i make things

DECEMBER DAILY: 2015: DEC DAY 19 - 25

Christmas season is 2 months away. I'm starting to get ramped up for the holidays already...so I thought I'd post some pictures of my 2015 December Daily Album that I neglected to post last year. Whoops. I try to scrap during the season but there always seems to be so much going on that I fall off the wagon. I end up doing it later in the year or right before the next season, which is what happened with 2015.

I hope you enjoy. I also will post a video walk-through as well. If you have any questions on what product I'm using or how I did something please leave comments and I'd be happy to answer them or even post tutorials if there is enough interest.

Enjoy!

 

Yeah...I went overboard, didn't I? I had so many stories to tell and so many pictures that I just couldn't leave out.

Day 19: Gift: This Story

I did a pop-up so I could get the story told and be able to put in the pictures I wanted to.

I wasn't sure how I was going that tann-ish, brown colored cardstock and pink deer antlers but heck yeah I found a way! OHHHH YEAH!!! I get the cheapest thrill out of that.

Day 20: STAR WARS!!!!!

I knew I had to do this page. Totally not December-related but it had to be told. I also knew I had to use black, stars and silver, just cuz, you know that to me says Star Wars.

I used Ali's two different star papers as backgrounds and used my silhouette to cut the angled Star Wars title out of black cardstock. (Star jedi font from dafont.com) I also used silver stickles on the 20 to make it super glittery.

Day 21: Cookies!!!!!!! All about cookies! Several pages in fact, all about cookies. I gotta say I couldn't just do a page on this. I probably spent a good full week just on making desserts, treats and cookies for Christmas so I went all out on this days pictures and journalling.

I added one of Ali's tags to use for the date. When you turn it I used some patterned paper from the kit to make a pocket to hold my 3x4 journaling card.

I used one of the packages from an Ali Edwards Story Kit to house the details of my cookie making exploits including costs, schedule, what cookies I was making, ingredients, etc. Figured later on in life that would be interesting to see.

Turn the page and you get even more pictures of cookies and desserts and a 3x8 page protector with journalling.

I used a png file from Ali to make the Cookie Boxes circle. I used my silhouette to print and cut on the dotted background patterned paper.

The picture on the right is of the cookies boxes that I made and distributed. I made so many cookies that I decided to make cookies boxes and sell them only to recoup some of the costs involved in making that many cookies. Turns out I recouped some of those costs but not all. It was fun. I didn't have to try very hard to sell boxes either. People at work, friends and family bought them. I was kind of in shock.

Day 22: Presents

I made this 2-page spread where the top picture flows across one page onto another. I believe the size I printed was 12x6. I wrote my journaling in the black space on each side which was actually my black pants.

On the bottom two pictures I converted them to black and white then erased that b&w from specific pieces of those pictures like my red shoes, the presents we were wrapping. I did that because the coloring on the pictures wasn't that good and I didn't want them to overshadow everything else.

I had a lot of fun with this page. It took some extra work because at first I wasn't sure what I wanted or how to use those pictures together but eventually it worked out and this page is one of my favorites.

Day 23: Learning how to make a traditional Czech dessert: Rohlicky.

An experience that I will never forget and ended up repeating the next year. I love learning new recipes, especially one that is a family recipe and something I learn from my Aunt.

This layout is different than a normal layout. I have the main front page but then in between this and the last page is a small file folder book I made to feature the details and give me the ability to have several pictures in the album. I admit I went a little crazy but I just couldn't not go overboard on something this special.

The file folder album was created using my silhouette.

This is an Ali Edwards psd file that I converted to fit my rohlicky making efforts.

Day 24: Part 1: Cookies.

Um...if you've been following I already have a day or two about cookies. So yeah, I love cookies and I scrap about them A LOT! but, well, I have no excuse...I did more than one page about cookies. Hope you like. :)

In order to get more pictures in Day 24: Cookies I used a couple flip pockets. I kinda like using them. They don't add too much bulk but you get more pics in. Not to mention it's fun to add an interactive element. I feel like when I have that in my albums, other people seem to slow down and really read the pages instead of just breezing through the album.

