Laout Namesake on page 7, Lisa talks about how the name "Joe" is repeated over and over in her family. I used this as a starting point for our family name that is repeated, Anna.

Title: Anna
Products used: Cardstock (Bazzill, just the edges pack in pink)
Patterned Paper green gingham (Making Memories), Pink heart (Daisy D's)
Ribbon (Maya Road)
Chipboard letters (Maya Road)
Tags, photo corner and flower (Making Memories)
Brad (American Crafts)
other heart charm (Maya Road)
Inspiration from Ethnic Scrapbooking
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech, Permanent Bond Glue Runner)

I love to travel, which shows in my layouts. But what isn't normally seen is what I love so much about it. The section called "Places" showcases so much of why I love to travel. I love seeing the culture of different locations. In Mexico, I've seen Mayan Ruins. It's my way of touching a time gone by. I love hearing about why people picked the location that they did to build the city of Tulum, or watching the gymnastic girls from China perform. You get to see, touch and feel something that is so different from what you are used too, but yet makes you think about some of the things that you do on a regular basis.

Title: Dancers
Products used: Patterned Paper (Prima Marketing)
Chipboard (Maya Road)
Letter stickers (American Crafts)
Butterfly trinkets (Maya Road)
Other (Glimmer Mist, Tattered Angels)
Inspiration from Ethnic Scrapbooking
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech, Permanent Bond Glue Runner)

While I might have been a bit worried about this review, I am so pleased with the results of it. I really must thank Lisa for showing me that I am more ethnic than I ever dreamed that I was. I love the self discovery that this book brought to me. While I'll never understand what it was like to live during the Civil Rights Movement, I know that I can record the story of the Central High 9 that rocked my city and the way of thinking. I can share with my children how important it is to embrace our differences, and be understand of those who dont see the world the way that we do.

I want to more than recommend this book to you. I wish that I could make it required reading for everyone, because I feel that you will learn so much about you and who you. Just by looking for a parallel between the layouts that Lisa, and the other artists, created and your life you will be touched and your life enriched in ways that are truly amazing.

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Review by Renee

One of the beautiful things about living in the United States is that we are truly a melting pot of cultures. Because of this, we are often exposed to the foods and festivities of a number of different cultures. However, we often forget to incorporate our own culture into our scrapbooking. Wouldn't it be wonderful to teach our future generations about where they came from with our scrapbooks?

Lisa Sanford is a writer and scrapbooker who has dedicated herself to incorporating culture in all things in her life, including scrapbooking. For as long as I have seen her around the web, she has been dedicated to teaching people how to incorporate their own culture, as well as their experience with other cultures, into their scrapbook pages. Her new book Ethnic Scrapbooking is the result of that passion.

Her colorful book is 116 pages long and includes roughly 100 different scrapbook pages made by she and her designers. The book is divided into five sections, including Heritage and Tradition, Everyday Living , Culturally Speaking, People, Places and a bonus section which includes awesome pictures of Lisa's scrapspace. Each section contains a number of layouts within it. Each page has one layout prominently portrayed on the page and incorporates information about the scrapbook page itself and often a concept of how to incorporate similar cultural information into your own scrapbooks. The layouts cover ideas for things like holidays, namesakes, family characteristics and other ways to bring your own family history into your scrapbooks.

Using the "Celebrate" Layout on page 9 as my inspiration, I made a layout using a picture of me from the Cropping with my Sistah's crop that I attended to express my connection with the Griot or tribal historian from West African culture. I have found in my scrapbooking that African Americans often consider scrapbooking to be a frivolous hobby. I have often tried to explain that scrapbooking is just an extension of the Griot or "keeper of the oral traditions" from West African culture. My journaling talks about how I consider scrapbooking to be very similar to this revered historian in West African culture.

Title: Griot
Products used: Cardstock (White Prism Prismatics and blue other)
Patterned Paper (Creative Imaginations and BasicGrey)
Felt Flowers (Junkitz)
Paper Flowers (Eco Africa)
Chipboard Flower (Heidi Swapp)
Chipboard Alphabets (Heidi Swapp)
Rhinestones (The Beadery)
Inspiration from Ethnic Scrapbooking
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech, Permanent Bond Glue Runner)

For my second project, I used an idea from the page by Donna Bloxon on page 65. In this layout, she works with the concept of using a quote from an African American poet with an everyday moment. I expanded on this idea and used a transparency that I had hoarded for at least four years featuring a quote by James Baldwin, one of my favorite African American writers. The quote speaks well to the portrait of my daughter and completed my thoughts for the layout.

