More Scrapbook Pages

Sometimes scrapping your child's art projects or drawings is a bit challenging ... at least for me. On some of these pages, I just tried to let his art shine through and not add much to it.

I loved his picture of a treehouse. I am obsessed with treehouses anyway, but I also love the bright colors he chose.

This was a project for science class, where they were studying how flowers grow. Am I the only mom who saves all of these things?

This one is so sweet! "If I were President..." Sadly I think Logan's vision may have changed a little bit since this project in 2nd grade. I think now he would choose to give everyone an xbox and an iPad instead of food & clothes.

This is his 2nd grade class photo. I wanted to incorporate it into the scrapbook, but these posed photos are difficult to scrap. I don't feel as if I made this a very fun page, but I like the color combination.

I love this page - probably because of the red & black together. Mom took Logan to an open house at the fire department and their photo made it into the Halls Shopper. I don't know who was more thrilled, Mom or Logan!

This whole photo cracks me up. Sweatpants? Really? I think we put him in a good shirt to have his school picture made, not realizing they would show his entire body in the class photo! Who knows? First grade was a real struggle for all of us, so it's good I can look back and find something to laugh about.

This page was about the birth of my niece, Hannah, who is my sister's one and only child. We were all thrilled, now there was a boy and a girl in the family.

I still have not journaled on this page about Dad. That's why the one mat is blank. I have this hanging in my scrap room, but I still can't finish it.

I was playing with my new printer and wanted to see how big I could print - this 13 x 19 photo was too big for even a 12 x 12 scrap page. This is my niece, Bailey, playing on the swings. I need to crop it down somehow to make a full photo scrap page!

This was a little flag he made at Vacation Bible School one year. I tried to use paper that had a similar color scheme. I always prefer to use computer journaling because it's so much neater, but I'm usually too lazy to do it.

This is another page about Hannah as an infant. I used clear embossing powder on the little chick and then heat-embossed it for that shiny look. I LOVE Kraft paper, so I really like this layout.

These photos were so sweet. Logan didn't know what to think about such a tiny baby. He wanted her to talk and play already!

Little did I know how true these words would be! She IS a diva!

I'm not sure why I didn't take a picture of the other half of this layout! This was the Dunsmores 50th Anniversary celebration. We had a big concert and gave Dad a plaque. There was a write-up in the Halls Shopper. It was a very special night, one of the last times Dad was mentally well enough to sing. I love the bright, bold paper. I used the huge font to print out the "50" so it would stand out on that busy background.

Scrapbooking Beach Photos

I have finally finished a scrapbook of our 2007 family vacation - just me, Artie & Logan in Clearwater Beach. I will share some of my better pages with you here.

This photo is of Logan on the balcony of our hotel room, with the bay side of the island in the background. I bought a few postcards while we were there to use in my scrapbook. I purchased the die cut "Florida" at the Scrapbook Superstore in Sevierville. They have a lot of laser cut items. Looks are deceiving though. That one laser cut has 8 layers which have to be carefully stacked together and glued for that 3D look. I love this paper, which already looks like rays of sunshine. I didn't have to add much to the page because of the great paper.

This page is from the highlight of our trip, which was our visit to Discovery Cove in Orlando. We will never forget that experience! The best part of the day was swimming with the dolphins, which ended with a kiss. I tried to keep the page fairly simple because I thought the images were the star of the page. I mean, how often in life do you get to kiss a dolphin?

This page is one of my favorites. I used five different papers from the same line, and played off of the pinwheel design in the paper to add some pinwheel embellishments. The ribbon next to the photo is bright orange and picks up on the orange in the papers, as well. I also added some Stickles to the flowers and pinwheels on the white background paper. The photos are of Logan playing in the kids area at Pier 60, and I loved the "Fun in the Sun" embellishment, because that precisely described this moment in time.

First of all, I love these photos of Artie & Logan. I mean, come on, they are my two favorite subjects, for sure! I added a sepia tone to the photos before I printed them out. This gorgeous paper was a great background, because I do "Adore" them. I used a border punch to make the holes in the paper. I thought they looked like bubbles. And the bingo card just happened to contain the right dates for me to circle. What a great memory, watching the two of them together!

