Now I have a disclaimer for all those of you that give up because you are TOO FAR behind…ME TOO LOL – this spread came together because I did not want my Artistic Leaves Color Samples that I made for a post last week to go to waste!

Long ago I actually put my photographs in pocket pages in chronological order – that is until I switched to digital and that is an entire other story! But I have years worth of scrapbooks some complete – others not so much! But when I get some inspiration I look at the dates and seasons of the unfinished books and grab one and see if there are photos that will work with my idea…

I had all of these colorful leaves so I wanted to find a Fall spread and I was lucky enough to find one in the first book I chose – not always the case but this system works for me. I also scrapbook in 8.5 x 11 as I am an avid card maker and have all the colors in that size.

These layouts can easily be converted to 12″ x 12″ or other sizes. I start with the photos and find out if there are any special photos that I wish to highlight or any that I would like to crop.

For the First page of this spread I started with the title – place and date. There were three photos in this side of the pocket but two of them were very similar and scenic so I picked and best one and put the other aside (more on that photo later!)
Stampin’ Up! has a great selection of scrapbooking options and alphabet dies are one of them. Small, Medium and large options are in my opinion the BEST investment for any scrapbooker! Personally I never understood buying alphabet stickers – some ALWAYS go to waste – dies allow you to create just what you need, in the color and size that you desire!

I chose Cherry Cobbler cardstock to match two of my kids outfits and some of the Fall leaves.
I chose the Alphabet A La Mode – our medium option and cut “Blue Hole 9 – ’98” for the title in Basic White Cardstock to make it pop on the dark colored cardstock. I laid out the 2 phtots and filled the spaces with a few colored leaves and section for journaling. The lines and stamp are from a retired Project Life stamp set called “Moments like These” and “Draw the Line” for the Journaling lines that I kept for personal use!
We do have a current Online Exclusive stamp set that would be great for this purpose called Just a Note item # 166098 $21.00.

The next page are a series of three pictures of my three boys and their Nonna, I picker the best one and highlighted it.

The easiest way to highlight a picture is page placement – I highlighted it by placing it in the center of the page but a further highlighted it by die cutting it with the Textured Notes die set and adding a matte under the photo from the same die set – the extra color draws your eye to that photo – I also color coordinated the matte to colors I used in making the Fall Leaves to tie everything together!

I highlighted the bottom picture by die cutting the four of us with a small stitched circle die from the Stylish Shapes die set and left it in the original photo and popped up the center to add depth and dimensional and call attention to the four of us!

My middle son was forever making faces and most were adorable so I highlighted the bottom photo because I LOVED this face!

Interested in scrapbooking? Let me know and I can help you with getting started, getting back on track or just with ideas!

Now go and create some pages – one stamp at a time!

Happy Stampin’
Natalie