Title: Enjoy Life
Products used: Cardstock (Prism Prismatics Sugar Cream)
Patterned Paper (MOD)
Crystal Swirl (Prima)
Letter Stickers (SEI)
Decorative Tape (Unknown)
Brads (Making Memories)
Transparency (Lay Overs)
Inspiration from Ethnic Scrapbooking
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech, Permanent Bond Glue Runner)

Ethnic Scrapbooking has lots of ideas for incorporating your culture, as well as other cultures, into your scrapbooking. There are many layouts from various styles of scrapbooking as well as many ideas to work with. Definitely food for thought.

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Review by Tammy

What is Ethnic Scrapbooking? It is about YOU! The word "ethnic" encompasses much more than just race; it is about culture, religion, and traditions.

This 116 page spiral bound book is broken up into six unique chapters packed full of ideas and beautiful layouts:

• Heritage & Tradition
• Everyday Living
• Culturally Speaking
• People
• Places
• Bonus

Each chapter challenges the reader to express a little bit of heritage or culture on the pages that are created. We take so many things in our daily lives for granted, but as you peruse the pages of this book, you will realize that these are the very things that our future generations will want to know about us. They'll want to know about our heritage and why we did the things we did, ate the foods we ate, dressed the way we dressed and worshipped the way we did.

As I read through Ethnic Scrapbooking and studied the layouts that were on each page, it helped me to remember "why" I scrapbook and to look around and record some of the everyday events of our family life. While having beautiful pages for our future generations to look at, they won't serve much purpose unless we tell the story. And, telling the story goes beyond just words, it can be found in the memorabilia, colors, and embellishments found on the page. Lisa M. Sanford, author of Ethnic Scrapbooking, explains in her book how to go about expressing who we are by using the supplies that we have on hand.

Shortly after receiving Ethnic Scrapbooking we took a trip to San Antonio, Texas which is full of culture and rich in history. I began to look at this city and its people in a whole new light. Things that I would normally take for granted began to stand out and take on a whole new interest. As I stood before The Alamo I realized men from various nationalities and walks of life lost their life defending freedom. As I read through the list of names, I realized that "William T. Malone" was one of the hero's that lost his life in that battle. Whether this man is directly related to us or not, he fought for my freedom, and for that I am grateful.

Title: The Alamo
Products used: Cardstock (Prism Prismatics, Crabapple Dark & Vanilla Cream)
Patterned Paper (Flair, Autumn Harvest)
Fabric Paper (Pabric)
Ribbon (Tie One On)
Stickers (Stickapotomus)
Ink (Ranger)
Paper Edger (Tim Holtz)
Inspiration from Ethnic Scrapbooking
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech, Permanent Bond Glue Runner)

The sounds of traditional Spanish dance music, played by Mariachi bands, can be heard all along the San Antonio Riverwalk. This style of Spanish music adds to the festivities found on the Riverwalk and is certain to transport you to "Old Mexico".

Title: Music
Products used: Cardstock (Prism Prismatics, Black & Nautical Blue Medium)
Patterned Paper (BasicGrey, Patchwork)
Fabric Paper (Pabric)
Punch (Creative Memories)
Pen (Krylon Brights)
Font (Pea Leigh Leigh & Arial Black)
Inspiration from Ethnic Scrapbooking
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech, Permanent Bond Glue Runner)

Ethnic Scrapbooking, written by Lisa M. Sanford, has challenged me to look at the reasons I scrapbook in a different way. It is the small events in our life that make us interesting and unique to our future generations. It will help encourage to share not only the "who", but also the "why" we are who we are to anybody that reads our story.

Whether you are an expert scrapbooker or just beginning, I encourage you to pick up a copy of Ethnic Scrapbooking and discover a whole new world of scrapbooking.

