scrapbooking tips and tricks

Today’s blog post is all about scrapbooking!

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.

These pages chronicle a visit to the Blue Hole in Georgetown, Texas a lovely park during a visit from my mother while we lived there.

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!

One of the best tips I have especially for new families is to make sure that you take turns taking pictures – usually one partner is the photographer. In our family that would be me and because of that I am rarely in the photos. When I was younger that did not bother me at ALL but as I got older I cherish the pictures like these where my mom grabbed my camera. She knew what I was to young to realize at the time that I would love these rare photos of just me and the boys! I texted her the spread and thanked her for her wisdom!

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!

Don’t be afraid to add a little dimension to the page – I lifted some of the leaves on these pages to add shadow, depth and interest!

Do the photos invoke a memory or something you want to highlight? Don’t miss the chance to point it out in your journaling as well as highlighting the photo by adding a matte.

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

Remember that extra photo I mentioned in the beginning – it was scenic without little people in it and almost a duplicate – so I cropped it into two smaller circle dies highlighting pieces of the beautiful waterfalls and added them in as fillers! I added the circle right above the journaling in the empty space!

The last page has three different ways to highlight – the top left hand photo is simply matted, the middle photo is harder to see in the picture but I die cut the boys and I with a Stylish Shapes circle die that has some stitching effects and did not pop out the die but kept the entire picture together and allowed the die stitching to do the highlighting – this is a more subtle way to highlight! The last photo I used the negative dies from two previous mattes and created a frame around the last picture! I added the last of my colored leaves and these 6 pages were easy and done in about 1/2 hour!
I added the second small waterfall scenic circle to the top of the p[age to finish it all.