Rejoice!

I am really enjoying monthly sketch challenges lately. This one from Purple Pumpkin is the latest I've tried my hand at.

Purple Pumpkin January Sketch Challenge

When I first saw this sketch, I knew exactly what photos to use. I only had two photos of my son taken at a school celebration and they had been sitting in my photo pile for a while; I wasn't quite sure what to do with them.

Was this meant to be a school page? A religious page? A "when you were seven years old" page? Was it meant for his school days album or for the yearly family album?

When I saw this sketch the pictures and the paper jumped to mind, though I still wasn't sure where this page would find a home.

My take on the sketch.

Ultimately, I included this page in my son's school days album because the event took place at the school and I also want him to remember that faith development was an important part of his education and that he had a strong Community of Faith around him as he grew up.

My take on the sketch follows the plan very closely (that's what a good sketch is for, after all!), although I admit I had trouble with the proportions. I couldn't crop my focal photo small enough, so my horizontal line is longer than the one in the sketch.

Still, I am very happy with the result! Thanks for the great sketch, Purple Pumpkin!

Happy 5th, Saturday Scrappers!

Wow! This month the Saturday Scrappers celebrated their fifth anniversary. That's an amazing run for a scrapbooking group and this one is still going strong. I feel so privileged to be part of this group.


My first time at Saturday Scrappers, March 1st, 2008.

My own Saturday Scrappers anniversary will be in March, when I mark my fourth year with this amazing group of talented ladies (and a few kids!). Without getting too sentimental, I'd like to share what a huge impact this group has had on me.

I first started coming to this group at the invitation of Justine, whom I met through a scrapbooking group on Facebook. I'd chatted with her through the group several times and when I advertised a scrapbooking workshop I was giving, she signed up and brought a friend!

After the workshop, she invited me to Saturday Scrappers and eventually, I got up the nerve to actually go. (Trying new things and meeting new people isn't one of my strengths.) And I'm so glad I did!

That night I met an amazing group of talented and welcoming women who shared my love of scrapbooking and were very nice company. I've often said one of the great benefits of scrapbooking is the sense of community and this group is where I first learned that.



Me displaying my first published layout. (Fall 2010)


This group isn't only a place where I can have uninterrupted time to follow my passion, it's an amazing source of support and encouragement. Whether I'm working on a project for a contest, coming up with original layouts for submission or just whipping something up for my albums, these ladies can always find something complimentary and uplifting to say about my work. Whether the flattery is deserved or not is beside the point; the encouragement I receive is priceless--especially coming from other scrapbookers.

Even though I've never stayed the full 12 hours (and sometimes it's hard to stay for more than 2 or 3), and I often miss the pot luck dinner, I really enjoy socialising with the ladies of this group and it's nice to just shoot the breeze, catch up with what's been going on and occasionally meet new people.

Saturday Scrappers really has a wonderful thing going.

And one of the hallmark features of this group is a yearly challenge. Whether it's a page exchange, mini-album exchanges, card swaps or the annual Christmas Card Marathon, there's always something exciting happening with this group to inspire scrapbookers. This year, Justine is organising a Page-of-the-Month challenge. Each month she's posting 2 Pagemaps and interested scrappers are creating pages based on them.



Me with a partially finished page for the January 2012 challenge.

This is a great challenge for me, not only because I love Pagemaps, but it has really inspired me to get pages done. I know if I do nothing else in a month, I will get these pages done!

So, thanks Justine, Kerri, Sault, Angel, Mandy, Cathy, Peggy, Granny, Ilse, Emma, Siobhann, Lori and everyone else at Saturday Scrappers! It's a pleasure knowing you!!

A New Favourite

This is one of my latest pages and it has jumped to the top of my favourites list. There are so many reasons why this is my new favourite page, but I'll just give you the run down on the top 5.

1. I love the paper. The School Spirit line by Crate Paper is fabulous. It has a lot of colour and interest without being girly--which is important to me because almost all my pages are about my boys. I thought the geometric shapes in the background paper were a perfect fit with the science theme of the page.

2. A great title. I struggled with what title to use on this page. Originally, I thought I'd use puffy brown American Crafts Thickers to spell out "Science Centre" or "Little Explorers", but as luck would have it, I'm down to the last q's, x's and z's of that particular set.

Then I thought I'd just cut out a title from brown cardstock on my Silhouette when I had the time, but after the page sat around for a couple of weeks (I still have to buy a new cutting mat) I knew I had to come up with something else for the title or this page was going to languish for years. (Yes, I do have pages that need die cut titles from years ago waiting for me to do a massive die cut session one day.)

Finally, a few days ago, I realised my darling husband has a colour printer and I could just print something out. That's when I went to the Science Centre website to check out their logo. I found a logo for Kidspark, which is where all the photos are from and the journaling is about. Voila! Perfect title. I just had to print it out, trim it down, ink the edges, mount on brown cardstock and adhere with pop dots. I love the way it fits perfectly onto the page.