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Review by Stephanie

I was provided with Lisa M. Sanford's book entitled 'Ethnic Scrapbooking' this month. This book contains 116 pages of glossy, spiral bound creativity and information. It is divided into five chapters, individually focusing on heritage, everyday, words, people, and places. A bonus section is included which describes how to set up your scrapbook room, the basic supplies necessary for the beginning scrapper and a number of available resources to gather cultural and ethnic information.

This book contains layouts created by various designers, including Lisa, each focusing on different events and themes. Bringing them together is Lisa's desire to have us expand our horizons, by looking at ethnicity and diversity and then using that where we can in the layouts we create.

The first layout I created called Funny Shirts, is based on the layout on page 70 entitled "High School Already". Lisa's desire here was to create a quick layout. To that end Lisa printed her photos with a white edge so matting the photos became unnecessary. If you intend to mat a photo with white cardstock, then having a white edge on the photo itself, will save you that step and the time necessary to prepare the mat and then adhere the photo to it. It's rare to create a layout in such a short time span, but it definitely can be done if you focus on something very specific. My son has a "thing" for wordy shirts and so I created a very quick and simple layout based on his shirts. I wanted more texture so I chose to tear the edges of my layout. This did not add much time to the creation of my layout, it just added a little more interest. Following the theme of my son's shirt and the desire to keep it quick and simple, I added raw chipboard arrows.

Title: Funny Shirts
Products Used: Patterned paper (SEI)
Stickers (SEI)
Chipboard (Maya Road)
Inspiration from Ethnic Scrapbooking
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech, Permanent Bond Glue Runner)

One thing I do not use much in my scrapping is black and white photos. I have always loved the rich and colorful look of a great photo, and black and white photos never quite appealed to me, probably because the few black and white photos I have of my childhood are of poor quality. However, with the "Our Star" layout on page 67, Lisa challenges us to create a portrait in a black and white format in order to create some variety in our scrapbooks. In the layout entitled ME, I had my husband take a black and white photo of me which I then scrapped with supplies I wouldn't normally use like pink cardstock, red ribbon and glitter letters. I know I would never have used this color combination had the photo been in color.

Title: ME
Products Used: Chipboard (Provocraft)
Ribbon (American Crafts)
Stamps (Making Memories)
Ink (Colorbox)
Stickers (Studio 18)
Flowers (Bazzill, Prima)
Inspiration from Ethnic Scrapbooking
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech, Permanent Bond Glue Runner)

The idea of bringing culture and different observations into a scrapbook will create a book that is uniquely yours. This book is one that I will refer to often to find something of interest I may not have thought to do before.

Thank you, Lisa, for giving me this opportunity to review your book.

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Review by Pomaika`i

When I was asked to review Lisa Sanford's new book "Ethnic Scrapbooking," I was very excited. I went immediately to her blog www.ethnicscrapbooking.typepad.com to get a better idea of what to expect. What I read just fed my anticipation more! When I received the book in the mail and started reading, I could not put it down until I had read each and every page. There was a wealth of information contained between the covers of this treasure. But before I go too far, let me back up and start at beginning.

Ethnic Scrapbooking. What picture does this title conjure up in your mind? Faces in a rainbow of skin tones wearing exotic costumes from foreign lands?

Think again...

How about this...take a look at yourself in a mirror, take a look around your home, and at your family. Each and everyone of us has ethnicity. Ethnicity is a characteristic inherent in us from before our birth. Ethnicity exists whether you are a new comer to this country or have roots going back many generations.

Have you ever wondered why you do the things that you do? Why you throw a pinch of salt over your left shoulder when you spill it? Why Japanese people never give gifts of 4 items? Why do we say "bless you" when someone sneezes? Often we take for granted, the little things we do or say, never questioning why we do or say them. Just imagine all the wonder and wealth of information we would uncover about our culture and ourselves if we just took a closer look at our everyday world.

Scrapbooking our lifestyle has become a trend in the industry, returning to the underlying reasons we love to scrapbook: To remember, to document, to pass on. Life is not just about the events in our lives, but the common everyday things that make us who we are. A big part of this has been shaped by our ancestors and the world around us today. Ethnic Scrapbooking explains how to pay attention to the role culture plays in your life and how to become a master observer of the world around you.