Day 24: Part 2: Christmas Eve

In order to get all of the pictures of Christmas Eve with my extended family I knew I had to get creative and do something different. I was watching a class of Ali's and saw her do this fold-out and thought, oh yeah, that's what I'm going to do. I LOVE how it turned out and I so have to do it again.

Day 25: Christmas Day!

I used Typewriter Font to put my journaling on the 4x6 card. I measured the borders of that card and set up a canvas in photoshop elements with those borders and typed my journaling inside that box then printed it out.

 

I wanted to put at least one picture of each of my family members and this is how I accomplished it. I created a canvas in photoshop and added 3x2 pictures to it.

On my canvas I added this small title using a paislee press digital kit and Ali's puffy heart stickers from a previous DD kit.

Day 25: Part 2: Joy: Present Opening

I love this spread. It was so much fun to do. I got the idea when I was looking through present opening pictures trying to figure out how on earth I was going to cull out the pictures and find just a few for my album. After perusing through the pics and constantly seeing pictures of joy I thought, "Hey, I'll just do some 2x2's and then journal on the opposite page.  This is probably one of my favorite pages.

Day 25: Christmas Day: Part 2

Nothing special here because I just wanted to put some pictures in and be done with my album.

 

 

 

Project Life 2015: Week 12

Week 12 of Project Life was a little bit difficult for me. I knew I wanted to document some of my trip to the Pacific Northwest but not all. I didn't want my PL layout to be more like a scrapbook page. I just wanted a summary from my trip. The basics. Cliff's notes. The top five. You get the idea.

I also wanted to make sure that I didn't forget to document the important life events from the week prior to leaving on my adventure.

It was tough. Don't do too much but don't leave anything important out. This is the baby bear spread. :) [momma bear chair, papa bear chair, and the just right chair...the baby bear.]

So here it is.

I used the pocket page protector's that have 1-4x6 and 10-3x4's to maximize the amount of pictures I could put.

I ended up deciding that I would have 2 pictures for each day (pic) on the top and bottom of the layout and 1 picture that I would use to journal my top five from the day (in the middle). That picture would have the day of the week on it in large text.

I like having a pattern, meaning, each day of the week is in the middle of the spread. I think it gives it some flow.

Here's an example of Tuesday's 3x4 card (p.s. this is from next week's layout.)

I chose a picture that had a lot of white space, not literal white space but an area that was blurred or was all one similar color that I could put journalling on.

This tulip picture was perfect for that. The background was blurred enough so that you can see the writing very well.

On each card I did the same pattern.

1. Large 3-letter Day of the Week. (Ali Edwards Brushes)

2. The actual date underneath the Day. (Rockwell font)

3. A banner with Top 5 underneath the Date. (Rockwell font)

4. Numbers 1-5 using the same brush (Ali Edwards from Little Things story kit)

5. A description of my top 5 favorite things (Rockwell font).

I like the repetition of each day being the same. It helps give the layout a bit of flow being.

Here are all of the cards from the week:

Here is the left-side of the layout.

I made sure that I added my own card for the start of the trip. Just to separate the week between real life and vacation life.

The PNW is a bold Rockwell font.

The Road Trip is a bold Bebas font.

I designed the road using lines and spaced lines in Photoshop Elements.

The car is a .png download.

The Adventure circle is from the Galileo Studio Calico Kit.

I also did a story card that gave the summary of the why's of my trip.

I was digging through my stash of stamps and ended up using a bunch of Ali Edwards stamps from her Story Stamp Kits. The phrases fit absolutely perfectly. I love when that happens. It doesn't always happen so when it does I say a small thanks that I didn't have to pore over my stash for obscene amounts of time looking for just the right thing. Please tell me I'm not the only one who has done this?

Second half of the layout.

After I had chosen all the pictures and written down all of the Top 5's I decided that I needed to add some titles to each picture and a small amount of embellishment.

All I did was set up a blank file in Photoshop and add text boxes with my titles in them. I spaced them a part evenly so that I could cut them easily. I then printed this on a piece of cardstock, cut them out and glued them down on my pictures.

