An album of me: Part 2

In my last post I shared a clean-up project that started my summer. I wanted to clean out the closets--literally!--of all my unfinished projects, but as I went, I discovered that I was making a HUGE dent in my scrapbooking supplies as well. The best way to purge excess supplies for me this summer has been to use them

Today I want to share my second Me album. I had wanted to put everything in one album, but that wasn't going to happen. Here's what I did with the second:

I used three Project Life cards on this title page; the third is a Cathy Zielske card from a mini-kit I got at Joann's. I like punching or cutting elements from the cards and using them as embellishments.

I made this section to highlight a couple important trips in my life, one to Germany in high school and a study-abroad trip to Germany in college.

I had a shameful few photos from the high school trip, so I relied on story for that. I had many more of the college trip, so I enjoyed selecting the ones that best told the story. For this section, I dug into the Iris container I use to store travel themed products.

How happy was I to discover that I kept most of my ID cards from college? Anyone who does so is a secret scrapbooker.

A section on my first year in college, then another section on the later years:

I kept a separate section on my years in the St. Olaf Choir. Because of our tours and concerts, I had many photos and memories.

And my tour guide signed by Betty White of Golden Girls' St. Olaf fame. Booyah.

Commencement, including my induction ceremony into Phi Beta Kappa.

And the sections on adulting: My career.

I started teaching in the mid-to-late 90s, so my first students are almost 40 today. Wow.

A note about that drawing: After student teaching and before full time teaching, I subbed and worked at a bookstore in the Mall of america, a bookstore my husband and I met at! Another colleague drew this for me. It makes me laugh, so I included it.

Meeting and marrying my husband...

And starting our lives as a family.

Since I started scrapbooking in 2002, when we had our first son, I didn't do much with this section photo-wise. I did, however, clean out my memorabilia drawers and stuff the pockets with various events we attended as a family (or a couple, in the case of Macbeth!).

And that's Me Book 2! Thank you for visiting. I hope it gave you some ideas.

When I made this album, I thought the last section would be scrapbooking, but that wasn't going to happen--no room! So I made one final album. I'll share that later this week.

Birthday scrapbooking layout for my dad

My father recently had a birthday. He is at an age where he doesn't really need anything, so I make him a scrapbook page instead. He and my mom display it in a frame until I send another page, then they put it in an album and display the new page.

This page is sort of special for him. My dad was a Navy pilot, so it was no surprise that he thought to give my son a drone on his birthday so that he too could experience flight--in a way. Here's the page I made about the drone:

I took a lot of photos, but this was my favorite, showing both my son and my husband as they watched the drone in the air. I used an old piece of Basic Grey paper, which had such a lovely pattern I didn't use much else. I also added bits of a Cathy Zielske set of Project Life cards and embellishments I got at Joann's, which paired nicely with the aqua background. I trimmed or punched some designs from the cards to add to the page and used some wood veneer from the kit as well.

My dad's not a sequin guy, but it seemed to fit the page.

Thank you for stopping by! I'll be sharing my April pages for Simple Scrapper soon, so stop by again.

Scrap retreat: Two-page layouts

I'm back to share the two page layouts I made at my scrap retreat last month. One I can't share: it will be published in the Spring issue of Scrapbook and Cards Today. Woot! Here's the other pages:

I think this might be my favorite. We went to an orchard when my mom was here this past fall, so I put together wallet-sized photos with my favorite in a 4x6 photo. I used some newer products by Jen Hadfield and some Cathy Zielske stamps and chalks for the title (I'm trying to use some long-neglected products). Bonus: I had forgotten to put two photos on the page, so I managed to put them on the right side and still not make it look busy.

Next is a page about my last spring break:

We visited two places: Chicago, which is the page that is published, and Holland. I loved picking traditionally springlike colors for this page, paired with some vacation embellishments. Plus: I love the stained glass photo in the middle. The circle is nice in the middle.

Next is a summer visit to the Science Museum:

This was a surprise when we visited: we got the opportunity to visit the storage stacks, where they showed all that they had in the vaults. I tried to keep the book Relic out of my mind while we were there, and it mostly worked. The boys had a blast, and I recorded our favorite parts. Highly recommended if your Science Museum offers a visit behind the stacks.

Finally, another old haunt, the Arboretum:

I mentioned before that I've been trying to use some Project Life products and kits. On this page I used some of my Ali Edwards story kits. I think it worked. I used as background some beloved Fancy Pants old paper. I had to retool the background paper to make the flourishes match more.

Thank you for checking out my pages! I love doing two-page layouts, and I hope this gives you ideas for how to make them work.

Making templates

I am not a digi gal. True, I own various free kits, background papers, brushes, and so on, but I rarely use them. I took May Flaum's hybrid scrapping class at Big Picture Scrapbooking, which got me using my digi supplies more than I had, but I love moving pieces of paper around too much to go fully to the Dark Side. So I'm Anakin Skywalker in Episode 2 when it comes to digital scrapbooking, not Anakin at the end of Episode 3.

The most common way I use my computer to scrapbook has been to create digital templates for my photos. I learned how to do this comfortably from a Cathy Zielske tutorial she did on Ali Edwards' site (Cathy's got a lot of great digi/hybrid tutorials: explore them here). If you want to figure out how to create templates, watch the video and download her step-by-step guide.

I have a spot on my computer where I save digital products. I have them organized according to product type: kits, frames, journaling spots, brushes, and templates. When I create a template, I save it in the Template file by titling it something helpful. Here's some of my go-to templates:

• 4x6 wallets (a 4x6 document with two 2.5x3.5 wallets on it)
• 4x6 3-inch photos (a 4x6 document with two 3 inch square photos)
• 4x6 2-inch photos (a 4x6 document with six 2-inch photos)
  
• a 5x7 document with two 3.5 photos

I like 4x6 inch templates for obvious reasons: I can print them cheaply with my next photo order. If I make a photo collage that I want to print as is, then I usually make it an 8x10 document. I like printing my photos through scrapbookpictures.com, but if I'm impatient, I want regular-sized photos that I can print at Target quickly too.

After I load the photos into my template, I save the new file with a new name, then I "un-do" the photos I put in so I can reuse the template. Once you learn how, it's easy-peasy, and that makes it even easier to fit a lot of photos on one or two pages.