Summer pages for Simple Scrapper

Last time I posted some pages I made this past summer, mostly of last year when I went places still. Sigh. Here I wanted to share some pages I made for Simple Scrapper. First, here were some pages for August:

This one is a page about a birthday trip to Penzey's Spices to buy ANY SPICE I WANTED. Best birthday present ever. I like the deep blue background, which is October Afternoon. I don't have much deep blue, mostly aqua, so that is a patterned paper hole I need to fill. Letter stickers are Pinkfresh Studio and ancient Making Memories. Journaling Card is Elle's Studio, as are the wood words. Doilies are Stampin' Up, which has very nice embellishments. And any time I get to dig into the Embellishment Jar of Antiquity, I feel good. Here's looking at you, brads.

I live within a few hours away from most of my cousins, but I don't see them much, so when I do, I take pictures and commemorate. My cousin Janel is a legit artist, so I journaled about her gallery that she hosted and I attended. I took the product inspiration from the painting behind us, which was hers. The paper I used is an older Studio Calico piece that is just this gorgeous and fitting perfectly. I picked some embellishments to go in a circle, mostly from Crate Paper, and stitched around as a frame (I drew circles first as a guide). I tend to stitch stickers down anyway, mostly because they are mainly Ancient and need adhesive help. Added some Stampin' Up sequins because.

Here's a story from last September, again when I was going places. My husband plays with a swing band,  Westwind Swing Band, and they played at a winery/orchard called Parley Lake Winery. This place was obviously created with scrapbookers in mind, for it is filled with gorgeous sculptures and scenery. I started by enlarging the barn shot to 8x12, nice for an exposition shot on a two-page layout, then printed the rest 2x3 to fit in all around. I used some new Echo Park papers and old embellishments. A note on that: I used some old flair and discovered a lot was started to unpeel, which made them unusable. These worked, but I ended up tossing a ton. So if you've been intending to purge old supplies, start with the flair. That should be an easy job.

This last page shares something else that's kept us busy this summer, our new puppy Chewie, named after this character. Since we lost Lola last December, we've had a melancholy stay-at-home. Once summer hit, we started searching for a new dog, and this pup turned up. He looks like a breed, but he's a big mix. A big mix of cute, I might add. I chose an adorable photo of him and made this journaling heavy. Used up an acrylic alpha from Studio Calico for this. NOTE: when stapling, be sure to hit the letter.

Thank you for returning and seeing my Simple Scrapper pages! I'll remind you that this is a tremendous community filled with inspiration: sketches/templates, a monthly magazine, and classes.  If you need something to jump start your memory keeping, start here!

Scrapbooking across two pages

Hello! I've been putting together some two-page layouts with lots of photos. I thought I'd share some of them.

First, here's a page about my father-in-law's funeral two-years ago:

Here I did what I typically do when I have a lot of photos: I print them in standard sizes, in this case, 3x4. It made the most sense to line them up across the page, so I did. That left two spots for the journaling. For embellishments, I took inspiration from the flowers next to the flag and I used my Stampin' Up! punches with scraps to make the flowers.

Next is a page about a camping trip last year:

When I scrapbook a trip where I took some good vista shots, I print one big with the idea I'll use that on one page, then fill the other with smaller shots. I did that here, but you can see the photos don't fill the space in an even grid. I struggled with that for a while and thought about reprinting the photos as squares to make an even grid, but the orientation of the photos just didn't work. Taking a shot of the whole family manes I have to print it horizontally! Instead, I added a line of embellishments in between. I'm happy with the result. Most of the camping supplies come from my Camping Iris container, and most were Simple Stories, though the lovely coral paper was Pebbles.

Finally, here's a page I did for March Simple Scrapper:

This is one of my favorite sketches from Simple Scrapper: a triangular grid of Project Life cards. However, I'd printed my photos as wallets, smaller than PL! So I trimmed the PL cards to match the wallets. The background paper is one I love from Lawn Fawn. I have bought so much of it. It makes me happy.

Thank you for visiting! I hope this gave you ideas about incorporating multiple photos on two-page layouts.

Science and Scrapbooking

Since today is Pi day, I thought I'd share my page from the last time we went to the Science Museum of Minnesota.