3. Glazed brads. I'm not normally a fan of brads, but I love glazed brads and I couldn't resist stocking up on these Basic Grey glazed brads when I saw them deeply discounted from Ninabrook Designs. Unlike regular brads, which just look like nail heads to me, glazed brads usually have a pattern, rim and epoxy coating. You'll often see glazed brads in packs to co-ordinate with a paper line. Even though I didn't have the co-ordinating papers, I loved these brads and think they fit in well with the colours on this page and add a bit of a whimsical touch. I even added a glazed brad to dress up the title, replacing the purple dot in the "i" with a brad.

4. This page documents a tradition. As a family, we love doing things together and visiting places like the Science Centre and the ROM. I have a lot of pages about these kinds of trips. But for me, and I hope for my children too, going to the Science Centre on the Christmas Break has become an important tradition. After all the Christmas hullabaloo, we take some time for ourselves, to connect as a family doing something everyone enjoys. I documented my feelings about our annual trip in the journaling and I hope when my boys are older they'll look back on these family trips as fondly as I do.

5. This page reconnected me with my old Smith Corona. I have always loved typing. I don't even mind the data entry work I do as an editor because I just love pounding away on a keyboard. (Perhaps if I had any musical inclination, I'd be a pianist.) My old typewriter was retired years ago because I had no use for it once my computer came along. But for whatever reason, I couldn't bear to part with it. It stayed in storage for years and has evaded the occasional mass clean out--including one just this spring that involved Kevin digging out all our old electronics for recycling. I saw him heading out with my old SC and saved it from the scrap pile just in time.

I'm not sure why I did that, because at the time I didn't even know if it worked or that I could purchase typewriter cartridges at Staples. But it went back into my closet all the same. Then this past December, browsing at Staples for something else, I saw a little section devoted to old technology, and there they were: typewriter cartridges. I didn't buy one at the time because I wasn't sure which cartridge my typewriter would take, but Kevin went back a few weeks later and picked one up for me.

That very night, I took SC out of the closet, set it up on my kitchen table and plugged it in. The hum of its motor was like a forgotten lullaby. I sat down, inserted some paper and typed out the journaling for my scrapbook page. It just took a few minutes, but using my old typewriter brought back a flood of memories of all the essays, themes, short stories, poems, resumes and letters I'd written using this old thing.

It sparked my old love for writing, and even though I'm not going to make any promises, I've had some more interesting ideas for a twist in my waiting-to-be-written novel.

Remember Me?

It's been a long, long while, but what can I say...I've been SCRAPPING!! I've got to face it: writing is a hobby, scrapping is a passion. I've got to follow my heart.

You know I'm a big fan of sketches. For me, they're one of the best ways to get albums completed quickly and beautifully. So, I've been keenly following several blogs for interesting sketches. This month, I noticed a fab sketch (and challenge) on the Purple Pumpkin blog and tried my hand at it!

This is the sketch:

This is my take on it:



I'm pretty loyal to the overall design, but as usual, just following a plan isn't as easy as it's cracked up to be. I had a terrible time wrangling my Silhouette. The shape design feature not longer includes circles (kind of wishing I hadn't installed that last update...) and as usual, it didn't cut all the way through the cardstock. Not a problem on the oval, but I did spend quite a bit of time using my Xacto knife to cut the title.

I used many older products on this page; things that have been waiting in my stash for years. You might recognize the patterned paper as something that was popular in the early part of this century, but I was delighted how it mimics the wall H is leaning against and even has the same colours! It was obvious I had to go with a light blue/green/dark blue colour scheme, even though when I originally looked at the photo, I thought a cream/blue/red colour scheme would work well.

The monogram letters are also an older product. I remember buying them at a scrapbook club when H wasn't even a year old yet. And even though the purple stands out a bit too much, the blue and green letters seemed to be a perfect fit with the papers and the sketch.

The dinosaur assortment, in lieu of flowers, isn't quite as old. You may recognize these embellishment's from the Abbey Road collection from My Mind's Eye. They fit a boy's page better than flowers and support the journaling--which is about my son playing with his dinosaurs.

I'm very happy with how this page has come together. It's a great addition to my 2009 album.

Thanks for putting out the challenge, Purple Pumpkin!

Keep It Simple

Things have been hectic lately and my scrapping projects have been sitting on the back burner. Now that things have calmed down a bit, I look at my pile of "things to scrap" and feel a little overwhelmed. I know I'll never be "caught up", but I don't like this sinking feeling of falling further behind.

That's when I remind myself to keep it simple.

I have tons of sketches, websites and even kits to turn to for inspiration and fast assembly.

One of the easiest ways to get pages done, is to turn to what you've done before.

