Scrapbooking, Then and Now - Multiple Photos

How to scrap multiple school photos?

Doors open to reveal accordion album.

What about multiple photos of the same shot?  Don't even ask why I ended up with so many copies of the same photo ...
I cut the extras into one inch squares and let the edges of the photo bleed to the edge of the page in a mosaic fashion.
Some squares are repeated twice or three time.

Works well with scenery photos or a spectacular scenic backdrop with some details.  Go ahead, revive these two old techniques into a mod layout!

On the home front, we succeeded in getting Little One to drink formula milk from the bottle.  For a week, she had been spoon-fed, coaxed and cajoled and finally yesterday drank 80 ml out of the milk bottle.  Finally a light at the end of the tunnel to pumping and storing.  I will still nurse her during the times that I am home though.  

Layouts - Family of Four

Family.  I am so happy to have an extended family I can turn to when sharing special events or everyday moments.

Here are some layouts celebrating my family.
My grandmother's birthday celebration, which also falls very near a cousin and Big One's birthday.  At this celebration, Little One joins in as my grandmother's fourth great-grandchild.

My father's birthday celebration.  Little One is his fourth grandchild.

Our nuclear family.  We're now a family of four.
Isn't FOUR a magical number ... truly a family, be it extended, immediate or nuclear, is a blessing.

Scrapbooking, Then and Now - Handmade Embellishments

I want to clarify that I am no scrapbooking guru.  Sharing about scrapbooking then and now is my way to document how I have progressed as a scrapbooker with few supplies and little experience to one bombarded with myriad embellishments and patterned papers, tools and gadgets.  I still may not be that good a scrapbooker, unknowingly flouting lots of design principles too, I can imagine.  Putting up old layouts is one way to laugh and learn from myself.  I will not redo those pages, they are every bit as precious as current ones.  But I want to encourage newbies that we all go though a learning curve.  Don't strive to emulate anyone and feel inadequate in doing so.  Imitate the great masters, as apprentice artists do, but the aim should be to find yourself while exploring.

Okay I'll get off the soapbox now to bring you Handmade Embellishments Then and Now.  Embellishments were hard to come by, and with a grad student budget, I made a lot of embellishments by hand.

In the double layout below, I made the gift boxes using patterned paper and embroidery floss. See, I told you patterned paper then REALLY looked like wrapping paper!

Across the top, I strung Christmas lights and made picture hangers using wires, attaching the photos to them like a wall hanging. To continue the theme, the lower half of the pages were wallpapered (okay, that's also what patterned paper looked like too) with a fake chair rail between.

I stuffed the memorabilia from a trip to the Field Museum in a "bone folder". Haha, bad pun. It's a see through pocket pieced with four pieces of cardstock shaped and coloured to look like bones.

I did a lot of paper pieced embellishments to match the photos, to give the pages a unique look you cannot accomplish with store-bought embellishments. Of course today, I'm all for store-bought embellishments - saves time and you cannot create the same quality economically - you're likely to end up buying several big pieces of paper to use 1"x1" from.
In this layout, I copied the elements from the photo - right down to the green car with luggage racks and blue sweaters.

Ferris wheel paper pieced to mimic the ones at Navy Pier.

Paper piecing need not be elaborate. Another fun handmade embellishment - this time in the title. A magnifying glass with just black cardstock circle and vellum.

Layouts - Sweetie & Yum

Hey, these are "old" layouts! I never uploaded them afterall:


















That's Little One playing with my palm.














I love the rich texture of lace and velvet. Pleating the velvet brought out the lush nap further.



















Ghost alphas are so versatile. A bit of stamping or rubons on the back adds dimensional interest without the bulk.

What child doesn't have his or her food experience documented. The baby food bottle patterned paper, cut out and stacked into a precariously high tower, and fork and knife Thicker icons add to the fun.

On the topic of food, we went out to celebrate Grandpa's birthday last night.  This was dessert.  See the gold flakes?

Are they edible?  To which Little One says : No comments!

Scrapbooking, Then and Now - Vellum

Vellum opened up a lot of opportunities for experimentation.  Cutting, tearing, printing, overlaying.  Here are some of the techniques on layouts done in 2002.

Two diagonal cuts in the centre of the vellum allow the photo to be revealed, much like those extreme makeover shows' reveal.  Brad hold the flaps as well as attach the vellum to the background cardstock.  Title stickers also hide the adhesives.  As invisible adhesives were not available then, I had to be creative in attaching vellum or other sheers.

