When your picture is too pretty

You won't find too many scrapbook page ideas for leaves or sunflowers...I've looked...for anything that might help desparate ole me when trying to find some idea to help. So these are pages I came up with that will still show the glorious sights of autumn.


Not sure if I'm totally satisfied with this one yet.

This one is probably not totally done either. Something needs to be happening in the middle of this page toward the left side. Ha! I'll figure it out someday.

When it all stops

There are days when I sit either at the computer or in front of a piece of paper and I have no idea what to create. I want to reflect the feelings that I see in the photographs before me, but I don't always know what to do. And that's when I'll go through the paper I have (if regular scrapbooking) and I'll see what colors match the pictures. And I'll take out a few sheets and then stare at them until I'm satisfied with one or two of them. (I'm still trying to figure out how to do this with digital).

Recently, I have been making a lot of pages digitally, but they are not a complete work of art. I have typed notes on the pages like, "use pink flower here" so I can remember what I had in mind. And then later I will write a list of what I want and see if I can find it online. Or maybe add those things later after the pages are printed.

So, the moral of the story is you can leave something blank until you know for sure what you want to do. Don't make the mistake of just doing something for the sake of getting it done. Make sure you really like it first and THEN do it. And if you stare at something for too long and you haven't even started yet, maybe you need to come back later or another day. Ha!

Hunting Digis

I'm currently working on a digital hunting scrapbook for Quent. It's of a goat hunting trip he did with his brother, Nathan. I am designing in 12x12 and will be printing in 8x8. So far I have been sending my pics to a company to have them printed. I'm curious to see what 8x8 will look like once it's printed. These pages aren't all completely finished as some of them will have journaling, but here's a draft of what I have so far for a few of the pages.

More Digital

It's been awhile since I've posted anything. I've been playing around more and more with digital scrapbooking. I'm honestly having a hard time getting back into traditional scrapbooking and I can see it very soon fading out of my life. *GASP* With digital you can use ANY color. No more wondering if I have the right colored stamp pads, letters, word sayings, etc.

Here are a few creations I've made in the last month or so.


My cute little sister Katie on a nature trail we walked on last year.

Me.
Yeah, it's weird, but I like it. I could have made my skin more green looking, but alien really isn't my thing.

Never thought I'd enjoy cows so much! This is at my friend Carrie's house. The brushes were fun to use in this one. It's just like stamping, but even better. *gasp*

I don't know why, but sunflowers are really hard for me to scrapbook. Maybe it's because it's such a bold flower. ???

Playing with Digi

Haha! I thought it would be fun to do this layout. I kinda look like tarzan on a rope, ready to swing into Quent. I combined 3 pictures in this layout.

My love for circles continues with digital scrapbooking.

Beautiful Sisterhood

I am an official Photoshop owner and this was my first creation as an "official" digital scrapbooker. It is so much fun! This picture is one of my favorite pictures of Amanda and I. I've noticed how similar (but totally different too) digital scrapbooking is to stamping. Instead of a stamp, you have a brush. Each of the doodle graphics are brushes. It's like stamping!

My New Obsession

Digital scrapbooking is my new-found joy and hobby! I'm really enjoying learning how to use Photoshop and making such creations as the one above. I have even been dreaming about digital scrapbooking.

Getting Organized (or so it seems)

Honestly, I was a bit hesitant to show this top picture because it looks kinda messy to me. BUT...compared to what it looked like before I bought these plastic drawers, this is much better! Ha! These drawers were such a good investment! I'm still working on improving these storage areas, but I'm ok with what I have for now. I have lots and lots of scrap paper. Because of doing stamping parties, I have a lot of leftover pre-cut paper. The top 2 sets of drawers are my filing system for different colored scraps that I have. This was a time-saver because now when I want a certain color, I open the white, black, blue, green, red, purple, or orange drawer to find the colors I want. No more digging through boxes to find that perfect color!

These paper holders are great for storing paper and my Creating Keepsakes magazines. I also use the accordian files, but these paper holders are my favorite!

