8x8 Scrapbooking

So, as you know, I LOVE SCRAPBOOKING! But goodness, I HATE 8x8 SCRAPBOOKING! I've made a few and hated every moment of it. Pictures don't fit, things look smooshed and all together, its just not enough scrapbook.

But being that one of my best friends live in Belgium, I cannot make her a 12x12 scrapbook and ship it to her a reasonable price. Which leaves me with the horrid option of 8x8 (which, FYI, fits in a US Postal Service 'Medium Flat Rate' ship box and ships to Belgium for about $45).

Although my hate for 8x8's is very high, I have a few pages that I really loved and I wanted to share them!

Luxembourg Cover Page

(Color meets Old World)

Flander's Field Page, with John McCrae Poem

(Example of 8x8 pages just being so cramped!)

Ten Duinen Play page

(I love how the pink and purple played off our colorful clothes!)

Scrapbook all day long!

While busy working my WONDERFUL and FUN student teaching PACT, Ive also been busy putting together my scrapbook from my Europe trip I took in August! While I haven't had too much time to work on it yet, I want to share a few of my pages.

I tried to theme this scrapbook around the colors purple and green, which has been difficult because a lot of the scenery pictures get lost in the green paper and purple can be a little over powering at sometimes. I decided to pull in blue, pink and yellow as needed. I think its turned out pretty great so far!

Cover page for Luxembourg

I had a really hard time doing the layout for this page. I knew that I wanted to include my own handwriting on this page and I just couldn't figure out where to put it. Finally, I decided to use a tag and glitter broad. In the end, I think it turned out pretty good!

Larochette

I took this beautiful picture of Larochette and I knew that it had to be a focus. I decided to use the yellow and purple to pull out some of the color in the buildings. I just love the offset double frame. It seems to make it a bit whimsical! 

Bernese Oberland

I could have done single picture pages for at least 4 of these pictures. I almost wish I would have blown some up and made single picture pages. But, then I also like how the beauty of the pictures will really pull in the viewer for a few minutes. I could look at this page for an hour and still be in awe by the beauty of the pictures.

A few of my favorite scrapbook pages!

If someone came to me and said, "Steena, would you scrapbook my life?" I would drop dead at the opportunity. Scrapbooking has become the one constant in my life that continues to make me happy. It constantally challenges my creativity and pushes my limits to go out of my design comfort zone. My first few scrapbooks were very clean. Solid paper, straight lines, no embellishments.... I didnt want people to get lost in the page design, I wanted them to enjoy the pictures. When I came back from my semester abroad I had a month off from school so I decided to go scrapbook crazy. I learned that the page design only enhances the picture and it captivates and audience better than a plain book. Ive posted some of my favorite pages from my Oxford scrapbook below, which are easy enough to re-create for yourself. I try to keep scrapbooking on the cheap side... so I make a lot of my own designs with paper and I use paint instead of the more expensive borders and other embellishments that Michael's offers. If you use one of the page layout ideas take a picture and let me see how your variation turned out! :)

From a day of Punting the Cherwell River in Oxford

Exploring Oxford with friends

Borough Market

I really like to make sure that anyone could pick up my scrapbook and know where I was. I like to use bits of info from travel books to make sure that everyone can learn something about where I went. Every page should tell a story, don't forget to use your own words and own handwriting. Your scrapbook is about you, don't forget to include you in it!