Helped, of course by leaving a clear border all the way around the outside decreases  the area too.  But you’ll notice that although overall the border is the same on both pages, in fact it is a piece of ribbon down the side of the right hand page that ‘makes up’ the difference.  This is because the two photographs in the middle (side by side) didn’t quite make up the correct width.  But with the addition of the ribbon, both pages visually match up.

The colouring was a bit tricky only because of the greeny coloured photograph (bottom left) which didn’t match the more pastel colours of the other photographs, but I used buttons to tie in the more olive/green colour to the others.

The photos show the background as a grey colour, but in fact, despite colour correction, they still don’t show that the background cardstock is actually white!

The patterned paper is from Basic Grey’s collection, ’Wisteria’.

And the little printed sentiment is from a set of stamps from Prima.  Lovely and fine and crisp image of the script and type on this little stamp.  The new genre of cling mounted stamps (solid rubber on foam with cling surface for use with acrylic blocks, etc) are brilliant as they combine the convenience and value for money of the sheets of clear acrylic stamps, with the precision of the old wood backed rubber stamps… I highly recommend them!

And here it is in the album itself.

There is obviously more going on in the album as, being a random album, the pages are of differing sizes and therefore you see the ribbons and other extraneous bits and pieces too.

As the block of the top background paper goes all the way across, edge to edge, it’s possible to use just strips top and bottom, so actually a page such as this can be quite economical!

The alphas use in the title were originally white and I coloured them with an ink pad, the nearest shade I had in my stash to my daughter’s t-shirt in the photograph.  Although the alphas were a thin cardstock, I lifted them by using silicone glue, thus giving them a little more interest.

As I made a kit for myself to make up this page away from home, I didn’t have access to a computer font in order to produce the journaling, so I resorted to my own handwriting!  and talking of which I have had my handwriting made into a font recently… I will tell you about it shortly.

Yes, of course, it’s Rosie our Jack Russell.  She’ll be one year old soon, and she’s still stealing shoes to take to bed (and occasionally nibble on!) but here, aged a mere 3 months, she’s been caught on camera.

Curled up in Inde’s bed with one of Honey’s wellies and Miles’ trainer, she wonders what the problem is!

This was a fairly quick page using a standard 4×6 photograph, and I’ve attached it to the back of the first page about Rosie joining us.  This means of course, that’s it’s out of sync with regard to chronological order, but hey… it’s a random moments album, what do you expect.  However, I have only just realised that I haven’t shown you the photo of the first page I made called “New Arrival” - I thought I had, but it seems I only posted the original photograph… doh… so I will post that one up next!

Above: ’sticky up’ journal tag (technical term!) there wasn’t really room on the page for the journaling and I wanted to use up some stash - simple explanation really.

Obviously I want to stay within the theme of all things tea related and/orVictorian (as it has a Victorian Theme to the tearooms), and so I made this layout to reflect a bit of both.

I took the photograph the summer we opened (2010) of a tower of mixed teacups that we have here and have kept things very simple in design with the emphasis on the photo and the collection of embellishments to add colour and texture.

The patterned paper (from My Minds Eye) is ‘doing the rest of the work’ in the background.  The extended mat for the photograph has been distressed around the edges and lightly inked, a fave technique of mine and includes feint pictures of Victorian ladies to add to the vintage feel. That was from a 6×6″ collection pad called ‘5th Avenue’ by Melissa Frances.

The title has been printed onto a piece of scrap coloured paper. Here is an article on how to do this at Triple The Scraps Blog.

Here is a closeup of the butterfly…

You may notice that it’s glossy… yes I have had the Glossy Accents out!  I cut the butterfly from another piece of paper from the same collection as the background paper and covered most of it in Glossy Accents.  I only ’striped’ the liquid on the wings from centre to outer edge to give some difference in texture, and I wasn’t sure if the fairly thin paper would take a complete covering of the stuff anyway!

Also the Gloss finish has deepened the colour of the butterfly, as it always does, so that’s a bonus.

