Pages I do every year

Sometimes I scrap the exact same pages every year. There: I said it. Sometimes I even do the same journaling or the same design too. Why change it? If I like it, and the ritual pleases me, why not?

Here's one thing I do every year: my page of my favorite photos:

 

I started doing this layout after an inspiring blog post by Stacy Julian; she suggested we spend 15 minutes not thinking too much, scrolling through the photos of the previous year, selecting our favorites, and putting them on a LO. I used this template designed by Barb Wong. I've done this for the past three years. It's awesome. This is the first page in my Project 12 albums.

Sometimes I think we put too much pressure on ourselves. We think if something is done the same as what we've done before, we're being unoriginal. I quarrel with that. We're creating, and one thing that creators do involves repetition, especially repeated style. Why reinvent the wheel? When we see a particular design of ad, for example, we know the company that produces it. That's good. So if my family sees the same design in every vacation album, that's OK; it signals the familiar, which is comforting. 

It's OK if we repeat ourselves, especially if we love it. If you love it, do it again!

Here's some of the pages I do every year:

1. Birthdays (of course)
2. 5 Vacation Favorites (a mini album I do every year after vacation)
3. Thankful (a Thanksgiving LO)
4. A year-in-review page
5. Getting off the school bus (my first day of school page)
6. Catch (this is a big thing with my husband and the boys)
7. Black Friday (We go to the Mall of America. It's a big thing.)
8. Vacation album (I use the same design every year)
9. A 2-page Christmas/December spread
10. Jedi Eggs (Easter dyeing)
11. Christmas card photo spread
12. Easter family photo

There's others I tend to do, but these I embrace and do every year, without fail, and without shame of copying myself, even if the design or journaling or title is the same.

What pages do you do every year?

Celebrating my son

I love Stacy Julian's book The Big Picture. I got so much inspiration from it and her approach to scrapping my life. I took special notice of the LO she made about her son with ADHD. She noted that it is her job to celebrate his strengths, since his disability doesn't normally lead to many kudos. (I don't remember her exact words, sorry. That was the gist.)

And so I remember this when I scrap my sons. My younger boy has both ADHD and autism, a double difficulty for him, particularly in school. This year's been tough, so I made this LO to remember what his strengths are (thanks, Stacy):


I used Studio Calico's February kit Sweet Shoppe. I added the stamped honeycombs with the original idea of printing the words, then pasting them on the patterned paper, but that was too much work, so I handwrote his strengths. The photo used a PSE action called Teeny Tiny World from Coffee Shop; this action blurs the background and focuses in on the center of attention, not that Dominic needed any help with that in this photo!

I have to admit, I was nervous about stamping on this LO, mainly because I was masking out part of the stamp, which can go awry. It was OK, but I try not to let fear get in the way; there is no such thing as a mistake in scrapbooking, only an unplanned opportunity for more creativity.

I think I make a page like this for both of my boys every year. I like that I do. Hopefully they'll always know that even though we're trying very hard to improve their behavior and focus, we know very well that they are fabulous kids. I don't remember who said this, but I'm using this quote as my mantra now: We don't grow up, we only learn how to behave in public.

Favorite photos

*Quick note: hurry over to Sketch Support today for a chance to win some BG Wander. It's so cold right now, I sort of want to Wander myself...

Last year when I was doing LOAD*, I read a post by Stacy Julian suggesting we spend about 15 minutes picking out our favorite photos of the year. In LOAD, I also downloaded a wonderful template for 9 photos from Barb Wong. I made this page, one of my favorites from 2010:


This year I decided to do the same project, using the same template with the same kit company, Studio Calico. Here's what I did:





Some minor changes in the design: fewer flowers, some stitching, and photo labels along the side instead of next to the photos. The background paper is the same color as the photo mat, so I misted the background paper with yellow and orange.

I loved making this page. I was in a wee bit of a design funk, and this shook me out of it.

*LOAD stands for Layout a day, a challenge Lain Ehmann does. I've done it a few times and had a blast every time. I can't do it this year, as February looks pretty busy. But if you are thinking of it, I recommend it.

New summer pages

I just wrapped up four new layouts. Here's the first two, both using Sketchy Thursdays sketches:


The first is for this week's challenge. I also used Stacy Julian's color combo for the week and the Studio Calico challenge to scrap vacation photos using their collection Documentay. Love the map paper. I did a lot of stamping for this layout: see the hints of grid around the photo block? Also some Ali E stamps (this one and this one) on the journaling and the title comes from half of a Unity stamp. I left out the RV image.

The second is for a chance at August guest designer at Sketchy's. I was to use yellow and make my own embellishment. The homemade embellishment may be a stretch, but here's what I did:

1. I misted the October Afternoon paper with yellow then green, using a sunburst as a mask.
2. I painted inside the masked sunburst, then outlined it with a pen.
3. The sunburst became the home for my title and journaling.

It's hard to see, but I also distressed the page's edges. It looks good, roughing up something otherwise just plain cute.

The next one is a photo I had to scrap before the story went away:

I had found a ton of receipts cleaning out my purse last month, so I took a photo and wrote about what they revealed. Miracle of miracles, I apparently only went to Archiver's once that week! I like the little bits of pink, which I so rarely use. I used Studio Calico's July kit.

The final one is this week's Color Room challenge:

Yet again it has purple, X%&#! I own several purple shirts, but I own even fewer scrappy supplies in purple than in pink. Thank goodness for Primas, which have an endless supply of purple. I also used a purple core paper, sanding it a little to reveal some of the hue. I also sanded it to rough up what was otherwise a fairly neat LO. These kids don't really play neat together, so a little rough is good.

Spring

Today was our first day here in Minnesota above 70. It sure didn't feel like it: strong wind made it seriously unpleasant to be outside, especially if you have longer hair like I do. Still, I went to church to cut down the garden I tend. Nothing is yet blooming in my church garden, but it sure is blooming here at my house.
I made a layout using the colors from Stacy Julian's color challenge to scrap my crocuses. I don't really like to scrap purple, but I had an old piece of Autumn Leaves paper, so decided to go for it. Sorry for the dark photo--I finished at about 6 P.M. (ETA: I replaced it with a better lit--and better focused--photo):

I should mention that I am trying to use as many green buttons as I can--my jar is overflowing. These buttons are magic, though--whenever I empty the jar and refill it with the remaining buttons, it's fuller than the last time. Terrific.

I scrap a spring garden photo every year. Here was last year's:


I am partial to quotations, maybe because I'm an English teacher. I got many from Quote Garden. The one on the first layout is by Anne Bradstreet:

“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.”

The second layout took a quote by Osho:

"Look at the trees, look at the birds, look at the clouds, look at the stars... and if you have eyes you will be able to see that the whole existence is joyful. Everything is simply happy. Trees are happy for no reason; they are not going to become prime ministers or presidents and they are not going to become rich and they will never have any bank balance. Look at the flowers - for no reason. It is simply unbelievable how happy flowers are."

If you want to be happy, go outside, take some beautiful pictures of spring in all its potential, google Spring quotations, and make a layout with as many pretty products as you can. Play, and enjoy the spring.