Page Kit Count Down - Page Kit #4

I had 5 page kits left at the end of my recent clean up. I'm working to get all of the layouts finished up.  Now I'm using page kit #4, the We R Memory Keepers Snapshots 12x12 Page kit.

Inside I had 4 photos for 3 different layouts.

 For this layout, I only pulled out some gelatos to create one of the background papers, some printed acetate, wood veneers, and enamel dots.  I really love the way the background turned out that I had my dd make for me. She enjoyed playing with the gelatos. She also made another one while playing.

For this one, I pulled out some mulberry!! I know, crazy! I also pulled the enamel dots, a piece of white cardstock, vellum, ink for the edges of the embellishments, and a punch.  I love the layers with the mulberry. I also love the triangle piece in the bottom corner which is covering up the small cut out of the corner piece of the background paper.

For this, I just used the leftover white piece of cardstock, the white enamel heart, ink for the edges, the rest of the vellum, and some HS color shine in black and gold.

All of these layouts are very simple using very little extra embellishment, but I still like the look of each one. I created a 1page layout previously plus these 3 which equals a total of 4 layouts.

And this is what I have leftover in the kit. Easily enough for another layout before getting added into the stash and scraps.

Page Kit Count Down - Page Kit #5

When I cleaned up, I found I only had 5 page kits left.  When I make page kits 85-90% of them are collection kits that I just toss photos into that I think the kit would complement. The other 10-15% are kits where I've actually gone through my stash of papers and found coordinating papers. I might throw in other things I know I want to use, but I mainly leave embellishments out. That's the fun part of scrapping the page for me. I really dislike the photo editing. I find the paper picking to be a chore. This is why I've taken to doing these things in batches.

These are the 5 page kits I have left.

Pulling out my Carta Bella All American Collection Kit which had photos from July 4th 2015 left in it, I set to work.  This kit actually had some ribbon thrown in as well.  I pulled out the mass of photos from the day, figured out the best arrangement. I would create a double page and 2 single pages. The singles could go side by side if need be or one could go before the double and the other after. This will give me some flexibility when putting them in the album. (I scrap whenever but store close to chronological.)

I used the ribbon. I also pulled in some red hemp, the white cardstock, enamel dots/shapes, ink, vellum, a couple of punches, and some red small tab alphas.  Everything else was from the kit. The pages came together quickly, which I liked.

I had already created a layout with my great niece from this kit as well. Plus there is still enough for a couple of more pages. I put the collection back into my stash. Another reason I love using collection kits for page kits is the ease of assimilating the items back into my stash, since I keep the kit together and place all kits together. ha. With individual papers I have to go to each section to put them away - feminine, masculine, vibrant, polka dot, office, specialty, wood-look, etc... It's cumbersome.

Sandcastle Conundrum

If you read Friday's post, you know that I'm working with all of Shimelle's lines which is how I typically work with Shimelle's collections.

I struggled with these photos and how to put them together. I had a portrait photo of both my son and one of my daughter working on their respective castles. I had a landscape of each of their respective castles. I was originally going to try to put them all on one page. I couldn't make it work. If I separated them by child, then I could go with my go to design of an L or reverse L when working with one portrait and one landscape. But, I just wasn't feeling it. It took me hours to finally cut some papers down and arrange them. I still wasn't crazy about it. I left the layout unglued out until the next day.

Upon waking the next day, I did my normal routine and checked the computer. I'm trying to catch up on the blogs having been away from the computer for 3 weeks. I've been picking a blog and just reading up through the posts. Well, I chose Michelle's lovely blog Scrapthology to peruse. I have to say she puts out sketches every Sunday that are super, and I'm not really a sketch person. When I came to her July 3rd sketch, I was like why didn't I check her blog sooner. Then I could have used this sketch instead of struggling all last evening. I thought I was too lazy to go back and redo the pages, I know they weren't glued down, but I'd have to repick papers, recut papers, ugh, it just sounded like too much work.

Well, I couldn't put this fantastic layout out of my mind and ended up totally using this sketch.  Here are my layouts.

I love how they turned out. The Destination Adventure titles are cut from 4x6 cut apart PL styled cards that I cut in a label shape on my silhouette.  The journaling reads the same on both cards, as I thought they might want them in their individual books, however, it's part of our overall family day experience. If I put them in their individual albums, then I have to go back and write more information on page 3 of my outings layouts (posted Friday) or I could just make another page with just the sandcastles for the family album.  See my conundrum??  I just don't know what to do!  If you have any ideas or a preference, let me know.