You can just about see on the main picture, that on the bottom left of the embellishments I have included a teeny cup and saucer.  This I stamped onto shrink plastic and after heating has shrunk to a cute little embellishment.  I stamped quite a few of them actually and have added them to beads to make bag and phone charms which I sell here in the tearooms.  There is a little bit of Glossy Accents on those too, just to seal in and intensify the colour.

I’m currently in the process of  ’fiddling’ with a deep frame to put this layout into so that it can be hung on the wall.  I will tell you how I managed it using an ordinary frame (ie not one bought as a box frame thereby a lot cheaper, even more so if you buy a ’seconds’ frame!).

The days of being able to spend multiple hours on a layout have not returned yet and my scrapbooking is sporadic to say the least.

Still I AM getting better, I am getting more organised and can now put my hand on potential pages more quickly. By that I mean I have sorted and printed a selection of photographs with a layout in mind. When I get around to it I will put some bits and pieces together and make myself some more kits!
Anyway, I digress… this is a page I managed to make in about an hour or so, whilst my daughter made her own version! So the speed scrapping was really to achieve a finished layout in the time is takes my daughter to ‘get bored’ with the task at hand! lol

I’ve included six 6×4″ pictures which I ‘edged’ with white acrylic paint rather than trying to sand the edges.  My reasoning for that is that it’s quicker and less messy!  And more than that, if you have your photographs printed at a kiosk, ie not home printing, there is something about the coating on the paper they use which doesn’t sand very well.  It’s much harder work to get through to the white and do it softly, so I use acrylic paint, has the similar edge result of softening the edges of the photographs.

I hand cut the bracket shape, a technique I have shown you before.  I did actually sand the edges of that one! I made use of some alphabet stamps and some sticky alphas for the title.  And I always like to ‘lift’ something on a layout, soI put the title on shallow adhesive pads.  The bunting effect is merey created with triangles of patterned paper, inked edges and slightly layered to infer they are hanging on something without actually putting up a line for them to hang on.  Something which I have gone to the trouble to do on another layout.

Anyway, you may like to watch this short video to find out what on earth I am waffling on about!

Enjoy… I hope

Roughly scrunched ribbons and lace held with brads and a bunch of colour co-ordinated buttons finish it off.

This was one of the scrapbook kits I made myself to take away with me when I went with family on hols for a couple of days.  My mum and I scrapped in the evenings.  I wrote an article about making your own scrapbook kit and a video - check it out here. The link to the video is at the bottom of that page.

Oh and the Layout that I made from that home made scrapbook kit in the video was this one.

I’ve used a Vertical Border Page Accent (Tutorial Video Here) and a simple patterned paper extended mat for the photograph and a few items in the bottom right hand corner just to balance it out and ‘Bob’s your Uncle’ as they say!  The space under the photograph/mat is where I will put a title and journaling, if I ever decide to add it.

But I have to say, for whom are we making titles anyway?  Journaling, of course, that’s helpful for onlookers to discover what the pictures are about, but titles?  Maybe an addition more for inclusion as the norm for a magazine or online gallery, but not essential by any means, it doesn’t always ‘add’ to the overall Layout.

I have to admit to silicone being my main best scrapbooking friend!  I don’t think it’s particularly environmentally friendly, but basically anything you want to keep forever, such as Archival Scrapbooking (ie, don’t want it to decompose) is not going to be that enviro friendly is it?!  lol

The bracelet was quite pretty, but flimsy and cheap looking close up, but I liked the clours and also felt the sentiment held much more weight!

I used a simple piece of textured pink cardstock, edged and stamped with ink to tone it in, plus a piece of lightly patterned paper from a 6×6 pad and a strip of paper (the bluey green piece) is from my own collection… in fact it is part of a previous newsletter freebie, so you can go get it if you’ve signed up. So technically this is a bit of ‘Hybrid Scrapbooking’!

The bracket shaped journaling block is hand cut from white paper which was then coloured with inks to match it into the layout.

In case you are wondering, the stamps I used on the cardstock are from Basic Grey’s ’Two Scoops’ collection.