Afternoon Fun in the Sun

As a newer scrapbooker my biggest resoursces have been layout sketches and within the past few months a kit club membership!! I can not say enough about these two things as important tools to new scrapbookers and maybe even veteran scrapbooker too! At first I was so intimadated with making a layout, I wanted it to be perfect, but I sat infront of my collected papers and wondered how I was going to but them on my page. after hours of watching videos and days roaming the wb for scrapbooking blogs I decided I had to get over the pressure I was putting on my self and started looking for layout sketches. 

I am SO Glad I made that choice, it took away the pressure of creating everything and to focus on learning and playing. I found that many times I changed the layout quite a bit and I was learning. I was finally making pages and liking most of them. 

Then a few months ago I finally decided to join a kit club, it has been so nice to get new stuff that was actually new and and try products that maybe I hadn't used yet. I found I love wood veneers! I definitely recommend joining a kit club if you have a hard time picking out ppers that go together or if you want to stick to a budget. 

I started this layout a couple of nights ago, that is when I get the most scrapbooking done. After the kids go to bed, even if I spend a lot of the day thinking about what I want to do on a page. With kids in bed, trying to go sleep I sit down with a sketch, which I actaully hadn't done in a couple of weeks just I had been taking some Shimelle classes and actually making layouts without sketches. I thought that I would go back to my roots, and use a sketch I found SketchSavvy.blogspot.com by Susan Stringfellow, I flipped the sketch upside down and cut two strips of paper from my Scraptastic July kit. I looked at the sketch, thought about how I wanted to chage it up to fit me, thought about what papers would work with my photo and yeah the sketch wasn't working. I decided I wanted to use a triangle in the corner, the green lined paper from Fancy Pants looked kinda like grass and it went really well with the grass in my yard.  Then I started to think about what other embellishments would work with my picture and the papers I had. I wanted to use greens and blues and I needed texture. 

Fast Forward to the next day, Yes I had to wait almost a whole day to work on my page. It sat in my room, that is where I craft, calling out to me. I thought about some things I wanted to do all day. When I sat back done I actually decided to work on the title first, since I thought I had an idea of where I wanted it. Added some emphmera near the title with some hemp twine and buttons. The space under the title was to open for my liking and I thought the title needed something to ground it so it wasn't hanging. I made more strips of paper like the first strips I already had on my page. I wanted to use a tag for the journaling and ended up cutting using three tags. I again added twine and some buttons to match the first grouping of embellishments I had made. 

I really wanted to layer some papers under my photo. I printed my picture at home off our photo printer but this time I just printed it on regular paper to get a different look. I like to try printing on different kinds of printer or photo paper to see what looks cool and what doesn't. Sometimes how I print a photo works and sometimes it doesn't. I mostly used pieces from my kit, but I did add a brown peice of paper from my stash, the flower woodgrain from Simple Stories and a teal dot paper from 3 Bugs in a Rug. I added some circles I punched out to add to the layers and a banner peice from the cutapart sheet from my Scraptastic kit. I added some another grouping of embellishments to the corner of the photo after I had taped it down in the bottom right corner. I added a few more embellishments to each of the groupings like enamel dots, wood stars and burlap hearts all adding texture to my page. 

This layout came together so well, And it was so much fun to make. JUst like the picture of my son trying to drink the water from the sprinkler outside. I did keep the journaling small because I am hoping to make another layout of all my kids from this day. They were so excited that I actaully put the sprinkler on for the first time here at this house. The day was hot and sunny and I was so surprised at how wet they actually got. 

I have learned that it's ok to use help where you need it, like using a sketch. When you are ready to play around you will know it, and it will feel like a great achievement! I hope you have a great day and can create some spectacular today too!!

Hannah