Kiss and Tell Scrapbooking

2 Page Layouts: Play Matters

There's a thread over at Two Peas all about 2 page layouts; and on the creative team at Get It Scrapped, we've been encouraged to make 2 page layouts; so I thought I'd give the 2 page layout idea another try. 

I found the basic sketch on Pinterest, it was a Scrapbooks etc. sketch but I deviated quite a bit from it - you can see it on my "2 page layouts" Pinterest board. 

I also ustreamed while making this layout but the sound quality is poor - the video angle is better - so two steps forward one step back.  One thing I did notice while photographing this layout is that it is much harder to photograph a 2 page layout than a one page layout which could account for why you don't see a lot of 2 pagers in the online galleries. 

But the big advantage of 2 pagers?  You can include lots of photos - and/ or journaling (although in this 2 page layout I used next to no journaling).  I got the quote from Pinterest and couldn't figure out the original source, but its posted on my "word up" Pinterest board in case you'd like to figure out who made that word are - if you do, please leave a comment so I can give credit.

 

Scrapbooking the Cruise: Miami Aquarium / Folder on a Scrapbook Page

Ever come back from a trip with a gazillion photos?  If you are a scrapbooker chances are you answered yes.  Well, me too.  I got inspired to make a layout using a folder to include more photos on one page after watching Lisa Dickinson's video over at Two Peas. 

This page includes 6 photos and the journaling on the front makes it clear that there is a folder:  "Do Not Ever Touch The Sharks:  Do you think we followed this advice?  Take a Peek to find out." and I made an arrow pointing to the tab of the folder, and I added a question mark on the tab just for fun.

Get It Scrapped Post: Find Scrapbook Page Ideas Using the Elements of Retro Branding (+ Connect Four and Why I Brought My Kids to a College Geek Fest Party)

I didn't think I could accomplish the Get It Scrapped Design Team Assignment of Using Retro Branding without going digital but I did it!   The 3 elements of retro branding are 1. limited and tonal color schemes; 2. simple shapes (like circles); and 3. retro typography.

I found a patterned paper with a retro looking font by Studio Calico and arranged it in the shape of a circle which reminded me of the Wheel of Fortune in the center of a bunch of very dark photos so it stood out and I added a Basic Grey chipboard dart board and the number 4 since we were at a Connect 4 Tournament.

And the story?  We went to Geek Fest in Durango, Colorado and I brought my kids to a college bar and we were the oldest and the youngest people in the place - it may not have been the best Mommy move but we weren't there to party - we were there for the Connect Four Tournament!

You'll have to read my scribbly handwriting to get the full effect!

Want to see more scrapbooking layouts inspired by retro branding - all of which imho are way better than mine! - Check out the Get It Scrapped Post!

Want to get in touch with your inner geek, support this blog and play Connect Four again?  Check out these affiliate links:

Paper Strips Inspiration Board: Layout #6: I Can't Stop Smiling; a 2 Page / 6 Photo Layout with Sparkly Thickers!

Let's just say those sparkly Thickers are not collecting any dust at my house.

I had a tough time deciding which of those glittery American Crafts ribbons to use - check out my overthinking it process on the ribbon color (the $9.99 pack from TJ Maxx had something like 20 ribbons!):

And I did use the Amy Tangerine Sketch Book 12x12 paperpack I got last night - see (trying to justify buying more paper to myself) I really do use all this stuff, check out the paper strips at the top and bottom of the pages:

I also used paper strips and left over bits from my 6x6 Amy Tangerine paper packs.

The Hidden Journaling Card says : "Dear Allison:  You loved snowmobiling.  I was delighted since I love it too and you told me that you couldn't stop smiling!  I was smiling too and a little bit nostalgic for when my Dad used to bring me on the snowmobile.  Love Mommy."

 

 

Fast Scrapbooking: 2 for 1 Scrapbook Pages

I came across this post called "6 cheats for faster scrapbooking" from Jennifer Wilson, the Simple Scrapper;  and I liked the concept of a template even though I'm a paper scrapbooker and it looks like her pages were digital.  I started thinking about a page a did a few months ago where my mom saw it and wanted one just like it and then I thought -AHA! Why don't I just make 2 pages every time I make a page - I betcha it wouldn't take much more time. 

So I tried it and I didn't time myself, but I'm thinking it took the same amount of time as one would have taken.  Same design, same patterned papers and embellishments, same photo theme - different kid.  

This way the layouts work as a two page spread or I can put them in separate albums.  I've got to remember to try this 2 for 1 technique more often.  Thanks for the inspiration Simple Scrapper!

Instagram (6 Photo Scrapbook Layout)

This 12x12 scrapbook page about Instagram photos was inspired by this "in the mood to scrap" video from Two Peas.  I liked the frame stitched to the page and the resist technique.  I am ok with how imperfect my resist looks since the page is all about how imperfect instagram iphone photos are.

