A traditional page, made without a sketch

Usually I mock up a sketch for my scrapbook pages. It's rare for me to just sit down with a bunch of photos and make a page without having some kind of blueprint to follow. I use Photoshop to color-correct and resize my photos anyway so I usually just plop the touched-up photos into an 8.5 by 11 inch canvas. Then I can play with placement and color, add digital papers and embellishments and write up some journaling.

Sometimes I'm happy with what I've come up with and print and use it as my final page, just adding real photographic prints and maybe some traditional embellishments to an otherwise digital page. But more often I use traditional cardstock and patterned papers to create my page, just printing out my sketch to use as a placement guide, and maybe printing out my journaling as well.


This page was one of the rare instances where I had no sketch or any preconceived notion of what I was going to do before I began. I had mocked up a rough sketch but when I looked at it, I really didn't like it. Unfortunately it appears that I dislike it so much that I deleted it from my computer, so I'm unable to show it to you. It must have been really bad! Anyway, I'm not really sure I know how this page came together, but it did:

I looked at the colors in my photo and remembered this cool die-cut piece of Making Memories paper that I had been wanting to use. It was 12 by 12 so I trimmed it down to make a large frame around my 3 by 4 inch photo. Then looked for a flowered pattern to use as a background that would coordinate and reflect my daughter's flowered shirt. I found this KI Memories kit, picked a flowered paper and then pulled out an aqua dotted piece to ground the photo so it didn't look like it was floating in space. I edged the strip with a piece of K & Co pink scalloped border sticker. 

The journaling tag just happened to be on my craft table. It is also Making Memories but from a different collection (Spring Fling). It had a wide rounded rectangular hole and at first I was going to slide ribbon through it, but this Cosmo Cricket Girl Friday strip of paper fit better. I layered everything on without planning out my title. I figured it could fit under the photo but really had no plan.

I looked for items that coordinated with the Making Memories paper and found this die cut label and the tiny alphabet stickers. The "7" is chipboard and the other letter stickers are from the KI Memories kit. I outlined all of the title stickers with the same brown pen I used for the journaling to tie them all together.

The embellishments are a random collection of flowers and an epoxy sentiment from the KI Memories kit plus a K & Co tag ("Wow"). The date sticker is from one of those journaling stacks. A random assortment of products but I think they came together pretty well and tell the story of the first time my daughter picked up a Cheerio with a proper pincer grip -- even without a plan!

6 Month Mom Layout

I am hesitant to post a scrapbook page because I never know the source of all of my materials. But I'll do my best to identify them and then if you want to know something more specific, let me know and I'll try to sleuth it out.

This photo on this page is from nearly two years ago but I just scrapped it recently. It was taken at a family party but I used it to record my feelings about being a mom and the first six months of my daughter's life. The journaling is short but captures what I think when I see this photo: "Still pretty new to the job and winging it most days, but the first six months of being Dalia's mom were some of the best of my life!"

I tried, with this layout, to break out of my usual line-it-up-perfectly mentality and create something a little grungier and more casual. I used a piece of  DCVW cardstock (the name of the stack is now escaping me) and cut around the flocked design so I could tuck the photo behind parts of the flower image. The patterned papers at the right were from my border scrap box, which mostly contains 12 by 1 inch pieces made from trimming down 12 by 12 papers to 11 inches for my 8.5 by 11 inch pages. I know the aqua and red flowered one is Basic Grey but I'm unsure about the others.

The title block was leftover from covering a chipboard frame with cardstock. I wanted to bring in a bit of pink to make it a little more feminine and coordinate with my daughter's dress so I used a pink "6" sticker that I outlined with a black pigment pen and then doodle around it. The "mom" sticker came from an old DCWV stack. The round letter stickers at one point were clear epoxy-type domes but yellowed while sitting in my sticker stash (that's how old they are!) so I never used them before, but the yellow tint seemed to work on this page. 

The date in the upper left corner is one of my favorite details of this layout. I combined a piece of a label and part of a border sticker with a flower sticker and a gem. I now see that I neglected to erase my pencil lines -- oops! That's what happens when you're trying to finish up before nap time is over.