These two photos were taken at the two different hotels we stayed at during our trip, one in Orlando and one in Clearwater. I loved the fern effect of the felt sticker tape and thought it coordinated well with the photos. Logan looks so young here - he has certainly changed a lot in the past 4 years! I punched butterflies out of the same paper I used to mat Logan's photos. The felt word sticker says "Be Glad," and I am VERY glad to have such a wonderful, handsome son!

For this page, I played off the color of Logan's fluorescent green goggles. This beautiful beach paper has so many colors in it, but I think the green jumps out. I actually purchased the paper-pieced swimmer boy on ebay! I have bought many paper piecings on there because I have not mastered that art yet myself.

This page is one of my all-time favorites. Very simple, letting the photo take the lead. I used a sepia tone again on this photo, and it makes a very simple page with the muted tones of the paper and photo together. I love this photo and thought it deserved a page of its own.

"Oceans of Fun" - For some reason, I always have to take a photo UP the beach and DOWN the beach. I thought this page was a good way to display that beautiful scenery, plus it carried on the orange theme I used on so many pages of this scrapbook. It really seems like a sunny, happy book with all the bright colors and great memories!

We went to play mini-golf at a place called "Congo Golf & Gators." They had LIVE gators there you could feed with a stick and a string. We fed them hot dogs, of all things. The mini-golf course was awesome! It involved a crashed plane, a jungle boat, a few waterfalls, a cave, a giant snake, and of course, the live alligators. We are not very good at mini-golf, but it was a very fun outing!

The star of this page is probably the adorable paper piecing, "Let's Go to the Beach." For some reason the guy in the piecing reminded me of Artie - maybe it's the expression on his face. Again with the orange theme in the paper, and more adorable photos of LOGAN, of course.

This is just a fun page because of the paper and fish. It looks like water with the wavy lines and the swimmer - holding his nose like I do. This paper piecing came in the set with the other swimmer boy that I bought on ebay. The photos on this layout were from a giant shark slide that was set up at the pier. Logan loved it and had to do it over and over and over. It was fun for him, but very HOT for us standing out on the sand taking multiple photos. Isn't that what vacation is all about? The kids having fun and the parents following them around in the heat taking pictures? :)

Hope you enjoyed my pages. I'm sure most of you do much better work than this, but I'm proud of my scrapping. I sure enjoy it!

Scrapbook Pages

Do you see this messy work space? So much work can go into ONE single scrapbook page, and so many supplies can be dragged out to get that perfect effect. Sometimes I rush through a few pages just to get them done, but I prefer to take my time and make them really special. That is often a problem for me since I am a snapping queen with the camera. I take way too many photos, and then feel like I have to scrap ALL of them. The entire green album in the photo is dedicated to one vacation trip that the 3 of us took in 2007. Yes, shamefully, I said 2007. And I'm still finishing it up in 2011. I have more ideas in my head for scrapbook pages, as well as entire books, than I will ever be able to complete.
It doesn't help that I'm distracted lately by my new sewing machine and the quilt I've been working on. I guess I haven't accepted it yet that working 10+ hours per day at a "real" job doesn't afford me much time for quilting, sewing, scrapbooking, and the attention I need to give to my husband and son. Some of my scrapping friends stay up until the wee hours of the morning after everyone else is in bed so they can get that creative time in. I'm not a night owl anymore; if I'm up much past 9:00, I start to really fade. Plus I have to be at work so early (usually 6:45) that staying up late is really not much of a fun option for me.
I see some of my friends' pages and I think wow, that must have taken DAYS to complete. Then I feel like my work is sub-par. But you know what? It's still a memory that has been beautifully preserved, whether it took me 5 minutes or 5 days to do it. Right? I should enjoy the process, isn't that part of the joy of creative pursuits?
I have enough scrapbook supplies to fill my own store, so I should easily be able to create any type of pages that pop into my head. It is just having the patience and taking the time.