I used a gold heart to repeat the gold in the "Adventure" circle on the PNW Road Trip card.

p.s. these two pictures are a couple of my absolute favorite. I had over 3,000 pictures to choose from so trying to narrow it down to 3 for each day was tough. I went with my gut instinct though. I went through my pictures, wrote down my 5 favorite things. The 5 things that I was absolutely floored by and then made sure I had pictures of those top 3.

Doing it in that order really helped me to narrow down what I wanted to put in my PL layout. One step at a time instead of trying to think about all of it at once.

I hope you enjoyed this layout. If you'd like to see more of my Project Life posts please click here.
Have a great day!

 

Week in the Life 2014: October: Thursday

Week in the Life Thursday layout is here!

Today has the same layout as the other days but I've used more letter and phrase stickers not to mention a black and white collage and sewing! I had a lot of fun with Thursday's layout.

Here is a pic of the layout for the week.

I'm using a 6x8 album using a couple different page protectors including a 6x8, 3x8, 2-4x6 and 4-3x4's.

This was a fun pic to take. I set my ipod on a towel holder and set the timer. I like how you can see the image twice. One is fromthe reflection of my makeup case and the other is the actual picture. It feels a little bit Norman Rockwell. :)

Details by time for the day. This isn't the most glamorous section of the day but it's probably the most informative.

Turn the page and you get a layout about my hobbies and crafts and what's in my wallet. The two don't really go together but I wanted to put both in and this seemed the most logical spot.

I created this 3x8 in Photoshop Elements using a low transparency picture in the background with journalling on top.

I love looking back and seeing what it is I had in my purse. I can tell you that right now it's totally different. I'm thinking right now that when I do this documentary project again I'm going to put another one of these pictures in it just because in year's time it is totally different.

The next spread was all about my prep for Halloween on Friday. This one is probably one of my favorites. It was so much fun to do and I love the bright orange pop of color.

A fun card I made out of my Halloween stash of scrap supplies.

Glasses for my Halloween costume...which you can find out about on the Week in the Life Friday post coming soon. :)

My cherry candy card. I realized when I was getting ready for Halloween that I had a lot of candy that was cherry. I LOVE cherry candies so I took some of the different candies and put them in a jar in my craft room, you know, for late night snacking or just a hit of sugar.

I thought this made a good post. Something probably not a lot of people realize about me and something that I hadn't thought to share.

Last page.

Informational last page about some of the things I ate and some basic things about what I was doing.

Each day has the left and right-hand side cards.

just some pictures from the week that I didn't want to use individually but thought they would be good as a collage. I turned them into black adn white so that they were easier to see. With the array of different colors and lighting it was a bit of a modge podge without the conversion to black and white.

Hope you enjoyed this post! If you'd like to see more of my Week in the Life Album click here:

 

Pacific Northwest Road Trip: Day 8: Edition 3: Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm

Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm in Oregon is fun, beautiful and an entertaining place for families. There are activities for children, young and old, and rows and rows of beautiful tulips. A photographer's dream and a gardener's joy.

Tulips are EVERYWHERE! They are etched into the concrete paths, in planters and half-barrels, for sale in bags of bulbs, and in rows and rows in the fields.

The only downside to the farm for me was that it was a bit commercialized. I wasn't there with my nieces and nephews. I just wanted to take pictures of the flowers so it was a bit much for me. However, if you were there with a family it would be perfect.

The tulip farm is very good at having a lot of activities so when people come out they stay for awhile. It’s very suited to children as well. They have food and craft vendors on site as well as playground items for kids. You can take a motorized ride through the tulip fields instead of walking. One has padded seats and one does not. The “ferries” are basically john deere gators pulling wagons with seats.

Despite the amenities I wanted to walk. Walk out to the fields and walk up and down the rows. It was very idyllic.

They even had a pink tractor so I texted a picture of it to Dad. He happened to call me right when I got there so I was telling him about my day and the tulip gardens.

They also had huge wooden shoes you could try and walk around in and a small windmill just for photography purposes. Everything flowed around the dutch concept.

