Friday, September 19, 2014

More layouts at Get It Scrapped (I love that place!)

I love being part of the creative team at GetItScrapped.com. We have the most awesome assignments - ones that often stretch me out of my comfort zone. Over the past week or so I've had two layouts in the posted blog articles.

The first assignment was right up my alley - making a two-page layout with a grid on one side. (Check out the article here.)

I love to use lots of photos on a layout, and this is a great design for that. It makes it so easy to display several photos in an organized way. One the first side I showcased two focal point photos that sort of "summarize" the layout, and then the grid of photos act as supporting elements.

When making a two-page layout, it helps if you can unify the two sides in some way. Of course, the photos themselves act as connectors. But in addition to that I used a strip of the Minnesota paper, flipped to the back side, along the far edge of the second page to bring the two pages together with common colors and words. I also left a strip of the kraft cardstock all the way across the top. Finally, I used common elements (arrows and hearts) and pops of color (silver) on both sides to tie everything together.

Just a tip: I only had one piece of the Minnesota paper, and I've had it for awhile, so I knew I couldn't find more. To make it work across two pages, I cut a strip off the top and flipped it to the back side (the repeated "Minnesota" was more prominent on that side). I used the same solid color (kraft) cardstock on both pages and mounted the main paper on the left hand side (which also gave it more stability since it was thin paper) and put the strip along the edge on the right hand side.

The second assignment stretched me a lot more. I was to make a layout with a "curated natural history style" - something like you would find in a natural history museum or a botanical encyclopedia. As the blog article says, "think of Dr DooLittle’s library, and you get the idea."


Most of these, of course, have very natural, muted tones and a bit of a romantic feel, unlike the bright colors and/or more masculine feel of most of my scrapbook pages, and herein was the challenge for me. Add to that the fact that it was a page about hiking with Nate, and you get the picture - I didn't want it looking too feminine.

I looked through my stash and pulled out some rather old papers from Pink Paislee for this one, and I think they worked perfectly! The muted background and vintage nature blocks give a curated feel to the page, but the brown and green tones keep it from becoming too feminine. The wood veneer embellishments from Studio Calico and especially the wood "cookie" also help and work well to keep a light, airy, natural feel but they also support the story of the page.

The script title further supports the style of the page, but coloring it a darker green keeps it from being too feminine, and the use of the small circles in the subtitle (I love those little letters that I found in the dollar section at Target!) give subtle substance to the title.

I love both of these layouts! Hope you do too :)

Leave me a comment and let me know what you think. What are your go-to styles? What are some of the styles that you find difficult? What are some scrapbooking challenges that push you outside your comfort zone?

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

PRT - how cool is this?!?

I was so honored to be invited to be a guest on Paperclipping Roundtable today - how cool is that? I've been a long time listener, so I was thrilled to be a panelist. The subject was scrapbooking as an empty nester. The discussion with Noell, Izzy, Sue Althouse, and Kelly Sill was great, and we had so much fun.

There were two layouts in particular that I referenced. The first, "Lemonade and Massages" (the source for the epidode's title) is definitely a favorite of mine. The photo is mediocre, but the story is priceless! (I tell about it on the show.)



One of the other things I talked about was my monthly family project. Each month, on a random day, I ask each of my family members to send me a photo showing something about their day - their view at work, something they're doing, somewhere they are. I then scrapbook the photos. Right now the layouts are together in an album of recent layouts, but I like Noell's idea of putting them in an album of their own. Here's the layout I did for June:


Bottom line from the podcast: Life does go on when our kids leave the nest - it can be tough, but it can also be good. Change is inevitable. We can't, and really don't want to, keep our kids young forever. They will grow up, so we just need to look for the positive and move forward.