Laura Vegas

i want to thank you all for the great organizing tips for the giveaway. i loved reading through them all. i would be thinking "yep, i do it that way too", or "hmmm, hadn't thought about that". lol! so, onto the winner of the organized and insired scrapbooker idea book, from creating keepsakes. my random number generator thingie, choose #45. congratuations to misty! and it just so happens, that i agree with everything she suggested. that's exactly how i roll too.

i intended to do another organizing post this week. but i never quite got around to taking any photos of anything having to do with organization. so, that will have to wait. i decided to go with the two page theme that is going on over on the pebbles blog this week.

i just recently created quite a few new two page layouts, with MUCH older photos. the photos on these two layouts were from 2002. look how little the girls are. and the two blonde girlies were my very first daycare kiddos. our two families went camping together for a few days, and these photos were from that trip.

i had actually started some layouts with these photos, years ago. so long ago, that the layouts were in creative memories albums. which i havn't used in about 8 years, at least. i had trimmed the photos, including cropping some into ovals and circles. and they were adhered to the white pages of the album, with a few scrap pieces of pattern paper scattered about. that's all i had done. i LOVE finding layouts like those, with good photos, that remind me of great times.

this layout has all my favorite photos from the campsite. and when i do find photos like these, i love to get reprints made (so that they're a bit lighter), and start fresh with new layouts. i kept these layouts really simple. so simple, that they would take no more than 30-45 minutes to create. i started by arranging the photos, trimming little bits here and there, until they fit into a nice collage. this is sort of the same idea i used when i created my pebbles layout i shared on tuesday.

once the photos were arranged the way i wanted them, i cut strips and blocks of pattern paper to fill up the rest of the pages. i used the october afternoon campfire collection for all my papers. i added a chipboard title, and some letter stickers for the date.

the only other thing i really did on this layout, was to add these pattern paper covered chipboard circles. i used the same pattern paper for each section i was doing, and punched circles from both the paper and some extra chipboard. i adhered them together, and then inked the edges with some brown ink. just a really simple way to add a little something to your layout.

this layout is about our "beach". honestly, it wasn't really a beach. more of a spot down by the edge of the river. with a lot of dirt and mud. but to the girls, it was all the beach they needed. this layout had a lot more photos. i started with even more, but managed to dwindle them down to these twelve. a lot of these photos were taken from farther away, so i had a lot more room to crop them down. 

almost all the products on this layout are from the little yellow bicycle boardwalk collection (except the title letters). which is one way to almost guarantee yourself a 30-45 minute layout. i used two sheets of pattern paper, both cut into a smaller strip and a larger strip. a canvas border, cut into 2 pieces. some 3 dimensional stickers, regular paper stickers, chipboard stickers, and some word strip stickers.

nine of my photos were cropped down to 3.5" squares. i did adhere a few of these with pop dots, just to add some interest to the pages.

i also used pop dots on the canvas border pieces. it make it really easy to tuck the stickers under the waves of the border piece.

i have learned that not every page has to take forever to plan or put together. some of my most simple layouts, end up being some of my favorites. it might be because the simple design can often let the photos and the story stand out  more.

then again, i love adding all the fun extras to layouts. and taking the time to do some extra techniquey stuff. what can i say? i like to have the best of both styles of scrapbooking 🙂