I always try to have my son's "school days" scrapbook pages completed before the next school year starts, but now with two boys in school, I'm finding it difficult to keep up. When it came time to scrapbook their school portraits pages, I knew what I wanted to do for one, but was having trouble coming up with an idea for the other.That's when my favourite mantra, "Keep it simple", popped into my head. These pages were going into two different albums, they weren't going to be side-by-side, so why not use the same layout for both pages? Voila! Problem solved.

And I'm very happy with the results. These pages were quick to assemble, look sharp and are great additions to both boys albums.

Another way to keep it simple is to maximize the use of sketches. For years I've been using sketches. They are one of the greatest tools in my scrapping toolbox. Whether I'm following them exactly, doing my own variation or simply as an inspirational starting point, sketches have influenced a huge number of my completed pages. But with so many takes on sketches, why was I using a sketch only once then moving on to the next one?

It wasn't until I purchased a copy of Becky Fleck's Pagemaps that it sunk in that I could use these pagemaps over and over--really, the variations are infinite!

So, when I was ready to scrap the photos from my son's second birthday and was feeling a little uninspired, I flipped through my albums looking for pages with a similar number of photos. That's when I came across this layout based on a Becky Fleck pagemap:

I remembered putting this page together a year or so before and I liked how the photos were grouped together and the side bars of patterned paper. I knew the birthday layout was going to be very colourful and energetic and I thought the sidebars would frame the photos well.

The result looks very different from the original layout, and even more so from the original sketch, but the page turned out well and came together very quickly once I decided to follow the previous layout.

Keeping things simple when creating my scrapbook pages always yields great results!

Say What?

We all know a picture is worth a thousand words. That is until you forget where you were, when it was or even who is in the picture. For the scrapbooker, forgetting the details of your photos poses an acute problem and I've witnessed scrappers spending hours trying to sort and organize photos they can no longer remember the story behind.

At the same time, many scrapbookers don't see the value in journaling on their pages. Some say they're intimidated by journaling, others that they just don't have anything to say. But I say, once you think about the reason you're scrapping those photos in the first place what you should journal is obvious: it's the thing you find special.

Whether it's a single sentence, a few lines or an entire typewritten page, the stories behind your photos will convey the meaning of those photos to those lucky viewers of your albums.

Asking yourself "W5H" is a great way to get journaling started:
* Who is in the photos? Who took the photo? Who is missing from the photo?
* What are the photos of? (An occasion? A tradition? An activity?) What does the photo show or hide?
* Where were the photos taken? What is the significance of the place or objects in the photo?
* Why these photos? (i.e Why the one close up of the bouquet instead of a the bride holding it?) Why not other photos?
* When were the photos taken? When was the journaling done? When in your life, or the subject's life was the photo taken?
* How does the photo make you feel? How well does the photo capture the moment? How often do you think of or look at the photo or the subject?

If you answer one or two of these questions, or similar ones, you're well on your way to telling the stories behind your photos.

Whatever you decide to include in your journaling, there are a few things every page should have: a date and identification. Even if it's something as vague as "Spring 2011", dating your pages will put your page in a timeline context, and for the chronological scrapbooker, will make ordering your pages easier. Identifying your subjects may seem repetitive and unnecessary (after all you're not going to forget who your children or your parents are) but I've seen lots of people forget which baby it was in a particular photo or the names of their grandparents. If you have that information, even if it seems irrelevant, include it for the people who may not know your subjects as well as you do.

And if you're still not sure whether journaling is for you, remember this:
"And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise.  The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt."
~Sylvia Plath

Tried and True

Clearly, I'm a fan of sketches. But even using those can be a burdensome drain on my sensibilities when I'm scrapping late at night or in a rush to get pages done. Looking over my albums, I find there's one tried and true layout I come back to again and again when I want a simple photo-focused page: the gap grid.

Quite simply, this layout is a grid of multiple photos, in the same or various sizes, with a 1/4" gap between the pictures. I usually use an over sized mat to accommodate all the photos and sometimes the title.

I discovered this layout early on and have used it repeatedly because of the sleek, uncluttered look as well as the fairly short time it takes to assemble the page. It works for single and double page layouts and is a great way to keep the photos the centre of attention.


My first page using a gap grid. The gaps and colour scheme make the photos pop off the page.



Inspired by a layout I saw in SBE, this small gap grid keeps the photos the focal point against the busy background.



With whimsical florals and stitching details, the strong geometrics of this gap grid add a masculine balance to the page. The impact of a large block among the rounded elements is softened by a popped-up floral title which covers some of the negative space between the subjects of the photos.



Photos are the star of this simple, quickly assembled page. The mismatched title tiles match the playful theme of the page and journaling along the perimeter of the grid completes the story.

If you're looking to try something new or are looking to put together a big-impact page in a short amount of time, try the gap grid!