Vacation albums: Glacier N.P.

In addition to scrapbooking mini albums this summer, I've strived to catch up with my vacation albums. Including Hawaii, I have four to do, so I started with the oldest: 2013's trip to Glacier National Park.

Like all of my vacation albums, I use one product line and the same basic layout throughout. This makes it quick and easy to fit many photos in and have it look nice. For this album, I had put aside years ago the Fancy Pants Designs collection Happy-Go-Lucky. I thought the aqua would look good with the Glacier photos, and the collection was filled with campers, which fit with our camping trip! Here's the album:

I always start my albums with my favorite family photo next to the title, then a cluster of embellishments next to the contents. The nice thing about Fancy Pants collections are the embellishments. They are various dimensions and layer beautifully because of that contrast.

I used a lot of those chunky in this album, so I had trouble photographing it--it wouldn't lie flat, and photographed unevenly. I mention that because the following photographs include the background, which I don't usually do. Sigh. Oh well.

The basic layout in the body is similar to the title page: strips of patterned paper dividing the title and journaling, plus some photos next to each. The following page is a PSE collage with several photos, pays some embellishments. I switch up the papers and embellishments on each spread.

A couple layouts had too many photos for two pages, so I made a four-page spread with three pages of photo collages.

When I make a title, I usually stamp or die cut it (not enough stickers otherwise). Here I used my Cameo to die cut using the font Grand Hotel. If it was long enough, I also used some small stickers from the Happy-Go-Lucky collection.

The final page is usually titled Looking Back, and I try to reflect on the whole journey, maybe with some photos of my family from behind. When something interesting happens on the way back, though, I record that, like when we got a flat tire the next year. Here we drove through a forest fire, which is sadly not too unusual in the West in the summer.

Thank you for letting me share my album! I hope this gives you ideas to speed up your scrapbooking process while also making the album attractive.
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An album of me: Part 3

I'm here to share the final album I made to declutter my photos and memorabilia I had kicking around the house. I used Studio Calico's Handbooks for the first two, but whoops! I'd run out at this point. I did, however, have many inserts from a Fancy Pants Brag Book, so I decided to make an album from those. First, I cut some chipboard, covered it, and punched some holes for the covers:

Then I divided my knick-knacks and photos into sections and used the inserts--photo, journaling, and pockets--for the sections.

In general, I made these sections chronological. I started out with scrapbooking by going online, so that's my first section.

Next, I started developing connection IRL, so that;s my next section.

I love that photo of us in blue. It was at the Pine City Scrapbooking store, a retreat as well and one of my favorite spots.

Now, my style developed strongly by subscribing to kits and using their online resources. I saved a lot of cute cool stuff, so I just put it all in here. Why not?

A favorite memory: meeting some SC peeps to scrap IRL!

Somewhere in here I started submitting and getting published. I didn't have much here for memorabilia, but what I had I included. NOTE: for the title page, I just raided magazines I still had for their subscription cards.

Big Picture Classes was another major influence on me, so here's the page that included the memorabilia for that.

Design teams really pushed my style, so this section memorializes them. For the title page, I trimmed up products I had for the companies I designed for, even a bit.

Finally, CHA, which was a part of my story on design teams.

NOTE: In that lower left photo in the spread above, I totally look like a giant. Gah.

I look like a giant here too! Argh!

Thank you for visiting! Mind you, I have never created a whole album for my hobby before, and I probably never will again, but scrapbooking has left me with so many memories and so much memorabilia, I am glad I took the time to put it in one place.

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.

Mmmm...November gallery for Write Click Scrapbook

Hello! The month of November is upon us, and, appropriately, the November Write Click Scrapbook gallery will focus on food. Here's my page:

This was one of my favorite pages I've made recent;y. The photos were so colorful, and the papers were so bright and fresh. The blue plaid came from a Fancy Pants Designs line called Be Different, and the rest of the paper and stickers came from October Afternoon's Farm Girl, a line I only bought a few things of, thinking, "I don't vegetable garden! When would I ever use this?!?" Silly me. Here's some details:

I liked stitching down various stickers and elements. The title I had to stick down; the adhesives on the back were not terribly solid.

Thank you for checking out my page! I hope you go to Write Click Scrapbook and check out the rest of the gallery to get inspired!

Reclaimed pages, post-hard drive crash: part 4

More photos to share, these some final pages made with Fancy Pants Designs products before my term was up:

This was using older Fancy Pants Designs products called Oct 31st, plus a cool set of older Thickers and a cute layered embellishment from Girls Paperie. Not really a Halloween page, but a spooky event that was funny, so I wanted to record it.

This project I've been using a lot. I had a Brag Book that I wanted to use for a project, but there were SO MANY PAGES (a good thing) that I unbound it and rebound it with only the journaling pages, leaving photo and pocket pages without a home. Here I bound them with rings and using the Be Different line, make a book to collect magazine recipes until I had a chance to make them and, if liked, put them in the official family recipe book. Here's some inside pages:

(*That ampersand I cut with Berkshire Swash font.  It's my favorite font for ampersand.)

Thanks for looking at my final pages from Fancy Pants! I have one more set of (almost) lost pages to share before returning to sharing my current projects.