I’ve been cleaning through my home in order to get more organized. I feel like I could either write an entire series of posts on this, or start a whole new blog. I could call it something catchy like “Packrat Undone.” I had a better title, but it appears there’s already a book with that exact same name. I guess I’m not a creative genius after all. Anyway, I found a box of photos that ranged from the 70’s to the 90’s. It was time to pull some photos out of the past and begin making pages.
I wasn’t really sure how to start this layout. The colors in the photo are all over the place. We are definitely not one of those families that wear matching clothes. This photo has green, yellow, black, blue, red, and pink. What do you do with that? You find a rainbow striped paper which lets you go in any direction you want. In this case, I decided that yellow and pink would work well. They were the two colors that stood out the most to me. I also added some turquoise. No, it’s not in the photo, but it is in the striped paper.
This is one of my favorite kinds of scrappy pages. It’s one where I simply raided my scrap bin for all of the papers. I have scrapbooked so much lately, that the actual scraps have been piling up. This was a nice change from cutting into new papers. It’s also proof that scraps can make some outstanding layouts. I had someone ask me what paper line I used. I can identify the turquoise polka dot from Echo Park’s Dots and Stripes collections. I believe the turquoise paper behind the photo is from Simple Stories. I’m not sure about the other papers.
For this layout, the focus is an offset block of stacked paper. I do love me a good layered paper layout. Admittedly, I did do a bit of cheating. That turquoise polka dot paper? What you see is all I had of that. I cut it into thin strips, and placed it above and below the striped paper, making it look like a larger scrap. The little bit of camera paper peeking out the left hand side is really a 3×4 journal card. Careful placement just gives the appearance of a larger piece. Sometimes a little optical illusion can stretch your supplies.
When it came to embellishing, I immediately reached for my die cuts. I was looking for pink and yellow. There were some great flowers that fit the bill Shimelle’s Never Grow Up collection. I then added in some smaller bits from a variety of die cut packs. I was just looking for colors that matched. Recently I’ve fallen in love with Simple Stories’ Simple Pages Page Pieces. No, I don’t use them the way that I’m “supposed” to use them. I use them like any other pack of die cuts. The little hearts and butterfly came out of Page Pieces pack. My title pieces came out of 2 other embellishment packs. The final touch was a few colorful sequins sprinkled around. This is another new obsession of mine. Catherine Pooler’s sequin mixes are my new go to for finishing off my layouts.
In the end, this is one of my favorite recent layouts. Old family photos need a little love too. I think this is just the beginning of scrapbooking the past. Totally radical, right?
Scrappy Escapades 