In her layout "Patches of Culture" that ends the last main section of her book, Lisa says that her "family has a rich multi-cultural and racial heritage: African, Black, Native American, Jewish, Puerto Rican, and Caucasian. Our friends come from all corners of the world..." Lisa's multicultural background makes her an authentic spokeswoman for Ethnic Scrapbooking.

Ethnic Scrapooking by Lisa M. Sanford (retail price $24.99) is a high quality full color 116 page book, chock full of idea, examples, tips and insights. The vivid mixture of layout colors on the cover of the book gives you a taste of the succulent morsels within. The book is printed on thick glossy paper that reproduces the full color layout examples beautifully. I love the spiral binding which allows the book to lay flat at any page for easy reference.

The book consists of 5 main chapters titled; Heritage and Tradition, Everyday Living, Culturally Speaking, People, Places and a Bonus chapter. Each page features a large photograph of a layout with a paragraph or two. The information shared might be the background information of the layout, a concept for you to ponder, an idea to scrap or inspiration to motivate you. Each page either shows you a unique twist on a standard layout topic, or introduces a novel idea.

For example, Jade's Birthday Layout could be a page that anyone of us has scrapped many times. The fresh twist is that instead of the usual journaling describing the party and how much fun everyone had, Lisa chose to journal about the diversity of the people attending the party and her appreciation for living in her neighborhood where people of all cultures and races are friends. Another layout featuring her daughter's class play becomes the chance for Lisa to voice her dream that Leah have the opportunity to travel the world and make new friends as an adult, just like she is doing now in her class at home.

I took the inspiration for this Layout from "Heritage" on page 14, "...just celebrate the uniqueness that makes up you".

Title: Taiko
Products used: Inspiration from Ethnic Scrapbooking
Patterned Paper (Rusty Pickle)
Stamp (Jim Stephan, personal family chop)
Pen (Sakura Micron)
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech, Permanent Bond Glue Runner)

Inspiration for this layout came from page 13 where Lisa highlights a cultural tradition.

Title: Imua
Products used: Inspiration from Ethnic Scrapbooking
Paper (My Minds Eye)
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech, Permanent Bond Glue Runner)

I love the simplicity of the featured layouts, simple designs, multiple photos often with handwritten journaling. Lisa also peppers her book with tips and helpful hints on everything from creating your own culturally specific embellishments to photography.

The inspiration for the fern lei embellishment on this layout was taken from the page 78 where Lisa shares a tip on creating your own culturally specific embellishments.

Title: Halau Mohala Ilima
Products used: Inspiration from Ethnic Scrapbooking
Silk fern leaves
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech, Permanent Bond Glue Runner)

While the simplicity of the layout designs in Ethnic Scrapbooking will appeal to the beginning scrapper, advanced scrappers will find more than enough inspiration to fill a lifetime of layouts with the concepts and suggestions on each page. If you have ever suffered from scrappers block while trying to create a layout of another birthday party, all you have to do is peruse a few pages of Ethnic Scrapbooking to find a fresh new idea!

Who would find this book useful? Like I stated in my introduction, everyone has a culture and belongs to at least one Ethnic group, even if you consider yourself an American or a Canadian, culture and traditions abound. Some people might be hesitant to pick up this book because it is primarily filled with photos and layouts of people of color and the title might seem like you need to have a close tie to an exotic culture to benefit from it. This would be a shame because a treasure is waiting for everyone who opens these pages.

Now that her first book is in print, I think it would be wonderful if Lisa Sanford would create a sequel to this book that would expand on her concepts and include a multitude of cultures and races. I think the stories would be fascinating and I would love to see her message spread across the country.

There are many reasons to recommend this book, and everyone who reads it will be touched in a different way. Every single one of us has a heritage to celebrate. Ethnic Scrapbooking is guaranteed to influence the way you create your next page and maybe even the way you observe the world and your life. A small investment for your legacy!

Lisa puts it best in her introduction. "Being exposed to the traditions and experiences that are different from our own will teach us to be more sensitive and understanding of people in general...I whole-heartedly believe that by embracing other cultures, we can build a bridge of understanding that will help us to love one another as we are commanded to do."

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