Stamping And Scrapbooking Sunday!

I feel like it takes a good amount of time to create a scrapbook layout, especially when I’m creating the papers, the background, the stamp and die cut elements.  I love to scrapbook on weekends and most especially on Sunday.

I actually spent some time yesterday in my craft room stamping and die cutting a bunch of random elements that I’m keeping in a bowl on my desk just so that I have some things to grab to adorn scrapbook layouts.  That was actually our homework assignment from the Stamps Meet Scrapbooks Altenew Academy class that I’m taking.  I turned on some Dr. Who and spent time first searching my stamp sets to see what stamps and dies do I have that might work on a scrapbook layout.

I pulled out some floral sprigs of leaves, hearts, stars, labels, feathers, camera stamps, arrows, shapes, planets, flowers…you name it.  I always keep my left over die cuts and stamped images in a bowl on my desk, but those are usually added to gift tags or quick cards.  Now, I’m looking through my stamps and dies to see them in a new way for scrapbook layouts.

I added a few of those to my scrapbook page today.

If you saw my post a few days ago, you will recognize the background papers from a previous layout, which you can see here.

I had those scraps and I really liked the way those papers turned out, so I wanted to use them on this page.  The instructor created a page with the outline stamped images from a large floral set and left them black and white.  Then she added all of her color with found elements from her stash.

I had some arrows and the gold leaves in my stash.  The arrows are from Altenew’s Follow Your Dreams stamp set as are the green sprigs of leaves at the bottom.  The circle and oval shape labels are from the dot labels set and it is a really perfect set for scrapbook pages.  I like to add little labels that include dates and places, or just a quick statement to add context to the photos.  The gold hearts are from the Snapshots set which is another great set for scrapbooks and memory keeping.  The small pink heart was added for a pop of contrasting color and it comes from the Birds of a Feather stamp set!  You can find some hidden gems for scrapbooking in really random stamp sets.

My sentiments are from the Beautiful Quotes stamp set.  (You may notice that it is blurry, because I rocked the clear block as I was lifting it.  Ugh!  Stamping 101:  Don’t rock the block when you stamp!)  The sentiments on the upper right side come from the Snapshot and the Floral Shadow stamp set.

I really liked the layout as soon as I added the gold elements and those pink hearts.  I just felt like it needed a pop of bright color and that worked for me.

The hugs script die is also from Altenew and that fabulous sparkle glitter paper in that amazing blue is from Simon Says Stamps.

Here is my moment of honesty!  I had no plan to cover the bottom with washi tape or to add all those elements to the bottom left corner.  They were added out of necessity.  I kept putting my arm in the black ink without realizing it and then putting my arm on the bottom of the layout.  I had some smudges to cover!   It worked out in the end, I actually love that washi tape and I used some die cuts from my bowl that coordinated with the layout.

Lesson 5 was all about using sentiments from your stamp sets on your scrapbook pages to convey the message and feelings you want to convey with your layout.  Taking sentiments from several sets and combining them really adds interest to your page.  You can combine font styles and sizes and really make it personal and unique.  So those beautiful sentiment sets that you have in your stash can stretch further and you get more for your money by using them for more than just cards.

One more lesson and the class is complete.  I’m a little sad about that because I’ve really enjoyed having an excuse to work on scrapbook layouts.  I’m going to have to set a goal to make at least one scrapbook layout each weekend!  It’s just too fun to create them and revisit old memories as you pull those pictures out of your box to add to a scrapbook layout!

Thank you for stopping by today.  I hope you have time to create.  Remember to embrace the imperfections!!