This Is Real & Totally So Awesome

A while back, I received a comment on one of my blog posts, where I had shared a layout. It read a little something like this - "I like to see the "real" scrapbook pages you make rather than the project life pages - keep 'em coming". I could really appreciate the comment, and I totally knew it was meant in a good way. Just in case anyone thinks I took issue with it ;) I remember responding to this person, and chatting a bit about how my scrapbooking as changed in the last year or so. What I scrap about, how I scrap, and how much I scrap. 

And that is sort of what this layout is about. It's a layout about layouts, if you will. I wanted to document a little about how things have changed over the last year. Like how I look at it as "quality over quantity". I might be making less layouts, but the ones I'm making are all real and mean something to me. I was creating WAY more in previous years, but so much of what I made was "fluff" layouts - fake layouts that didn't really mean anything to me. 

I decided to go with a 6x8" pocket page spread, to add to my person album. About two years ago, I started a 6x8" personal album, and did two spreads. That was as far as I got, as I then started a 6x12" personal album that I've been doing more in. After working on this spread, I realized how fun this smaller size is, so I have a feeling I'll be doing more of them. 

I knew I wanted to have a full page for journaling. I resized a 3x4" digital journaling card to 6x8" and typed up my journaling to fill most of the page. I've seen other designers use this idea with resizing the digital cards and it's just genius. 

I left some space at the bottom of the page to add a few embellishments. Everything on this spread (with the exception of the pink chipboard circle on the first page) is from Ali Edwards, from either her Story Kits or her digital brushes. There was a 4x6" filler card with a colorful diagonal stripe pattern, and the colors coordinated perfectly with my photo. So I used a thin strip from that card along the bottom of my journaling page.

Once printed, I cut a slit along the top of the striped border so that I could tuck two square "tickets" in. Yes, I used my least favorite tool of all - the exacto knife. Lol.

When I first started thinking about documenting this story, I had no clue what type of photo I would use for the layout. I knew I had several photos from over the years of stacked layouts, since I've shared them when I ended up with huge amounts of layouts to put away in albums. While I could have taken a new photo of some sort, I decided to do a little digging on my external hard drive, and came across this photo. It's actually about five years old, but I knew it would work just fine. 

I cropped my photo to 6x8", and then added a digital brush to the center of it. I thought the "this is real" was a good fit, since my journaling is all about how what I'm scrapping these days is real and authentic. 

After I printed out my photo, I added some simple embellishments to the left edge of the photo. I even used that exacto knife again, to cut around the edge of the "t", so that I could tuck the ticket under it. That's one tool that I'll never get used too. It makes me nervous to use it. Lol.

One last shot of the full journaling, in case you'd like to read it easier. I will most definitely be using this page design again, with one large photo and one full page of journaling. In the 6x8" size, it's a great way to get those stories down that might only have one or two photos, rather than trying to do a larger layout. There's just something fun about this smaller size. 

Comments

[Mendi Yoshikawa]

LOVE this! It must feel wonderful to get back to scrapbooking what truly inspires you. The design of these pages is super inspiring. :)

[Deneen]

Love it. It's so much more meaningful to scrap stuff that matters to you. This is a great design and you are so making me want Ali's kits LOL. YOU ARE SUCH AN ENABLER!!!!!

[Kathy Skou]

This is awesome! I totally understand the "fluff" stuff. I'm so happy you've found a happy balance!

[mandyb]

oh yes i am loving my smaller album too...much more manageable for me too....love this post...thanks for sharing