So I decided to finally start scrapping some of my Amsterdam holiday photos from 2011. I spent an entire day at Keukenhof gardens and have probably close to 100 flower/garden photos and let's face it, it's pretty darn difficult to not find beautiful flowers inspiring (or at least, for me). So here's my finished page:
I started by pulling out my absolute favourite flower photos, looking for a selection of different types, shapes and colours. That narrowed things down to 24 photos, which I thought was fairly impressive on its own. Later I paired this down further to 12 photos.
I decided that using Polaroid-style frames would be the best way of featuring so many photos on a page so I got to work hand-cutting scraps of white cardstock. Since I wanted the photos to remain the focus point, I chose to use a tone-on-tone design. I used a black fine-liner pen to doodle around the frames and then found a distressed patterned paper sheet that also had a doodled frame around it for the background - perfect!
My original thought was to use a grid layout, perhaps titled and with the photos staggered to give it some movement and energy on the page. Then I decided it would be cute to have the photos hanging from little washing lines instead and found some natural fibre twine that would fit well with the nature-theme and tone-on-tone design. I also used some natural wooden mini clothes pegs to highlight my favourite photo of the bunch and I also clipped one onto my journaling card. The rest of the photos I attached to the line using washi tapes.
I'm always very good when I go on holiday about keeping memorabilia but I'm less good about organising and storing it once I get home. I had all of my Amsterdam bits and bobs in a plastic bag (and knew where to find it - bonus!) but I often get so into making a travel layout that I forget to check the bag and pull out material to plan into the page until too far into the design process. But not this time - I got into that bag and pulled out my e-ticket, Keukenhof business card and train ticket to the gardens and decided I would work them and the journaling card into the design using a glassine bag, which would also help to cover up a motif on the background paper that didn't fit the page and I layered all of that under the last photo.
Again, because I wanted to keep the photos as the focus, I used basic black Thickers and letter stickers for my title and I stamped in a grey that wouldn't be over-powering on the page. I also kept my embellishments minimal (although Anya teased me that she would have stopped *ages* ago - ha!). I was also quite pleased with myself that I managed to work in the magenta coloured vellum stickers from the Yes, Please sticker sheet - I love how virtually any colour will work with most flowers.
I cleaned up quite well on the challenge prompts with just this one layout (totally impressed myself):
- Stash Busters - use scraps (white cardstock for frames)
- 2Peas - Glitter Girl (focus on photos)
- 2Peas - Scrap Your Stash (use frames)
- CHA 3 Pieces of Memorabilia (tickets x2, business card)
- CHA 4 Elements of Nature (flowers, birds, butterflies, ladybird)
- CHA 5 Senses (journaled about sight and scent)
- CHA 10 photos (used 12)
Weekend crop results - Anya with her finished page and my nearly-finished page:
Such fun! I'm very much looking forward to when she moves back closer, hopefully in the next few months, and we can do these things more often.