In the following layout, I printed some images on white cardstock in colour and black-and-white.  Other random black-and-white images were printed on vellum, duplicating some of the photos on the layer below.  The vellum layer is torn around four sides and attached to the lower layer with brads.
You can see how strong colours the colours are on the lower layer, although they look muted when the vellum is laid over it.

Some of these techniques are worth trying out today.  Go ahead, mix some old techniques with new and/or timeless supplies and give everything a new twist.

Layout - What Lies Ahead

No patterned paper ... just a photo, rubons and title stickers.

Layout - Huh?

Had fun with this layout.  The colours really speak to me - "shabby bold" is more suited for Little One, rather than pastels and muted.  I laid square epoxy stickers on a few squares and cut out a couple others (you can see the easel through one).  Black edges prevented the picture and journalling spots from disappearing onto the busy background.  The journalling spots were stark white, so I muted them up with distress inks.

The quizzical expression on Little One was so adorable, I can almost imagine her thinking: Huh? You mix up the colours, twist and turn for hours to match them, and then you start all over again... WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU DO THAT? Seriously, what's the point? You'll just mess it up again!

Supplies:

Patterned Paper - Dream Street Paper

Cardstock - Club Scrap

Rubons - Creative Imaginations, DaisyD

Stickers - Colorbok, Kaiser, Creative Imaginations, American Craft, Heidi Swapp

Flower - Prima

Ribbon - leftover from a kit, source unknown

Tainted Milk

Fifty three thousand.  53,000.  Children in China affected by the tainted milk.  I'm not going to complain about not having my chocolate fix because these have to be removed from the shelves.  53,000.  That's more than the number of babies born every year in Singapore!

Scrapbooking, Then and Now - The First

I thought it would be interesting to compare some of my earlier pages with recent ones, spotting trends and identifying how I've matured as a scrapbooker. In particular, I want to return to the core of why I scrapbook and shed the compulsion to have the latest product or tool.

 

I first started scrapbooking in 1995. I was expecting Big One and spent many a weekend in Ben Franklin at Marina. I would pore over the magazines (Creating Keepsakes and Making Memories, then much later Paperkuts) and read over and over the few articles on how to get started. When I thought I was ready, I bought a kit with a baby theme, an acid-free glue stick and got started with some basic tools I already owned. It took several more trips to the store and lots of attempts to memorise some resources from the magazines before I completed my first pages. Soon, I was visiting online forums and accessing online articles. These were almost exclusively based in USA. I recall posting something on forums and being asked why I was posted to Singapore, everyone assumed I was an American living in Singapore.

 

Here is an early page. 

Die cut photo frames, paint and inks used with stencils and rubberstamps, fancy scissors, calligraphy pen - these same basics still available today.

Flouted design principle: cropped photos floating on the page – groan!

Fast forward 7 years.  Here are two pages from 2002. 

Dimensions through shaped brads and torn paper edges, corner-rounded photos.

More interesting materials – corrugated cardboard and vellum, textured cardstock.

Here’s one recent layout.

What's new: texture and dimensions - in the cardstock, the distressed and inked edges and the stickers. Even the patterned paper has more "depth" and no longer look like wrapping paper or wallpaper.

What’s back: paint, shaped photo, journaling meandering around the page, torn edges

Stash Organisation - A Likely Improvement

I think fixed shelves no wider than 50cm are better. Firstly, they are less likely to sag and warp. And there is no wear compared to a drawer or basket system.

My newer stuff are inside pizza boxes. Well, not all, as Little One has found evidence of new purchases which have not been sorted out yet.

The pizza boxes fit inside the Expedit shelves and, if not stacked too high, should be easy to pull out, dispensing with the need for drawers or baskets on tracks.

From the number of pizza boxes so far, I think I need all four walls outfitted with Expedits!

Layout - Assignment 2

Every once in a while, reality sinks in - I'm a mother of two.  And coping not too badly!

Journalling reads: I must have passed Motherhood 101 ... I am given another assignment! J and E - God's gifts
Love the muted colours of SEI and Crate Paper.
Others :

Rub-on - K&Co

Title - American Craft Thickers

Epoxy sticker - Cloud 9

Brads - Doodlebug

Stickles

Ranger Distress Ink

Stash Organisation - The Overall System

These are the unmounteds inside the IKEA baskets.

The wood mounteds in their boxes
Other knick-knack stuff inside the baskets.

These stuff are heavy.  The basket system definitely cannot work especially since the tracks are plastic and do not support the entire length of the baskets.  With age, the cupboard is also buckling and hence the baskets are always popping out of the tracks.