August Lay Outs

Click on the lay outs to see them up close and personal. For this month's lay outs, I decided to do all the Nikko trip ones on Photoshop in order to save time. I was inspired to do the other two using real paper and embellishments, partly because I wanted to use some memorabilia. All three of the digital kits that I used were from August's Digi Files on the Daily Digi.

Family Trip to Nikko: Template from Janet Phillips at Sweet Shoppe Designs, scanned in the wrapping paper from a souvenir box and enlarged it for the background, used Beauty Within (Valorie Wibbens Designs) digital kit for the paper and embellishments.

I recommend trying new things every month. Last month, I practiced doing my own drop shadows to make the embellies look more realistic. I think I am getting better at it each time! This month, I decided to try making my own background paper using the wrapping from a souvenir box of cakes. This is a painting of the big golden temple in Nikko, and I just scanned it and masked it into the background. I had a digital kit that seemed to go well with this background paper, so I used as much as I could from the kit. I discovered that you can mask papers and embellishments over letters, so I masked in a black smudgy overlay, also from the kit, and it gives the title a really mysterious feeling.

Nature in Nikko: Used template from Janet Phillips of Sweet Shoppe Designs, used Bug Catcher digital kit from Chelle's Creations for all paper and embellishments, used Torn Frame from Windsong kit created by LivE Designs kit for the center photo's frame.

This lay out deserved brighter colors as the nature theme was so prevalent on our trip. I love the challenge of layering embellishments on top of each other and then trying to get the shadows just right. By the way, this church down on the bottom left is eerily similar to a church in my hometown and I think it was designed by the same architect. I am still looking into this. It might be the common design for Episcopalian churches.

10 Things We Learned: Used template from Janet Phillips at Sweet Shoppe Designs, all papers and embellishments come from the Amy Wolff's summer digital kit. The alphabet letters from from Studio Flergs (scrapbookgraphics.com)

After a trip, I always do a variation on this theme. 10 Happenings. 10 Things We Learned. 10 Memorable Moments. 10 Things I Would Rather Forget. Anyway, it always adds humor to the trip and is a good way to wrap up the lay out series.

Dates w/ Mama: journaling spot from Ali Edwards, picture frames from Jessica Sprague.

Now, for the traditional paper lay outs. My challenge for this month was to do something different...a lay out design that I would normally never use, for example. Notice that the photos don't look very clear. It's because I printed the photos onto canvas paper. Canvas paper works really for portraits of people. The close-ups of Luka and of me and Ailin look pretty good. But, detail shots and far-away shots are barely detectable. I was disappointed in this, but it's all part of the process! I'll know for next time.

Lady's Day is every Wednesday at our theater, and I challenged myself to see one movie a week during the summer break. I wanted to use memorabilia this time and had a great idea to use the tickets for a banner. Banners are the new thing in scrapbooking and everyone's making them. There is a ribbon strung across the page and the tickets are glued to it. The tickets, as well as some of the other papers are inked with orange and brown inks. On the bottom right corner, I used a calling card of a tea shop I went to in July (Lipton Tea) and scratched it up with sandpaper before inking it. Then I sketched lines on it to list the movies' English titles. Ailin was standing next to me when I was stamping the yellowish paper, and she grabbed the stamp and stamped right onto the middle of the paper. Oh well! I used it anyway. The flower is made of green leaves that I glued together and then just glued a small circle on top of it. Oh, and here again, the photo of me was printed onto canvas paper, but this time it turned out okay because all you really need to see is me, looking serene, in my movie disguise.