They had an old truck they used to haul tulips with. Now they just use it for photo-opps. There was a lot of “scenes” to take pictures of. Cutouts for kids to stick their heads in. Old rusty tractors to sit on and take pictures of. I liked all of those touches.

I walked the rows looking for the perfect shots. I squatted down, walked through the mud, in between rows, held my camera over my head, stood on this ladder/bridge thingy. I took pictures that were far away, close up, and I used my 50 mm lens for blurred backgrounds. I have more than enough pictures of Tulips to last a lifetime. I even managed to set up the self-timer so I could get one of me.

These beauties turned out to be my absolute favorite. Something about that light edging of yellow on that warm reddish color. It just takes that flower to an entirely different level. It almost seems like a neon-yellow. It's beautiful.

I took a TON of pictures. It was so beautiful. Rows and rows and rows and rows…phew and more rows of tulips. All colors of the rainbow. Reds, oranges, pinks, whites, yellows, purples, pinks, and combos. (red with yellow edging).

I called the tulips on the right Sunrise because they had all the pale colors of a morning sunrise; pink, peach, and pale yellow.

I loved these pointy tulips. I have never seen a tulip like that. I didn't realize there were so many different types of tulips. I guess I should know better than to assume.

I call this one "Black as Night"

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed seeing tulips all colors of the rainbow. If you'd like to see more of my adventures in the Pacific Northwest please click here.

Pacific Northwest Road Trip: Scrapbook: Trip Stats

The latest craze in design are infographics and I'm definitely riding that train. Being an accountant and all around numbers gal I'm in love with this. Using numbers as a base for a layout. Hell yeah! Of course I like to add color, pie charts, icons and different fonts too but the basic premise is numbers.

This was some serious fun and I'm not gonna lie, it took some time. Granted I fell down the rabbit hole and went way overboard with multiple colors, pie charts, rows, specialty borders. I started off basic but turned this bad-boy into something way more than simple. You don't have to. You could make this more simplistic than I did. One color, only basic icons, no pie chart.

I thought about doing a tutorial on this but it would take forever and a day to show you all the steps. What I am going to do is give you some guidance on the basics of how this is done. Then you can take that and roll with it, just like I did.

Step 1: Google or search on Pinterest for ideas. Figure out what type of infograph you'd like to do. Here are some examples of infographs I pinned.

• Infograph Tutorial in Photoshop - Barbara does an infograph of her trip using a picture as a background, white fonts and icons. She also includes a tutorial for how she created hers. I used this to get ideas on how to do a couple things that I didn't know how to do.
• Basic Numbers and Charts - Basic white background, charts, large numbers, horizontal and vertical descriptions, simplistic design and some color.
• Hawaii Trip - Photo as a background, white fonts and icons. Pie graphs, horizontal graphs, elegant and interesting.
• Zambia Trip - Picture background, white font, used several of the same icon to show how many. Examples: 2 shopping malls was defined as 2 shopping carts and 1 accident was defined as 1 car. Very pictoral and less straight out numbers-based.
• Handwritten Seven Country Trip - Beautiful layout using a background picture and the designer's own handwriting and drawings to display the trip stats. I almost went this route. Almost. I might do it in the future but I really wanted to work with existing icons.

Step 2: Write down what stats you want to remember. Write stats you think are interesting. Each person is going to be different in what they want to jot down. This was my basic list. I adjusted it as I went along. Some things I took out and others I added depending on space constraints or desire to record.

My final stats were: total photos, miles by type, states visited, bags carried, nature visits by type, cities visited, trails hiked, days on vacay, temperature high and low, spending, and gray whale count.

Other items you could do: fuel stops, gas tanks, elevations, different state license plates seen, different animals seen, inches of rain or snow, worst visit, best visit, activities completed (swimming, hiking, tennis, sleeping, running, surfing, rock climbing, etc.), time in different cities or states, time at the beach versus on the road...the list is endless.