A Simple Scrapbook Page

Sometimes it is just good to get photos out of your shoe boxes and storage binders and onto a scrapbook page - without much story or embellishment - I've made other pages about this trip so its ok with me that this page is more plain - I was able to get it done in less than 10 minutes and get 6 more photos into my travel scrapbook album and that feels really great.

The story:  (maybe I'll print this out & tape it to the back of the layout).  Last year I wanted for my husband and daughter to learn how to ski so we went on 3 ski trips - so lucky.  We skied in Ober Gatlinbury, Tennesee (pictured here), Appalachian Ski Mountain, Boone, NC, and Durango, Colorado.  My daughter learned to ski like a champ but my husband decided that skiing wasn't his thing.  After going to Durango, I decided that Eastern US skiing wasn't my thing and I promised to bring my kids to Durango someday (that day is today! yippee!)

 

Christmas Party Fashion - A Simple Scrapbook Page (6 photos)

This page gets 6 photos onto the page in an easy to make layout - another Christmas page done!

Low Light Blurry Christmas Photos & She's Got Gear Layout & Why I love My Canon PowerShot more than my iPhone for Photos.

This first time at home sparring with gear which quickly turned into an attack on Daddy was too funny and because of the short amount of time in which this particular event happened one night,  meant I had to grab my point & shoot (which happened to be sitting on the sofa table right there - so I didn't even have to move) and do the best I could in about 30 seconds.  The photos are far from perfect but tell a story that my family has told at least 100 times since it happened last month.  The Story?  My daughter took a  few years off from karate but she's back and was eagerly awaiting her gear - which meant she could start sparring.  The Title?  "She has Gear.  Dudes: Watch Out."

Can my Canon PowerShot take better photos?  Of Course.  Should these less than perfect photos stop me from scrapbooking this loved and funny story?  Of Course Not!  My Advice - do something fun with the colors on the layout:  Here I used the yellowish photo with a yellowish and muted background paper and then added a pop of aqua blue and red to make something pop on the page.

My other advice?  If you'd like to support this blog and need an extra Canon Power Shot?  Check out the following affiliate links.  I seriously think that you can never have too many Canon power shots - leave them in your purse, around your house and give them to your kids - they are easy to use, take better photos that shown here, and are relatively inexpensive depending on what you need .  I have an iphone 4 and I know that iphone photos are all the rage, but really, for me, I love my Canon power shots and I happily take one whereever I go in addition to my iphone because I think uploading and printing from my canon is a bazillion times easier than all of the iphone app craziness - and yes I know there are apps for that - but really?  The little memory card in my Canon is so much easier for me to use.  Plus they come in cute colors which you can use a sharpie to write your name (or your kid's name on) and when you use the Canon point and shoot instead of your iphone - then your iphone batteries last longer which I think is sort of a big deal since my iphone is my gateway to hours of surfing Pinterest while doing other things.

 

Die Cuts & 6x6 Paper Packs

I had a 6x6 paper pack and a die cut dog house shape - this page went together very easily & it was fun to make - if you haven't used a die cut on different patterned papers, give it a try.  I got this idea from The Two Peas Video by Lisa Dickinson - I'm loving all those videos this year - lots of awesome inspiration over there.

 

Library of Memories / Photo Freedom: One Year Ago & Clearing the Decks

I have been feeling like I need to put a whole bunch of photos into cold storage.  I just cleared out all of my storage binders and I put the photos into piles on my scrapbooking desk and I challenged myself to make a bunch of layouts rapid fire and to put the rest of the photos into storage boxes.  My plans are to put my cold storage boxes into rough chronological order and integrate that with my Century Scrapbook bookshelf.  So does this totally negate what I've done with Stacy Julian's system of Photo Freedom / Library of Memories?  Not really, I plan to keep the categories together to a certain degree within the chronological system.  Its a longer term reorganization system but I want to get my photos and memorabilia and family history documents all into one system.  Someday - some magical day - I'll have a library room in my house where the walls are lined with bookshelves - maybe.  Meantime, I want to clear my scrapbook desk and have more in storage so that there is less to deal with on a daily basis and I can still know where to find something when I need to. 

So 12x12 scrapbook page with 6 4x6 photos  was one of the scrapbook layouts I made rapid fire from the storage binders - so simple and fast - I don't want to make all of my pages like this, but sometimes, it is nice to get a bunch of photos scrapbooked in a 12x12 format so they can go live in my library of memories albums instead of living in storage binders - I know, not all of them, but at least some.

How are you doing with your Library of Memories? Are you taking Photo Freedom this time around?  If you have another system for old photos, I'd love to hear about it, please leave a comment.

Cub Scout Camping

We went camping with the Cub Scouts for the 2nd time on Thansgiving Weekend 2011, but I hadn't scrapbooked the photos yet! So these pages feel really good.

My photos used to be so organized and now they are so out of whack and need serious attention - but reorganizing photos just doesn't seem all that appealing to me right now.  I did spend some time today putting my recent layouts into albums so that felt good but many of my albums are "in progress" and I'm feeling the need to finish some of them off.

How do you organize your photos / scrapbook albums?  I would love to know.

