Jillibean Soup: Adventure Is Always Worthwhile

Hey everyone! I've got a new layout to share that was up on the Jillibean Soup blog a while back. I've lost all track of time, but I think it was up at the end of August. Since I was asked to focus on summer themed layouts, I had to do some digging for photos to use. My goal was to find photos that I hadn't scrapped yet, and to avoid re-scrapping photos that are already on layouts within my albums. 

I came across these photos from a family trip to my uncle's cabin, way back in 2001 I believe (I had it written down, but failed to add the date to the layout, and now I can't find the info). These were film photos, since this was years before I went digital (was digital even a thing in 2001?). And to make things even trickier, I had already trimmed down some of the photos to random sizes. 

Not having digital images to work with can make things a little limiting, but I knew I could work with what I had to create a great layout. Back in the day when I would use film photos, I would simply start trimming little bits here and there off each photo, working them into a collage as best I could. The photos always ended up being totally different sizes, but they would eventually fit into a grid-like fashion on the page. 

Once I had my photos trimmed down, and arranged across the center of a two page spread, I then knew how much space I would have left to work with. I die cut a circle background from white cardstock for each side of the two page spread, using a cut file from Jillibean's Silhouette store, and adhered those to my white cardstock page bases. 

I kept the patterned paper minimal for this layout, adding thin strips of a floral patterned paper across the top and bottom of each page. I knew I would work some additional patterned paper into my die cut title and some circle accents that I added at the end. 

I also added in this 3x4" card from one of the Bite Size Bits patterned papers that said "the details documented" across the bottom. The orange worked well with my color scheme, and it helped fill in a gap within my photo "collage". I added a small corrugated frame to the card, which I backed with a scrap of white cardstock and added a sticker to the center. 

I knew I wanted to add in some additional patterned papers, and backing some of the circle cut outs in the die cut background seemed like a great spot to add those in. I used the floral patterned paper as my starting point, and picked out a few other papers that tied in with the colors on the floral paper. 

Since I finally got my new sewing machine up and running (which I'm pretty sure only took me about 2 minutes to do), I added my usual machine stitching here and there on the pages as well. On my July layouts, I didn't add any machine stitching and my layouts felt like they were missing an important piece.

For my title, I picked out a cut file from Jillibean's Silhouette store, and die cut it from a green patterned paper. I believe it actually said "Adventure is worthwhile", and I got rid of the "is" part. I can't remember for sure, but I know that I didn't use part of the cut file. 

I used some small letter stickers to complete my title, adding the "is always" to the second half of my title. 

I actually have about 8 more photos that I plan on adding to this spread. Well, not to these two pages, per se. I must have had an idea for these photos years and years ago, since so many of the photos were trimmed down into random sizes, and then some of them were trimmed into circles and ovals. Yes, you read that right. Which means is was forever ago, since the only time I cut my photos into ovals was back when I was only using Creative Memories products. I've done circles here and there, but I definitely got away from ovals.

My plan is to create a 6x12" insert, that will get added into the album, in the middle of these two pages. I already know I can fit those 8 circle and oval shaped photos onto two pieces of 6x12" cardstock. I will most likely keep it super simple, die cutting another circle background from white cardstock and adhering those to white cardstock page bases. And then I'll add the photos to those and call it a day. I meant to get that done before I shared this spread, but life happened and I just didn't get to it. When I do get around to it, I'll have to come back and share ;)

Comments

[Tracy Dayett]

Love Love Love this layout!!

[mandyb]

look at the girls!!!
what a great memory to capture