Monday 26 March 2012

The New Girl on the Team.

Hi there. It’s Jen G here with my first blog post as an official DT member. We have just had the most amazing retreat weekend - a huge thank you to everyone who came along and made the weekend the success it was. I will add some photos here in the next couple of days. For now I have some layouts to share with you.

Just a few days before joining the team I ordered some of the lush new “On The Bright Side” papers from My Mind’s Eye. I’m always drawn to papers with red in them – real red, not pinky red or orangey red but RED. The “Red Wood” paper is a really nice shade of “real” red. Once that sheet had caught my eye most of the coordinating papers fell into my basket too. I had some snowy day photos in my “to scrap” pile so I set to work. This is when I hit upon a dilemma I come across now and again. I have 3 sons aged 7, 5 and 3. I am fairly methodical in the way I scrap photos of them. They each have their own albums as when they are older I hope that they will want to take them with them when they fly the nest. Ok, when they first leave home I am sure they will not give a hoot about the scrapbooks mum made! But hopefully when they are older with children of their own they might reconsider. When I scrap a photo of all 3 of them I have to decide which album to put it in. Occasionally I want it to go in all 3 albums so I end up scraping the same photo 3 times. That is what I ended up doing with these photos. The layouts are all very similar which speeds up the process and gives a little uniformity to the pages.

The first page is for my 7 year old. He is the ringleader – if he strikes a silly pose the other two are sure to copy. Thanks to this, the only snowy day photos I got of them all are silly ones! I cut out a line of chevrons from the "Blue Wood" and the "Red Wood" papers and layered the photos on top of the "Multi Chevron" paper using the patterns from both sides. The little camera details are cut from a sheet of Echo Park This & That “Instamatic” paper. I used some red American Craft Chipboard Thickers in "Apartment" along with some American Craft Remarks letter stickers for the title. I mounted the whole page onto coordinating red cardstock to finish it off.


The second page is for my 3 year old. I accidentally cut the chevron paper horizontally instead of vertically but it turned out to be a happy accident as I liked the arrow effect this gave. I stuck to the same title as it was the silly poses that I wanted to record.

The final page is for my 5 year old. I stuck to the arrow style strips as I preferred them and again I used the same title. The “handsome and charming” sticker came from a sheet of My Mind’s Eye Miss Caroline “Dilly Dally Best Stickers”.

So, I have 3 layouts from just 5 pieces of patterned paper, 2 colours of cardstock and some American Craft alphabets. There was also so much left over that I will back tomorrow with a fourth LO made with the same paper range. I'll also post some retreat photos, but to tide you over, here is my favourite!

By the way - how do those of you with several children arrange your albums? I’d love to know!









16 comments:

Emma said...

Great 1st Blog post, well done you! As for arranging albums, I just have 'the boys' in date order wether it be individual pics or ones with both on. I have hols in a separate album x

Jenga said...

Thanks Emma :) Each of the boys have holiday LO's in their albums! I didn't mention that I have an album for my neice too!

Lovely to see you this weekend x

Julia said...

I can't believe you scrap the same thing three times - well done you! Josh's album has his pics in and Alex hers bit where they both appear I add them to a "family album". That's the one I'm keeping when they eventually take their albums with them!

Jenga said...

lol Julia - I don't do it often! But sometimes it has to be done :) Ooh maybe I need more albums so I can keep one when they fly the nest! lol

Helsbells said...

I do the same Julia: each of the kids has their own albums on the go and we also have a family one and one for us as a couple too.

Oh and welcome to the team Jen!

Tracie said...

What a great idea! Wish I'd thought of doing that years ago! I'm thinking now of going over old photos and rescrapping them, so everyone will have a copy. Really inspiring post, thanks Jen! x

Jill said...

Hi Jen, great pages! Wonderful weekend, so much inspiration and thanks for the picture! Jill x

Ifa said...

Welcome Jen. Great first post. I have an album for each boy but only for very special layouts that focus on their individual achievements rather than holiday photos etc. I don't think I can make 2 layouts like you've done.

Trina said...

Fab blog post Jen, love the layouts, and great photo's xx

Natalie Jane said...

Yay :-) I love the way you do this! Great pages and great idea :)

I had a fabby time at the retreat!!
Nat x

gwyneth said...

Congratulations on joining the team Jen.
Yes,I've got the same problem with the albums. Two Grand kids in one house and three in the other is bad enough and they each have their own albums. I've got a pile of photos that need a second/third layout and I haven't even thought of tackling the photos of them all together !!! Then there's my own DD's albums so yes, I understand the problem LOL
Lovely pages you've made. I bought some On the Bright Side too and like you love the proper red :)

JOANNE said...

I love the layouts Jen and am also impressed by your restraint in posting up retreat photos!
I keep my layouts together, mostly in albums by year, even though I no longer feel the need to scrap chronologically. They're my layouts, and I'm keeping them! The kids can fight over them when I'm gone ;-)

Nat said...

Awesome first post Mrs G, so happy to have you on the team :) Love the way you tackle your photos mutliple times - I often look at my finished page and see little ways I could have tweaked it or done it differently, and having three boys to scrap gives you this excuse to put a spin on your own pages. Love it xxx

Tracee said...

What a great gift your boys will have! It's a great idea & simplifies things too Tx

Tracee said...

Doh and I so meant to say congrats for making the team and on your first post lol Tx

Lisa-Jane said...

I file all my layouts chronologically (but I don't scrap that way!) Its like reading a book. I got myself into all sorts of chaos trying to have different files for different people - what about if they were both in the photo? What abotu family photos? What if the story is about more than one person - arrrggghhh!!