Get It Scrapped Post: Ideas for 6 Photo Scrapbook Pages

I made this six photo scrapbook page using a 3x3 grid.  I made the orange starbursts with a Jenni Bowlin stamp and I used my nesting pinked circles and regular circles for the inside layers.

Want more ideas for 6 photo scrapbook pages from Ashley Horton, Adryane Driscoll, Vicki Walters, Marie-Pierre Capistran, Stefanie Semple, Brenda Becknell, Audrey Tan, and Debbie Hodge?  Go Check out Get It Scrapped's Post "Ideas for Composing the 6 Photo Scrapbook Page."

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Get It Scrapped Post: Using Faux Bois or Wood Grain Patterns on Your Scrapbook Page

Ok, so I took this prompt to use wood grain literally and actually used wood letter tiles for part of my title:

This is the scrapbook page I made about the story I found about Ivory Fenderson and Jean Flahive's book "The Galloping Horses of Willowbrook"

It is busy.  I know.  But there is a reason:  I have 13 boxes, big boxes, full of family history from my late father.  Most of the boxes contain family tree charts with names and dates and unidentified really old photographs.   I inherited these boxes when my kids were a 2 year old boy with then undiagnosed ADHD (lets just say that boy NEVER slept for the first 5 years of life) and a new born infant girl; I was too busy to go through the boring piles of family history; I was doing my best to take my babies to the portrait studio at the mall to create my own unidentified photos.  So the family history thing feels busy to me, so that the page looks busy - totally expresses my feelings about the family history and putting it all together.  Maybe someday I'll make a super simple page about the carousel, but for now, it is totally busy.

Recently, I've had the chance to look at the tip of the family history iceberg; I'm just putting everything in some kind of order - meaning notebooks that I will eventually go through an actually organize.  It is overwhelming, but I'm taking the one bite at a time to eat the elephant approach with it.  I'm not sure why, but last night while the kids were in the pool, I started researching Ivory Fenderson on my ipad - just another random relative - I was trying to figure out exactly how I was related to him.  So I was going through census records and other kind of old and boring records through Ancestry.com.  I don't mean to say Ancestry.com is boring - it is actually technologically amazing - but census records from 1890 - well, maybe if you are a seasoned genealogist then you'd find them interesting, but for the rest of us its "oh yeah, ok, that's it... yes, it looks like he was a farmer..."  (whoop-de-doo / who cares right?).  My self-imposed challenge for my approach to family history and organizing all my Dad's old stuff  has been to find the stories in the history.

Last night I hit the family history story jackpot! Someone had written an entire book about Ivory Fenderson's life and it was  a "hartwarming and true story" about the world's oldest Steam Riding Horses Carousel!

I printed out a bunch of pages from the internet about Ivory Fenderson - including the census and a family tree chart to show how I'm related to him, and articles about the Willowbrook book etc.  I also knew that I had recent photos of my daughter on a carousel - it was either Disney or Busch Gardens - I can't actually tell from the photos - and we go both places a lot, but for this page, it didn't matter where she was - just that she was on a carousel horse.  I knew this page would need a pocket since I had all those print outs about the story.  On top of the pocket I made a strip of internet images of the old carousel and a strip of photos of my daughter.  I recently bought some washi tape so I used that to paste all the clippings down.

WOODGRAIN:  (or actual wood) Then I added the big "Fenderson" at the bottom but I wanted the title to be more descriptive so I went looking for some smaller letters and came across those Scrabble wood letters which seemed perfect since they looked old and since the family history thing is like a game, putting all those pieces from the past together to find stories that people will  want to hear.

Title: "I Found A Story!  Ivory Fenderson's Carousel"

Journaling: There is none on the page, but it is all in the form of the internet printouts in the pocket so if someone was interested in finding out more, they could look through those; but if they just wanted flip through the album, they could also totally skip it and just see Allison on a carousel.

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Want to see more WOOD GRAIN on scrapbook pages by Jen Matott, Tara McKernin, Stephanie Semple, Christy Strickler, Ashley Horton, Brenda Becknell, Amy Kingsford, Debbie Hodge, Kim Watson, Meghann Andrew?  Then head over to Get It Scrapped!

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Another Easy Scrapbook Page with 6 Photos: Geocaching

The 2 page scrapbook page is making a bit of a come back, at least in my scrapbooking.  I like to use a 2 page spread when I have several 4x6 photos that I don't want to crop too much.  It is really easy to line the photos up in some sort of horizontal band and then add a bit on the top and bottom.  I often skip embellishments on these types of pages and I find I like this sort of spread for event-based scrapbooking.

Journaling:  "Whenever Mac's Friend comes over he asks if we can go geo-caching and this treasure hunt if fun and gets us outdoors and active and away from the wii.  Seriously, it is the perfect activity for 10 year old boys.  Spring 2012."

Supplies:  Fiskars and EK Success Border Punches, Cosmo Cricket Joy Ride, Jillibean Soup, and Studio Calico (letters).