For the Joy of Page Kits

I used to call my scrapbooking style "Batch" scrapbooking, as I seemed to do things in a batch styled process. I'd edit and print and bunch of photos. Then my next block of time I'd work up some journaling on the computer for the photos. This would help me solidify the story I wanted to tell if there was one or might help me decide to break photos up for multiple stories. A plus is that it also usually gave me my title as well. Then I'd match the photos with paper, grabbing individual sheets from collection packs and tearing each sheet out from paper pads if necessary and bagging them together. Then I'd grab embellishments that I thought would go in each bag. I'd have a nice stack waiting for me.

I loved being able to just grab a bag. I don't scrapbook chronologically, so I could still go through my eclectic mix of photo bags and choose what was calling to me at the time.  However, over the last couple of years I fell away from my batch scrapbooking process and my page kits.

Recently, I've rediscovered the joy of page kits. 

I forgot to do the journaling before and just paired photos with papers. This is something I will go back to in the future. I realize I don't use a lot of titles when I don't work on the journaling or if there is no real story.

What I tweaked, just because I'm lazy, was that I didn't tear sheets from the paper pads or separate collection packs. If I was using a pad or pack, the whole thing went into the bag.  I would include any photo that I thought went with the collections feel. So I might have a photo of my son to talk about a quirky habit, a family outing, and my great niece (where generally there is no story since we don't see her often).  I didn't worry about embellishments unless I knew there was ephemera or an item that I really wanted to use. I like pulling those things in the moment.

With the Fancy Pants Collection "What A Wonderful Day", I ended up with 2 different photos of my niece in the bag. These are the pages I came up with.

What makes this tweak so AWESOME!  I liked that the paper pieces go back in with the collection pack and get put right back on the shelf for a quick and easy clean up.

I'll be adding even more page kits to my future. (happy dance).

Shimelle's Collections

I love all things Shimelle, aka Glitter Girl. It's probably a nostalgic reason.  My daughter and I used to watch GG together each week. We have different taste from each other and both have different tastes from Shimelle as well. But we both appreciated her teaching style.  So when American Crafts started producing a line inspired by Shimelle, well, I procured some of each. From Shimelle, True Stories and Starshine, I mix them all together. They work so well together.

So I had some photos of a day Adventure we had last June (2015) and some from morel hunting that May which I thought would mix perfectly with Shimelle's lines. Obviously I couldn't make a page kit, as this wouldn't fit in my page kit bag (a 2 gallon ziplock).

I keep all of Shimelle's items together, including the embellishments and stamps (for now). Although I do keep the stencils and embossing folders in there proper places, but they're easy enough to pull. That stack is still 5" tall.

AND this is what I created.

I used the Shimelle Starshine stamps an a PL roller stamp, although some of my roller stamp images came out cockeyed and funky. I took a photo of morels from the net and converted it to black and white upping the contrast and gold foiled them for the bottom corner.

Then I started our June Adventure Day. Page 1 tells the first part of the story, page 2 shows our views during the 2 different lake spots (picnic and playing), and page 3 shows our spot while the kids built their sandcastles.

 

Monday, I'll share the sandcastle pages and my dilemma.


I'm still traveling this week and this post was prepared in advance.  It was suppose to go yesterday. Yeah, that didn't happen. My daughter had a neurologist appointment. She has had some health issues that have become quite chronic in the last 2 years. Also her motion sickness which was always mild increased so dramatically that she cannot tolerate a trip to town that is 40 minutes away. We walked away with a new prescription. This is our 5th in the battle to improve her health. You have to wait 6 weeks to see if any of them work. But this Dr. thinks that the GI diagnosis of abdominal migraines is still good. The medicine the GI gave her did not work and we've tried another one in the interim as well. We have also had an allergy test for the common allergies which she lit up like a Christmas tree - 19 out of the 29 allergens caused a reaction. She just feels everything in her stomach, instead of a nasal or rash or something that would have caused me to think - oh, hey, allergy.  Stomachache - didn't even occur to me it could be allergy, other than food. She is still off gluten, egg, dairy, watermelon, and green beans. So here's to crossing my fingers and hoping that this will help ease her pain. Also we were told to take her to a counselor to learn biofeedback techniques. Excited about that. She has a hard time when her brother makes her mad. He can do something only slightly annoying and she goes from 0 to rage in .023 seconds. Her dad could do the same thing to her without that response.  So I hope in addition to biofeedback techniques they could help with some self calming methods too.

That's it for today. Sorry for the long post.