I was charged with scraplifting...

No, really - my assignment for Get It Scrapped was to scraplift myself, that is to take a layout I had previously done and use that as my inspiration for a new scrapbook page.  I could use the design layout, an element of the page, color inspiration, whatever. The hard part was choosing a layout; I had several scrapbook pages that were candidates as ones I particularly liked. But I finally decided on this layout about Aaron:


Original layout

This was a fun layout I did right after he bought this HUGE Lego set - it was his graduation gift to himself when he earned his Master's degree. I was with him when he purchased it, and the whole experience was a lot of fun as he was the envy of every guy (young and old!) in the store.

Besides the story and the basic design, one of my favorite things about this layout was the Simple Stories patterned paper I used. I loved the arrows and banners printed along the edge, and I knew that I could get a similar look by using strips of various washi (decorative) tapes. So when the same son asked his girlfriend of 5-1/2 years to marry him, I decided to scraplift this design to create a layout documenting this special event. 

Scraplifted layout

Fortunately Aaron had planned ahead and had his brother and sister-in-law nearby to take pictures of the proposal. (In fact, they were e-mailing pictures to me as it happened!) With the second layout I wanted a soft, romantic feel. This was a little tricky since the colors in the photos were quite bright, so to balance the contrast between the soft background and the bright photos I used a mix of muted and dark washi tapes. Since I knew that the darker and brighter tapes would be the first to draw the viewer's eye, I concentrated those in the vertical center of the page, pointing towards the photos. I also highlighted a few of the photos by framing them with subtle vellum frames.

It's easy to see from this that the same basic design can yield two very different looks. The basic framework is the same on both pages, but by changing the colors, photos, and story, and making some adjustments for more photos and less journaling, I could create two pages that are unique.
For more information about these layouts and to see how other designers approach their scraplifting process, check out this article at Get It Scrapped: "14 Scrapbookers Lift Their Own Scrapbook Designs and Show You How"

Just a note about the final layout: I love the new vellum-type photo frames (these are from Basic Grey), but I didn't have one large enough for my focal photo, so I cut my own from patterned vellum and darkened it slightly with Distress Ink so that it would coordinate better with the others. I also altered the purchase ones just a bit to cover some colors that didn't coordinate, and I flipped them over to the "wrong" side so that they were matte instead of shiny. Finally, for the smallest frame I used a stamp from Studio Calico on vellum to frame Kylie's beautiful engagement ring.