We have been members for several years, so I take a lot of pictures there. I think on this trip I  took at least 30 pictures. I do a lot of double-paged spreads from those, but this time I thought I'd pick my favorite photos from the Pixar exhibit, then a couple shots from our favorite places--the dino in the lobby and the rooftop porch that overlooks the river. Here's the page:

I had just gotten a series of soda-pop themed papers from Stamping' Up! so I decided to use them because they are bright and happy. I then dug through my die cuts for colorful accents, like the banner from Pinkfresh Studio and the stars, which I think are Studio Calico and Ali Edwards.

Thank you for visiting! Now it's time to celebrate math and eat pie.

Two-page layouts: really big and really small

This is the final two-page layout I made this past month. This one I knew I would be pairing a big photo with small ones. The big photo involved my son at the starting line of a cross country race. Without a big photo my son would have been lost. Here's what I did:

Like the previous layouts, I had saved autumn die cuts. I then picked out some autumn hued papers that matched the die cuts and then spread it across the page. Here's the details:

Like before, I used Elle's Studio die cuts, plus elements from my Ali Edwards kits and Stampin' Up! Project Life kits.

Here's an interesting note: I had originally designed the page with the pages reversed, but my son said he preferred the pages reversed, and so I did it. It's his memory, after all.

Thank you for visiting while I share these two-page layouts I made this past month! Soon I'll share my Simple Scrapper pages for March. They are some of favorite ever. I can't wait to share them!

Documenting Christmas cards

Every year I save the Christmas cards with photos and turn them into a layout. I have albums just for Christmas pages, and I put them in there. I've been behind lately. Here's the pages I worked on over winter break:

This first one was complete, until I got a few late cards. I added a 6x12 page with the remaining photos. I keep my themed products (Christmas, camping, travel, Halloween, school) in Iris containers, so I fortunately still had the green paper for the bottom. I had no more of the plaid on the upper right, so I found a similar plaid and used it.

This next page came from two years ago (I was behind!). I have a TON of Christmas products--many years on design teams guaranteed lots of product--but I still got the new Christmas line from Stampin' Up!, the one with blacks and greens. I added silver and touches of red from other Christmas lines I had.

I also made the pages for 2017 as well, but I'm holding on to see if I have any late cards before posting them and putting them in albums.

November pages for Simple Scrapper: Scrapbooking heirloom photos and memorabilia

Hello! The trimester has really locked in, and I have a been a grading field for the last month. That put a serious dent in my scrapbooking. Fortunately, I made a date with some scrapbooking friends to scrapbook over the weekend in October at The Scrapbook Manor. It was so much fun, and I did quite a bit. I can't wait to share what I made.

Until then, I'd like to share my pages for Simple Scrapper for November. This first is a pocket album I started to make based off of the theme of letters.

After my father-in-law moved to assisted living, his memorabilia of his wife, their families, and their marriage came to my husband and me. It lay in an Iris container for a while, but the letter story starter for the month got me going on creating an album for this memorabilia. I started with the story of their meeting, which reminded me of those quirky how-we-met stories in When Harry Met Sally, so I chose something similar for the title:

I used up the rest of my old Studio Calico 6x8 album and album inserts for this album. Here's the story page with amazing photos of  Don and Phebe to accompany them:

Before I did the project, I dug through my Project Life cards for ones that looked neutral or vintage-y. I mainly used ones from Studio Calico and Stampin' Up (an old line from Liz Tahamana). Then I went through my embellishments and looked for similar neutral or vintage ones. I put them in a Craft Keeper next to the Iris container with the photos and memorabilia and kept dipping into it for product when I needed it. Here's the letters:

I wanted to keep the envelopes as well as the letters, but they didn't fit, so I slit the sides of the pockets, then cliped the letters in.

The letters are beautifully practical and romantic, relics of Don writing to Phebe with care and devotion as she planned the wedding while he was still stationed elsewhere. He was a wonderful writer, and I'm glad we have the evidence of this.

(Check out the price of the stamp!)

 

The final evidence of their letter success is the wedding, so I finished this section with the invitation and one wedding photo of the couple. Look at how beautiful and dapper they are!

 Thank you for visiting! I'm sorry for the grading hiatus. I still have a bunch to do this term, but I also have many pages to share, and I look forward to sharing them this month. Next will come the other page I made for Simple Scrapper in November, plus the rest of the pages I made on my retreat, including much of the rest of this album.