Write this moment on your Heart

I have decided that sometimes "LESS IS DEFINITELY MORE". 

There are times that I may feel so inclined or even obligated to put as much as I possibly can on a layout. Reasons usually being, that I LOVE using my stuff, and I LOVE layering and clustering goodies and embellishments.  I felt that the beauty and simplicity of this photograph did not require, NOR should be fighting for the attention amongst decorative titles, embellishments or layers of paper.

I wanted to just keep it simple, and I think I am happy with the result. As I believe, and have said before, that in the years to come, when someone is looking at these pages....it is the photo and the story that will be recognized. No one will know if or how I agonized to get the embellishments in just the right place, in fact the embellishments might NOT even be noticed at all.

The wording on the photo is from one of the Ali Edwards digital downloads. I love those words, and I love the significance of them as the title printed directly onto the photograph. There is not to much else to distract from the focal point, other than a simple tag, a heart and a scattering of little wooden stars.
Wishing you all a Thanksgiving filled with very simple joys and pleasures....as well as lots of good food.

According to My Minds Eye..."Not all those who wander are lost"

I simply love that quote, so when I saw the paper with the quote....I simply had to have it. Now of coarse, it has sat in my stash for quite some time, you know the RIGHT TIME. The time when we know exactly why we were saving it....for just the right layout. Well, this was it.

I saw a sketch on the October Afternoon Blog a little while ago, which I pinned to my sketch board on Pinterest, which by the way, is a wonderful place to look for and save sketches.

This was also a FANTASTIC way to use lots of pictures on one layout. These were all pictures from a trip that I had taken to Australia earlier in the year, and had still not scrapbooked them. I was thrilled to be able to get this many pics from one event on one layout.....kind of feels like the highlights are now scrapped and I can move on to other pictures. It always makes me so happy when a layout is done and completed....I feel as though the memories have moved from something digital to something that myself or others can actually LOOK at and enjoy. If you don't take the time to develop and scrap the pictures, they tend to just sit on a memory card, a disc or a computer, where we seldomly look at them and enjoy them. Remember it's the pictures with a little bit of journaling that tell our story.

Everything old is new.....Again (including Rocket Age)

There is definitely a reason that we hold onto our "old" stash of scrapbooking papers and goodies. We intend to eventually use them. Today was the day......I have finally caught up with project life, yep, exactly caught up to the here and now. I had this picture in my mind, taken last October, that I wanted to use with October Afternoon "Rocket Age". I had intended the picture to go with the paper since over a year ago......BUT, you know how it is? Life catches up with us, we get really, really busy, and we simply move on from the things we intended to do. Well, never FORGET, that it is quite okay to scrapbook pictures from a year or several years ago....it is even okay to use papers and embellishments from several years or months ago. Remember, NOTHING NEW STAYS NEW!

Don't be hesitant or neglectful to use your older stuff....when you decide to pull it out, remember it is NEW again. Also remember, using the stuff previously bought makes room for the new....and I know how much we all LOVE new stuff.
Here's to old things being new and here's to the last week of summer.
ENJOY!

Some Amy Tangerine Sketchbook

WOW.....it has almost been two months since my last post, and so much has happened. Another school year came to an end, I spent a whirlwind of a fantastic couple of days with my dear friend Agnes, in New York...eating, laughing, shopping and enjoying theatre. A chapter of my work life came to an end, and now here I am.....IN HONG KONG.

After a very long HOT day of walking around, I decided to just come back to the peace and quiet of my room and to share a layout that I did several weeks ago using the Amy Tangerine Sketchbook papers. Now, I am also extremely HAPPY to say, that when I posted this layout on "two peas", it received a comment from none other than THE AMY TANGERINE herself.

I have to say, that I really loved playing with the papers from this line. They are bright, fun, happy... and to me, they really symbolize the whole "life is good" philosophy. Have you seen the new Amy Tangerine Lines?????  I can't wait to get my hands on them.
Wishing you all a wonderful few weeks left of Summer....enjoy every moment.

I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND....7GYPSIES POSTALE

I have to admit that I have always been a fan of 7 gypsies. I also have to admit, that I don't know if I am a fan just because I LOVE the name "7 Gypsies"... it just conjures up a world of mystique, travel, sights, sounds and places I dream of going. No matter what, it is one of those lines that I always seem to buy, not necessarily buying it with a plan in mind. Now, I also have to admit, like in any collection, some lines are definitely better than others.....and I felt that this was the case with "Postale".

Everything just sat on my desk for quite a while, but I knew that if I left it all out, so that I could see it, I would eventually JUST KNOW how I was going to use it. 

I also knew that I very much wanted to do a layout with this picture....and without much thought at all, the layout came together on its own. I simply used bits and pieces of the paper, along with some of the index cards. Most important of all for me, was the journaling. This layout was about the words, more so than the picture. I wanted it clean and simple....I wanted the words to be important. 

So sometimes, if you NOT quite sure about what or how to use a patterned piece of paper, just START...it all comes together.

Take Note.....it's a Diet Coke Slogan

Everyday for the past couple of weeks, I have been driving by a "Diet Coke" advertisement in a bus shelter.....the words just jumped right out and shouted at me. I couldn't stop thinking about how effective these words were, and how great they would be for a title on a layout. 

My daughter Hannah, has also just come back from a 5 day canoe trip from Algonquin, and I thought about the appropriateness of the title and the above picture. She does things that no one else in our family does, she tries things that no one else in our family would try. She has an unbelievable sense of adventure and spirit for life. The words on the "Diet Coke" bus shelter advertisement were just so suitable as my title to this layout celebrating her. 

The Studio Calico "Take Note" collection of papers and wood veneer embellishments worked really well together. So many people liked the frames, and asked me how I would use them. Truthfully, I liked them to, BUT had no idea quite what I was going to do with them. Well, once the package was opened....I had tons of fun with them, including cutting them.

Next time you see a magazine or billboard slogan, consider it as a title for YOUR next layout.

There are some "COMPULSARY" layouts

I have to say that there are two layouts that I feel compelled and obligated to do. One of them is always "a year in review" layout and the other is a "birthday" layout. I don't necessarily do them around the time of the year when the event occurs, but it stays on my mind until I get them done. I started doing a year in review layout several years ago, and I have to say....I LOVE looking back at them. It really is a very brief synopsis of some of the highlights of our year. It is also nice to put them all together in one separate book, and from year to year, you get to see the changes, the growth, the events.  

I had nothing in mind since January for what or how I was going to do this layout, until the other day, when I picked up a piece of "simple stories" paper that had each month on it. Immediately, I knew that that would be my ticket to get started. I started by picking a photo or two from each month,  printing them and then cutting up the paper. I was also determined to make this a single page layout. YES, there are WAY many more photos and events from each month that I would have loved to include, but, I picked the ones that in some way or another stand out in a memorable way for me. I also tried to include at least a pic of each member of the family. 

Once all the pictures and paper was stuck down, I was able to pull out my boxes of goodies. I had so much fun embellishing this layout. My aim was to have some kind of something attached to each month, to signify the picture in some way. I like the way it all turned out, even if it is already mid May, I like that I have a reminder of the previous year.