First Photo Shoot Scrapbook Page

Started: November 24, 2007
Finished: November 25, 2007
Made For: J's scrapbook
Scraplifted From: Becky Higgins' Creative Sketches - Volume 2 - pg. 35
Materials: 2 colours of cardstock, 2 patterned papers
Tools: Cuttlebug, Red Tag Sale alphabet cutting die, roller adhesive, photo mounts, laser printer, rotary cutter, Stampin' Up Round Tab Punch
Cost: materials were under $5, but the photos were a pretty penny from the photographer...
Would I Do It Again? yes...
Notes / Comments: yet another layout that i loved doing... Becky Higgins magazine has so many great layouts and i was working with my favourite pictures from J's newborn photo session where he was all of 10 days old, so it would be hard not to have a great page... it also came together very quickly (less than 2 hours while watching Evan Almighty, with the exception of the title that i added the next day)...

what worked well about this layout was how clean and simple it was... i drew my colour inspiration from the striped paper and i really like how the colours worked together... the striped letters in the title weren't just for aesthetics, but because i had run out of brown cardstock, so i used what i had...

one of my favourite things about this layout was the journaling block tucked behind the 5x7 photo on the left page... for scrapbooking aficionados this isn't exactly a groundbreaking technique, but for someone new to the craft it's pretty exciting (yes, i admit, i'm a loser and things like this excite me)... not only do you get to say everything you want without cluttering up the page, but it's a little unexpected, interactive treat for people looking at the page... it's also handy if you want to journal in your own hand, but you're not particularly fond of your handwriting... having an excuse to use Ms. M's Round Tab punch that i borrowed was also a selling point...

my only complaint about the layout is yet another newbie mistake... because i was using a striped paper that wasn't a uniform pattern and i only picked up one sheet, i ended up cutting it into 3 strips (2 for the horizontal stripes that anchor the page, 1 for embellishments / title letters)... when i went to glue them down, it became apparent that the stripes didn't line up from page to page... the easy solutions would have been to buy a second sheet of the paper or to cut it so the stripes were vertical... of course, i had already cut the strips, i liked how the horizontal stripes brought your eye across the page, and it was later in the evening and the local scrapbooking joint was already closed (and i'm impatient)... live and learn, i guess...