It's all in the details

I'm putting the finishing touches on a test I'm giving this week today; a colleague of mine, who is a big picture guy, put together questions, and one I needed to double check the answer on. I emailed him and asked, Which one is the answer?

What's my point? I appreciate the big picture, but I am a detail gal. It's how I roll. Whenever I get an email from this colleague with big plans, I am always the one who responds, "What do you mean by number three?" He gets meaning out of the global picture, I get meaning piece by piece.

That's how I design scrapbook pages too. I work from an idea, but to make it real, it's all about the details: the photo, the title, the paper, the colors, the embellishments. They all have to go together for my page to really click.
Here's some examples from LOAD:


This LO idea came from a conversation with my students that made me feel old (what's an LP?), plus a MB conversation about this typewriter sticker on Studio Calico. I paired the two in my mind, went to some October Afternoon Thrift Store products, and made this page. I love the journaling.


This is a photo from vacation that didn't make the album. It looked symbolic to me--my son looking out into the great unknown--so it inspired me to pen this sentiment. I used my Studio Calico kit to try to reflect Seattle in summer. Just a note: to make the chipboard stand out against the photo, I sanded the edges.


Years ago I bought a couple of these spinner cards from Cosmo Cricket. So cute--but so BIG! Hard to use on a page. When my husband was away last week, I had a particularly difficult week parenting this one, so this song from the 80s popped into my brain: "You spin me right round baby right round..." Also popping into my brain was the spinner card. I couldn't put the whole card on (too big)...but when I pulled out my kitchen shears and trimmed it, I found it worked. And fit the theme perfectly.

So for me, I feel most satisfied when the details come together into what I'm trying to say.