Step 3: Pick out what font you will use and what color(s). I would stick to only 2 fonts at a max. I used Rockwell and Bebas in different sizes. Your layout will be busy with different icons and sizes so it's best to have 1 particular font to lessen the amount of craziness. In other words you will maintain some continuity and repetition that will bring your layout together by using a limited number of fonts.

I used dark brown as my main color but used a couple different accent colors including a light brown, gray, green, sunflower and turquoise. I made sure all my colors worked well together and had the same warmth before using them on the layout.

Step 4: Choose your icons. This part is definitely fun. There are tons of free icon .png files online that you can download and use. Some places you might have to pay or give the artist credit but most of the time they are free. I ended up going with 2 different sites: Flaticon and Freepik. Both require that you acknowledge them on your site. (click on links to go to the sites)

Some of my favorites:

I also used some .png files from Ali Edwards Story Kit.

Step 5: Design each statistic. I started with item and chose an icon, added a large number, a title and in some cases a subtitle. Then I changed colors of each item depending the size and how many components. I made sure to link each section in Photoshop so I could re-size that entire item should I need to. (click on each layer while holding down the shift key then right click on a layer and click on link layers)

A quick tutorial on the Hikes Taken Image:

Note: added gray border only for instructional purposes.

A. Open .png file in Photoshop.

 

B. Drag and drop onto your blank canvas.

C. Rotate image: Image/Rotate/Flip Horizontal (as necessary)

D. Add large number, resize and place where you want it.

E. Add wording.

F. Adjust image at your discretion. I moved the hiker close to the number and aligned the Trails and Hiked to be evenly distributed over the 21.

G. Add color if you choose. I colored the hiker green and the verbiage dark brown.

Note: I choose my color using the Color Swatches (Window/Color Swatch/Select Color). Then I re-color using the Paint Bucket tool (select the image, click on paint bucket, then click on the image)

H. Then I grouped the images together. (Hold down the shift key, click on each layer, right click and left click on link images. You can also click on the chain link as well)

I. Now you can resize if you like or move the entire image.

Step 6: Arrange and re-size all your images on the blank canvas. You can do this any way you like. If you like more structure everything can be the same size and can be side-by-side or up-and-down. If you want certain things to be larger and more the focal point then you can do larger and smaller in whatever order you like.

Step 7: Add lines to differentiate each item. (This is optional depending on your taste.)

I started with the horizontal lines then did the vertical. The easiest method is to use lines from the shape tool in Photoshop. (under the draw tool)

I made dotted lines because I thought it looked less rigid and more fun. Here's how to do it.

a. Click on Brush tool.

b. Select Basic hard brush.

c. Click on Brush Settings: Fade, Hue and Scatter should be 0%, Change spacing to around 150% (Again this can change depending on your preference. Large percentage = larger space between dots.)

d. Click on the left-most end of where you want your line to be (I turn on the grid so I can get this straight and exactly where I want it.) Then hold down the shift key and click on the right-most end of the line you want to draw. The line you just made should fill in with a dotted line.

Finished:

That's it folks. Pretty easy peasy just a bit tedious...depending on how anal you are or how far you've traveled down the rabbit hole.

Hope you enjoyed this scrapbook page and tutorial

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fair Food Scrapbook Layout: 2014

I created this two-page 12x12 spread last year. I was going through my fair pictures and thought...I take so many pictures of fair food yet I've never done a layout about it. Okay, let's do a layout and I did.

I grabbed picture of all my favorite food, layed them out on some white cardstock and then just moved them around until I liked what I saw.

While I was doing that I realized I wanted to add some kind of dimension because let's face it, if I didn't it would just be a modge podge of pictures and you'd look at it and immediately look away.

So I decided to cut out the sweet corn and the bacon using my exacto knife and put them on foam pop dots. I really loved that bit of visual interest. They are two of my favorite fair foods and they are popping right out of the corners.

Just looking at that bacon makes my mouth water.

 
Next was to add the title. Right smack-dab in the middle and in Bright RED! Why? Because that is the color of my local county fair and it pops nicely amongst the myriad of colors.

I got to use some glittery foam stickers. I absolutely love those and I don't say that a lot about glitter products. Most glitter products just get little bits of glitter all over the place which drives me bonkers! It's like that stuff multiples when you turn your back on it.

