Two-page layouts: starting by sorting

Hello! I have spent the last month with several tasks. Professionally, I read many student arguments, commented on them, and conferenced with the students. I also have a student teacher, who is doing fine work. Personally, I visited my home to see my dad, who is in rehab after a stroke two months ago. While there (and stuck in Detroit because of our mammoth snow in Minnesota on my way home!) I read a few books: Arcadia, The Art Forger, and Underground Airlines (I'm in the middle of four more: Rabbit, The Snow Child, V is for Vengeance, and The Ladies' Room). I also scrapped, more slowly than I wished. Here I'd like to share a bit of what I did.

First: I scrapped autumn photos, most of which were two-page layout amounts. I liked scrapping these warm photos in this bitterly cold month! To prepare, I sorted my die cuts into a hanging file holder by color. When I saw dies that were autumn themed, I put them aside to use on these autumn spreads. Here's the first one I made:

The autumn dies I put aside to use were the Elle's Studio journaling tag, the Pebbles circle and hearts, and the words. My son picked out the background paper, which was nice. I think he did a good job of selecting paper for this walk in the arboretum. Here's some closer looks:

I picked the Voluptate font for the title because it matched the die cut words so well. Looking back, I wished I'd adhered the FAMILY a bit lower, but it's fine as it is.

And that's my first of three two-page layouts! All of them started by my sorting and putting aside die cuts that were autumn themed. Later this week I'll share the rest of the pages, plus some news about an exciting restart in the crafting world!

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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Winter CHA 2013: Inspiring pages and products

Here it is, the morning of the second day of CHA. I thought I'd post some wonderful projects I saw yesterday; I'm also pinning them on a Pinterest board CHA Winter 2013 (on Pinterest my name is Buffyfanlarson; that's also my Twitter handle if you'd like to follow my progress around the room today and a bit tomorrow). Here's some of what I saw and loved yesterday:

I started at Echo Park, and this is the wall that epitomizes the style of many eye-catching booths: white walls, clusters of pages, fewer decorations. There are some amazingly decorated booths, but the ones I am gravitating toward are the clean and simple ones. Typical of me.

 

I loved the products and projects at Webster's Pages. I don't use them typically because they are more ornate than I scrap, but the projects in the booth did a good job showing how to use them for a clean page. The one above made good use of the Silhouette to use doses of the paper.

This next one has lots of stuff, including trim, but look how clean it is! It uses a spring/baby collection called New Beginnings--look at that adorable animal paper on the bottom!

 

And there are two things to note below: the page did a terrific starburst with patterned paper, but some are covered with overlays for extra texture and interest. Nice! Finally, those little coin purses are made with overlays. AMAZING.

I loved the new stuff with the new Fancy Pants brag books. They are bound differently to make it easier to remove covers and pages, a problem I noticed with my current Smash book; the fact that Fancy Pants addressed this concern is nice. and look at the creative way this Brag Book makes use of the template as a peek-a-boo into the next photo. For people without a Silhouette, or just anyone who likes to keep scrapping easy, these templates are cute and versatile.

 

Here's also an inspiring circle page from Fancy Pants:

 

Simple Stories Urban Traveler pages. The collection is AMAZING and the pages are inspiring. This booth was also where I ran into past Ella friend, current friend, Donna Januzzi! Though it was fun to travel the show earlier, it was more fun with friends.

 

 This is the Silhouette booth, another clean wall. I love these projects, especially the one on the lower right. Wouldn't that be a good gift for a new parent?

  

And this framed page speaks to everyone who has a little monster in her life. Heh.

 

Lily Bee's booth was amazing. This gorgeous page with the banners as a photo mat was inspiring. I also love how it uses  patterned paper as a background, not just white paper. Inspiring!

  

This one's hard to see--it was on the back of a ladder, and the twine is not part of the page. Still, patterned paper background and a cluster of papers at the top makes for a very pretty page.

 

Here's another look at a clean wall, this time Basic Grey.

 

They had two collections I loved, Hipster and Bowties. Perfect for moms of boys. If you look closely at the above page, you'll see something new to me: felt rubons. It made for an incredible title.

Bowties also connects with a feminine collection, Knee Highs. Bowties is boyish, Knee Highs is girlish, but you can use them both together if you have photos with both genders. Nice.

Look at the amazing stitching on this Knee Highs page:

 

After being on the Elle's Studio design team for the past six months, I was so happy to see Elle Price and her booth!  News: she has three paper collections coming out with her new tags, and Donna and I decided we especially need to get Day to Day, a bright, fun collection. Here's some pages:

  

  

  

We R Memory Keepers had many amazing products I'll write about later, but this page made me swoon. Again, a busy paper used to make a clean page:

 

I tweeted about this yesterday:

Bella Blvd FTW.

There is some amazing stitching on this Bella Blvd page, and the banner card underneath is terrific.

I'm not a feather person, but this page used feathers well:

My Mind's Eye had their typically beautiful products. I loved this grid layouts:

 

And this next page from Crate Paper used an already out collection, Fourteen, but the fussy cutting was incredible. I'll go back to Crate today to take some photos of Maggie Holmes' new collection.

 

Right around the Becky Higgins booth We ran into listgirl, Christine Newman! We have plans for some of the Becky Higgins collections. they were inspiring.

Studio Calico had their usual lovely layouts demonstrating their products. Here were some of the most inspiring:

  

Living under the rock I have apprently been, I did not know that Studio Calico was releasing patterned brads! They are used terrifically here. Check out the colorful stitching.

  

Speech bubbles are huge at the show, as are mustaches and arrows. Here a misting template with speech bubbles was used to create patterned paper by outlining.

  

Sometimes die cut tags can be used for alternative uses, like as a photo frame...

  

---or as a date in a pocket. Check out the awesome photo frames here too.

 

Finally, lots to love on this page, but in particular I loved the vellum photo pocket with the subdued title and the stitching over them both.

I'll be back at the show tweeting, posting on Pinterest, and otherwise sharing the inspiration I see!