Scrapbook Pages: Mommy Visits Portland

Papers from Shabby Princess, Elements from Shabby Princess and Persnickety Prints 

Much better!  Having decent pictures to use really makes all the difference.  Everything looks so much brighter.  Unfortunately, I took the food images in a dark restaurant so they ended up rather blurry.  I'm hoping at the smaller size it won't be so easy to tell...

One nice byproduct of this new hobby is getting more comfortable with Photoshop.  I learned how to use the pen tool today to cut out that sign of Multnomah Falls.  I'm also starting to slip in more elements here and there.  I think the staples and stitching are cute without being overly cluttered.  The best part of this is revisiting happy memories; now that I'm done with 2011 (until more stuff happens) I will start scrapping 2010.  That will be a hard year to revisit in some ways, I had many very happy times and some not so great times.  It was a year of extremes...

Scrapbook Page: ORS 2011

Papers and Element from Shabby Princess

I feel pretty bleh about this one.  I had very few good pictures from this trip because a lot of the picture taking happened in dark places/night so many of the pictures turned out grainy and strange (and often blurry).  And as I am now learning, there is only so much you can do to fix this.  I tried some green/gold paper combinations at first, but since the pictures were so dark with many reddish tones, they clashed rather miserably.  So this Hogwarts combo is what I ended up with.  It would be more fitting if we were dressed as Harry Potter characters, but that might have drawn some negative attention at the conference...  So far, I think "Jess and Ryan Visit Portland" are my favorite pages to date.

Scrapbook Pages: Jess and Ryan Visit Portland

Papers from Persnickety Print and Shabby Princess, Element from Persnickety Prints

Ok that's it!  I am removing myself from this computer and going to do something that involves more movement than finger clicking on mouse.  My self-imposed ban from earlier was only partially effective as you can see.  I'm quite happy with how these pages turned out though since I had a hard time figuring out paper combinations that looked decent together.  Many of the pictures above were taken by the Bunny which is why they look so nice.  It's crazy how addicting this project is.  My goal right now is to get the major events of 2010 and 2011 documented.

Scrapbook Pages: Israel

Papers downloaded from Persnickety Print, Element from Shabby Princess

Here are the pages for my recent trip to Israel.  I am now officially banning myself from Photoshop for the rest of the day, unless it's work-related.  At least, until I finish everything on my to do list.  It's remarkable how quickly time passes when all you're really doing is aligning and resizing images.  I thought the mustard-ish papers from Persnickety Print's 'memories of you' kit looked desert-like and would be a good fit for my Israel pictures.  I am really enjoying all of this though, because it is nice to revisit these memories.  Naturally, the journaling aspect also holds immense appeal for me.  And again, the people who do this by hand get much props from me, I have no idea how you do it!

My First Scrapbook Pages

Paper and elements downloaded from Persnickety Print

I know I know I know.  The last thing in the world I need these days is another hobby.  The thing with my hobbies though, is that I tend to pursue them cyclically.  For example, I've taken a break from knitting because that is largely a winter hobby and I haven't made soap in a while because I have quite a great deal of soap stored up at the moment.  Don't ask me about sewing because I really meant to finish that quilt before summer but at this rate we're looking at Summer 2015.  The balcony garden however, is doing well and of course I cook year round because I get hungry.

Scrapbooking never held much appeal for me because it seemed way too laborious and finicky.  Not to mention, the thought of taking scissors to pictures makes my heart sink.  And who even has prints these days?  So it wasn't until J at work told me about digital scrapbooking that my interest was at all raised (see her scrapbooking layouts here).  These first two pages took me a ridiculous amount of time, but I'm rather happy with how they turned out.  I don't think I'll ever be able to manage complicated layering of patterns so I anticipate that my pages will be consistently "collage-like" and basic.  But that's ok because I like looking at pictures best anyway.  Perhaps with more practice I'll get better at this.