I also added some stickles (again, another glitter product I love. It doesn't get all over and it dries hard) on the border just to give it more emphasis and make sure it stood out from the page.

Notice the blue scallop with red heart. I added that too...to kind of signify blue ribbon and to add some visual interest.

Here's the right side of the layout.

There are some other embellishments I added as well. Just when I got going I just kept going. This was one of those fun layouts where you just keep working on it and it all works out.

I added these little banners to each picture to label them. I figured that the food should be labeled then later on it was easier to see what each food was.

BACON! Bacon is on here twice, cuz it's one of my favorite foods. Notice the border. It was made using some food stamps that I have. I believe they are Kelly Purkey (you can't buy them anymore).

For the food border I just alternated all these stamps all the way around. I alternated an image of food with some text. So an ice cream cone then "Yes Please" then a fish then "yum!"

I also ended up adding a black and red border around the the pictures because it seemed to help ground it more and add a pop of color.

I hope you like this layout. If you'd like to see more layouts please click here. If you'd like to see more of my projects like project life or cards or my travel adventures scroll to the navigation bar at the top. Each category has a drop down with more detailed categories.

Thanks for reading this post! Please come again and don't be afraid to leave any comments or questions you might have.

Jen

Pacific Northwest Road Trip: Scrapbook: EPIC

EPIC! That describes my trip to the Pacific Northwest (PNW). I kept saying that word over and over as I was describing my trip to my friends and family. I thought, "What better way to do a summary layout for the beginning of my album than to start with EPIC!"

So this idea was born. Big EPIC letters, a summary of where I went and a collage of my favorite pictures.

I decided that since I couldn't decide on a main picture on the left-hand side, I would use a bunch of my favorites in a collage. I printed out a bunch of 3x4 pictures with white borders and just started laying them down and moving them around. I didn't spend too much time on this. Just though to get the ones I wanted and make sure what was showing was important.

Left page:

 I think it turned out fine. It looks like a big ole' mess but I like that. This trip was a collage of different things. It was a road trip and should be reflected that way.

I did need a focal point though so I picked this picture because I liked it and there was space above for some embellishment. I also put it up on pop dots to make it stand out even more. It's the only full picture in the bunch.

Used some stars and the stamped sentiment "so totally love this story" from an Ali Edwards kit (can't remember which one though.) The banner sticker is from an old sticker set that I had.

I layered pictures so that I got the parts of the photograph I wanted to see. Like the bottom left corner I made sure you could see me but then let the other pictures cover up part of the background.

I didn't need the right side of this star fish picture so I let my main picture hang on top.

 After I got every picture where I wanted it I just carefully put some glue on each picture at a time and glued it down. Then I went around the edges with a scissors and cut off the extra.

Right side of the page was actually the hardest for me.

I've been trying to take more of a minimalist approach to cut down the amount of time I spend agonizing over embellishments and just concentrating on the important stuff. but this one took me awhile because I wanted the "right stuff" not just junk. It had to be meaningful.

First things first. the background paper. I made this myself. I wanted to get down all of the places I stopped, the roads I was on, etc. So I decided to make my own patterned paper.

Trust me, it's easier than you think.

All I did was started with a 8 1/2 x 11 page and drew up a text box and started typing.

If you notice I didn't put any gaps between words/phrases. I only put an asterisk to separate them.

For instance: *Minneapolis*Washington*Sea-tac*Seattle*Space Needle.... and so on. There are no spaces between each set of words. The only spaces are between Space and Needle because they are two different words.

The reason I did this was to help the words flow better across the page. The more spaces you put the more likely you will see white space. I don't want white space here. I want the words to cover the entire page.

I made my text box a little larger so that the words wouldn't end on the edges but continue on.

Once I got to the end of my text I highlighted it, copied it and pasted it beneath the first set of text. This kept the text free-flowing and it didn't look choppy.

I loved this. It gave me journalling without the traditional look of journalling. Plus it kept my background from being just a piece of green cardstock.

