National Scrapbooking Month

Whew!!  I can't believe another month is slipping by - how DOES that always happen SO fast?!?  It's been as busy as always around here.  Lots and lots of end of the year activities for the kids - field trips, picnics, you name it.  Plus, over Memorial Day weekend; we just had our annual Saddle Up for St. Jude.  Many of you know that we're a couple of the main organizers for this big event; so that takes up a lot of time in May.  The ride was a great success again this year and we were able to raise a lot of funds for the kids and the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.  More about that in another post.  But with all the prep for that & the kids activities - well, the month has flown by!

But before this month is completely over, I wanted to recognize that this month was in fact National Scrapbooking Month.  Most of you know, I'm not a big scrapbooker - more of a "photo album embellisher"....if there is such a thing lol!  But recently our design team for Sparkle N Sprinkle was asked to design a couple pages so everyone can see how well all the great SNS products work for scrapbooks.  So in honor of the last day of Scrapbooking month; I thought I'd share one of those designs with you.

This was a bit of challenge for me since I don't do this too often.  But as is often the case, you end up being quite pleased with the results when you challenge yourself!  This layout was for an annual trip to Lake Erie (in PA) that we started taking a few years back with my parents, sister & her kids, and us.  It's a bit of a drive to get there, but it's always so much fun!

The hardest part of the layout (in a way) was trying to pick only a couple pictures for the layout.  I think that's one of the big reasons I don't scrap too much.....I take tons of pics & I love them all!  Hard to put them all on a layout though.  But I was really pleased with how well I did narrowing this down - I think I was really able to capture some of the best parts of the day in just these few pics. 

This layout is so much more pretty in person (isn't everything!) - it's sooo sparkly.  And sparkly & my camera just don't seem to get a long very well recently.  But I took a bunch if closeups so you can see some of the details a little better.

Most of the page was done using Set 403 - By the Seashore.  This set has so many great pieces for anything beachy  - scrapbook pages, cards, you name it!  A definite must have set!

The title was done with super sparkly Hit the Beach & Poolside embossing powders - our go to powders for beachy things!  And I did the title with a fun SNS technique where you make layers using EP & sticker paper that are then torn to resemble waves crashing on the beach. Very fun for a page title!

My subtitle was made extra fun by stamping it over top of the bright & firey sun (which is from Set 431 - Summer Swirl).  The whole piece was then embossed with Sparkle embossing powder to make it super shiny & sparkly.  Then it was popped up above the birds.

If you look really close at the top photo (the close ups didn't come out quite right for this part), you can kind of see that I also accented the larger pics.  A little Waterscape glitter on the waves & some Celestial glitter on the sand adds that extra spark that really makes the main pictures stand out.

The cute little frames for the mini pics were made by using two of the circle scenes from Set 403 and then cutting out the pics with a Spellbinders circle & layering it over the original picture in the design. A little Waterscape glitter around each pic for extra shine & what a cute little frames they make.  Great accent touches for the whole page!  I really like the sayings on these circles & thought this made such a neat way to use these!  (Don't you love the pics in them too....I love the waves crashing around him and the sea gull with it's reflection - just perfect!)


Well, it's a little late, but Happy National Scrapbooking Month everyone!  Hope you enjoyed this layout!

Until next time, 

***Julie***