April week 4 challenge

Another weekly challenge on UKScrappers.  This time the challenge included using white/black, ribbon, metal, 11 of something and a photo of something miraculous/wonderful.  I chose photos of my wonderful eldest son (photos taken 15 years apart, posing with the same teddy bear), and the ribbon (bottom right hand corner), metal (staples holding ribbon) and 11 items (stars on ribbon strip) were all pretty easy once I decided what to do. 

Most of the items are from the November 2009 ScrapaGogo kit.  I've been subscribing to these kits for about 2.5 years now and love them.  But I was still very much a novice scrapper then and, though I loved the kits, didn't always have the ideas, or time, to use them.  But now I am getting more adventurous and am so pleased I've got the wonderful resource of these old kits to go back to.  Whatever the challenge/topic, I always seem to find a kit to suit it :-) 

And now for something completely different ...

... a birthday card, but not in my usual style ... 

Since I bought some Tim Holtz stamps and new inks and ink applicator, I've been using them every chance I can get, so I decided there was no reason not to use them on a birthday card.  This is nothing like my usual style of card, which is normally much cleaner and prettier, but I think this works.  The sentiment inside will wish for a better year ahead than that that has been before.

So, on this I have used three stamps from my new Tim Holtz set and I've also used the ink applicator to ink the papers a little, making them not so "clean" and stark, giving the whole thing a sort of shabby chic effect.

I think I'm safe posting this on here, I'm pretty sure the recipient doesn't visit this blog, but if she does, I can assure her that the card looks better in the flesh than in the photo, so I hope she'll be pleased when it arrives later this week.

Another week, another challenge

The weekly challenge on the UKScrappers forum this week was to scrap a photo of a special event or celebration, to use pink or blue, and to use either houses, flowers, bells or stamping.  When my April ScrapaGogo kit    arrived the other day, I knew it was just perfect for this challenge ...

The photo was taken outside the hotel we stayed in on our trip to Paris to mark our 20th wedding anniversary (truly a celebration and special event), and it fulfills the other criteria too.  Apart from the "You make me smile" spot and the small piece of floss suspending the gem (both from the March kit), everything is from the April kit.  I also used a small amount of ink and acrylic paint (on the cameo and on the edges of the distressed paper section).

More 8x8 layouts

Here are two recent 8x8 LOs for the family photo album

Both show the limitations of scrapping on a smaller scale.  The first is very simple; on a larger scale I would have added a little more embellishment, but at this scale I felt the photo would be overpowered by it so left it out.  The second LO has more embellishment but looks a little cluttered, but it conveys the fun of the event so I'm happy with it as a page in a photo album.

Every now and then I manage an 8x8 LO that I feel really works.  Recently I completed a double LO that I am really pleased with -

I was able to add plenty of embellishment and some journalling without overpowering the photos; the proportions would have been different on an 12x12 LO, but I would probably have used a similar style.

Size really does matter!

As I've said in previous posts, most of my scrapping is 8x8 in size, as I scrap family photos for each year in 8x8 albums.  When I first started scrapping, this size suited me but I am now increasingly finding it limiting and even frustrating at times.  As I want to display a number of photos in each album, I am forced to use more than one photo on most pages, which can leave pages feeling cluttered and can leave less space for creativity.  It means that I generally stick to a simpler style and am not always able to use new techniques or embellishments.

On a positive note, scrapping on a smaller scale means that I almost always crop photos and this means that I can concentrate on the good part of the photo and get rid of unwanted bits - especially good when you are not the world's best photographer ;-)  Sometimes, taking small parts out of several photos can help to tell a story in a way one photo could not.  For example, a set of photos taken one grey and windy day were a little dull and frankly not very good and would not have made it into a photo album as they were, but cropped and arranged on a page they told the story of our kite-flying on the beach -

Okay, so it's not the most sophisticated LO in the world, but in our family album, it tells the story.

So, to the point of today's post ... I posted a while back about a 12x12 LO I'd done and said that it would have turned out very differently if I'd scrapped the same set of photos at 8x8 size -  here  Well, I have now scrapped photos from the same set at 8x8 size.  I did a double 8x8 LO about the same event, so here is the original 12x12 followed by the new 8x8 double LO

I'm going to continue with my yearly 8x8 family albums as they serve their purpose and certainly make more attractive and informative family records than do our old-style standard photo albums.  But I'm also going to be doing more 12x12 scrapping so that I can explore new ideas and indulge my creativity.  I've got some ideas for some themed albums, and I'm also planning to try more of the UKScrappers weekly challenges - they are greta for making me think in new ways and taking me out of my comfort zone.