Cards

This is one of the cards we made at my stamping party over the weekend. Both stamp sets (Fishy Friends and Simply Circles) are retiring this year from the catalog. Fishy Friends is one of my favorite sets. Glitter is my best friend; this fish is completely covered in glitter. Ha!

This is another card we made at my stamping party, but this is without the linen thread I had included with another card. The Pines set is also retiring. It's a popular stamp set here in Alaska. The technique I used for this one is called Polished Stone. Directions: 1. Put rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball. 2. Add 2 drops of 2-3 different color re-inkers onto the alcohol that's on the cotton ball. 3. Dab cotton ball on glossy white paper until you get the look you want and let dry. *You can also use a metallic re-inker such as the StazOn colors from Stampin' Up! for a real neat look.

This looks like I got out the handy-dandy sewing machine, but I didn't. *gasp* Ha! This is an example using faux sewing. I poked holes and drew lines along the holes with a white gel pen to make it look like white thread. You can do this with all sorts of colors.

3-D Embellishments

Another way to embellish your pages is with these little accessories. Right now I cannot remember what they are called. Ha! I don't use these a lot, but they sure do come in handy when I'm needing filler for pages.


My sister Amanda helped me pick out the checkers and the cards. I will be using those for my 2006 Christmas scrapbook pages.

This Candyland set brings back some great memories! It's so cute! I also found some paper that had Candyland designs on it.

Chipboard

Chipboard is a "hot" item right now with scrapbooking. I purchased these items from Memory Works. Stampin' Up! also sells chipboard and the new catalog will have more chipboard to choose from. It's fun to embellish pages with chipboard. It's super easy to use because all you have to do is punch out the shapes with your fingers.

Here's a page where I used heart-shaped chipboard. You can stamp, paint, doodle, write, etc. on chipboard.

Multiple Pictures

Putting a lot of pictures on one page can be tricky, but there are so many ways to make it work. After awhile your eye becomes trained to how the pictures will work together. There are ways to put the pictures together so the color flows. There are a lot of different colors in these photos, but they fit together nicely on this page. And then I stamped to bring the colors together some more.

Sometimes you have pictures that go together, but you don't really know how to put them together. For this page I cut four squares of 6x6 paper and pretended like I was making a mini-album. And the colors flow together nicely on this page, too.

Worms! I bought the Stampin' Up! Bugs & Kisses set just for this page. This is another page with multiple pictures.

Water Fun

This was one creative idea I came up with. I made a lifejacket, stuck some pictures inside of it and closed it up. Fun!

Black & White

Black & white pictures are probably my favorite pictures to scrapbook. Often I will take a "dull" picture and change it to black & white and the whole mood of the picture changes.

These are pictures of my three younger siblings. These are some of my favorite pages!

Katie: I took some scraps of paper and put them to good use on this page. I keep almost all of my scraps if they are big enough. Buttons are really fun to use too. Now you can put all of those buttons you've been collecting over the years to good use! Or you can be like me and buy 4 packets of buttons that will last you years. Ha! Also, at the very bottom of this page you can see where I sewed "Katie."

Jacob: This was the very first time I used my sewing machine on paper. I think I've used my sewing machine for scrapbooking more than I've used it on fabric. In the blue square I stamped little words that would describe Jacob. I really like word stamps!

Amanda: This page was so much fun to create! The idea was inspired by something I saw in a Creating Keepsakes magazine. I stamped on all of the flower petals, except for the bold-colored petals. And then I journaled on the stems.

Random Pages

These are pages from 2005.


Here is a beautiful picture of Matthew & Jessica on their wedding day. I love this picture! I did a lot of stamping on this page. It's fun to stamp, color, and cut out the images and put them across a picture like I did with the flowers.

Kraft paper (the light brown) is fun to scrapbook with. I did the journaling by hand. Sometimes I type and print out the journaling. I think it looks nice either way (that is, if you like your hand writing).

This is one of my favorite techniques to do with fishing pictures. I have a card I like to make that's very similar to this. Paper tearing is a necessity for making waves.