Next I cut out my title using orange cardstock and my silhouette. You could use large sticker letters too if you wanted.

I decided after letting this layout sit out for awhile that it needed something else. So I put the letters on foam pop dots and added some embellishments.

I used Kelly Purkey's PNW stamp kit for the boat, space needled and PNW stamps. It fit this project to a tee and they are so cute.

I put the boat on the bottom of the E mainly because it could fit that big boat and the other ones couldn't.

I put a compass on the P just to cover the space and wrote the dates on the long part of the P.

The I got the space needle and the C got the PNW.

 I ended up adding a star (to complete the visual triangle. If you look above the left-hand banner has two stars in it.) and the stars for the Exclamation point.

Overall I'm very happy with this layout. It's simple and fun. Plus it's bold and big just like how I felt about this trip. p.s. the orange color was chosen because of the orange that shows up in some of the pictures on the left-hand side. I wore an orange raincoat during most of the trip. :)

Thanks for reading this post. If you'd like to see more scrapbooking layouts click here.

If you'd like to see more pictures from my PNW road trip click here.

Scrapbook Layout: Rainy Lake MN

 Rainy Lake up in Northern Minnesota was one of my favorite adventures from 2014. Bruce and I went up twice and both times were so much fun and totally relaxing.

Rainy Lake literally is park Minnesota and part Canada. The lake is separated in the middle by buoys that mark whether you are in Minnesota or Canada. It's cool.

 I wanted to document the simple joy and beauty of Up North at Rainy Lake. I didn't have a lot of journalling here because I wanted to concentrate on the pictures more.

Left page:

I stuck with basic woodsy colors, Dark green and that fun brown plaid pattern. I've been dying to use it for quite awhile and this seemed like the perfect occasion. I don't even remember who made that paper but I've been hoarding it in my fishing/outdoor section for quite awhile.

I also used some really old metal accents from Making Memories.

Yep, I dug deep into my stash looking for just the right stuff for this layout.

Especially those cool cloth tree accents. Those have been sitting in my Christmas collection for awhile and this page was perfect for them. They weren't overly large and they looked real and have some texture.

Right side:

I knew I wanted to blow up this picture and make it the prominent focus of my page. It was my absolute favorite picture from the trip. To offset the large picture here I made sure to put enough contrast on the other side so the page would look balanced, not tilting to the right side.

You know when you see a left or right side heavy layout it's like your head tilts to the side when you see it because it looks weighted on one side.

These accents on the very far right were so much fun to play with.

I used a fish stamp that came in a Kelly Purkey kit (you can not buy it anymore. I'm sorry)

The phrase stickers were just plucked from some old sticker pages.

So much fun with this layout.

I hope you enjoy it and come back soon!

Pacific Northwest Road Trip: Scrapbook

I just started my Pacific Northwest Road Trip Scrapbook Album. I'm so incredibly excited. I've been posting pictures of my trip over the last month or two and seeing all those pictures just makes me want to scrapbook them. (If you're interested in those pictures click here "Pacific Northwest Road Trip" for a summary page of each day by location.)

I wanted to start my album with the reasons why. Why did I go? Why a road trip? Why this particular time? Why? Why? Why?

So this first page is heavy on the words and light on the pictures.

In order to combat the heaviness of the right side I used large letters on the left with a bunch of different embellishments.

I've just been itching to use the dark woodgrain patterned paper and I think this is the perfect trip for it.

All the pieces on the left page were chosen for a reason.

The wooden car because it was a road trip in the Pacific Northwest and I did a ton of hiking.

It was definitely an adventure and everything that definition describes so I had to use that. Not to mention the "Story of a First" because I had never been to the PNW before.

I used the wooden arrow to make a visual triangle with the car up top and the navigation piece on the right page.

I used the two orange pieces to make another visual triangle with my bright orange raincoat on the right page.

Right page.

This was one of my favorite pictures of me from the trip. This picture was taken using a timer in Willamette National Forest. It was one of my favorite hikes and the most difficult. I knew. I had to use it.

I also wanted it to cover the width of the page. I wanted it to be huge! Kind of representing how "huge" this trip was for me.

I added the wooden navigation plot on the right just to try and bring the two pages together.

Here's the journalling.

I used a rockwell font because I really like it right now. It's a serif font and just looks old-school and fits my Pacific Northwest trip.

Thanks for reading this post. I'll be posting a new scrapbooking layout each Wednesday.

 

Real Life Me: Scrapbook Layout

Today's layout was inspiration from Cathy Zielske and Ali Edwards.

Cathy had a Monday scrapbooking post with an old layout that she had done awhile back. It's basically a questionnaire about yourself. She included a free download of the questions and I thought, "why not?" I haven't done anything about me for awhile, might as well.

Its quick. It's easy and I can embellish as little or as much as I want.

Here's my simple layout.

In Cathy's she did a single picture of herself but I decided that after seeing Ali's selfie layout in her Story Kit for April called "click" I thought I would do that instead. She printed out a bunch of selfie's in 3x4 format and filled an entire 2-page 12x12 layout with them. I didn't want to go that far but I did want put print out some of my favorites from the last year or so.

I cropped all of these pictures to 3x4 inches and printed them out on a 4x6 card. One of them I ended up not using because I didn't like it as much as the others and 5 is a party and 6 is a crowd. :)

 

Here's the left-hand side. After choosing my pictures I chose some very low key 3x4 cards to include. They are all from Ali's Story Kit's. I believe I used all of the cards from the "click" story kit.

I moved the cards around until I got it the way I wanted it. I didn't do anything special just rounded the corners using the 1/2" corner rounder on my crop-a-dile and glued them down.

If you notice I didn't center the cards I put the middle row slightly higher than the rest. I liked how that looked plus the 3 cards at the top weren't hurt at all by making them smaller and having them "fall off" the top of the page.

The Top:

I left the selfie card alone because I thought it made enough of a statement and I didn't want to fill it with embellishments because it would take control of the layout. I didn't want it to be the focus. I wanted the pictures to be the focus.

BTW - I love that picture of me reading on the left. I love it. It's so me. Sitting in a corner by the window with natural light, reading by myself in the fall. Wearing my favorite twins hat, my wool socks and reading a romance novel. I'm comfortable and into my book.

The top right I had to crop the picture but I didn't care I had plenty of "white space" in the picture that I could crop out without losing the integrity of the image.

P.S. It's one of my favorite images from my latest trip to the Pacific Northwest. I'm happy. I don't look fat and I'm out in the woods were I love to be and feel most at home and at peace.

The Middle:

The Capture this card had a different white star on it but I didn't really like it and I wanted to make a visual triangle with the other page to "connect" the two so I punched out a star from kraft paper and stapled it down. Then I added the date of the layout under it because, quite honestly, I didn't know where else to put the date and that seemed like a good spot.

This greenish-colored polka dot pattern needed something. Not too loud but not too quiet or it would be lost on the page. Overpowered by the other more over-whelming embellishments.

To remedy that I used a thicker see-through white star that was large but would not be a visual focus. I added the "Life is made of moments" phrase sticker from an Ali kit and stapled it down.

 

The bottom card is as is. I didn't add anything to it just left it. I liked how it helps draw the focus to the middle picture. It didn't need anything else.

Here is the right side.

Just some basic questions about me right now. Some of them I could have changed like "childhood ambition" as that likely won't change as I get older. That's why I changed "first job" to "current job". I thought it would be fun to do this again in 5 years or so just to see how the answers change.

These two items served as a way of linking the two pages together using a visual triangle. Plus the page looked pretty boring with no embellishment.

I used a lot of repetition on this page as well.

1. I used the stars.
2. The card on the top and the bottom both are aligned with the cards on the left-hand side. So The top card is touching the edge of the paper and the bottom is slightly off the edge.
3. The cards both have rounded corners.

Thank you for looking and I hope you got some inspiration from this layout. If you'd like to see more click on the Craft box in the navigation bar above then click on Scrapbooking in the drop down.

Thanks for stopping. Hope you come again! Any questions or comments please leave them below.