Birthday Boy - Two Page Scrapbook Layout

 This little man has another birthday coming up next weekend! He will be nine years old!!! One more year until double digits. Not sure how this is possible. We love watching him grow and mature, and seeing where his strengths and interests will develop. This child is so smart! His brain works in a way that mine never has, and it's pretty impressive.

This is a layout from almost three years ago when he was six! I'm usually about a year or less behind on scrapbooking my photos. I do scrap chronologically for the most part. However, I put off taking photos, posting my layouts on my blog, etc. I like the creative aspects of scrapbooking, but the follow up work is definitely not my favorite. I have a pile of layouts I'm working on taking photos of  now (for my blog), but I just ran out of battery on my phone. So, time for a post!!

This is a fun pack of  My Minds Eye "Boys Will Be Boys" paper that I received quite awhile ago as a prize for one of my layouts being published in Scrapbook Cards & Today magazine. There was tons of coordinating boy paper, ephemera and even a cute set of robot stamps. I love all the colors, and it makes it so easy when everything coordinates beautifully.

My absolute favorite part of scrapbooking is figuring out the design of my layout. Where do I want to put my photos? Where will the title and journaling fit best? Also, creating my own title from Design Space. The title above was two different phrases that I merged together and sized to perfectly fit my space on the red banner. Remember when we used to have to attach each letter separately and hopefully get it to all line up with proper spacing and level on the page? Welding letters saves me that trouble. In this example, I wanted the letters B O Y to be separate from each other, but by merging them with the phrase above, I'm able to easily get perfect spacing and to work around the corner of the photo.

I used some of the leftover paper scraps to make banners, and borders to go along the edge of the red pennant. And, the cute little red and yellow robot adds the fun factor to the page. Using a few wallet size photos or cropping to 4x4 helps fit more photos on the page.

Hope you enjoyed this layout of my incredibly smart, handsome grandson!! We are so very proud of him! Looking forward to celebrating with him next weekend.

Walkway of Lights - Two Page Christmas Scrapbook Layout

Are you enjoying your family traditions this Christmas season? Our Christmas has been quite a bit different this year, but we are trying to continue on with the traditions. I'm not sure if and when we can make this one happen this year.

Many cities have this, but we love the Walkway of Lights in Marion, Indiana. It's a bit of a drive, but we sing Christmas carols with the kiddos on the way, and usually stop for Happy Meals. 

Want to know a secret? I do not enjoy scrapping our Christmas photos! I'm sorry, but it is so true. I don't mind scrapping the traditions so much, but the actual family gatherings opening photos....Ugh! but I do it anyway!! I do tend to take a simpler approach to my Christmas related layouts. This one is definitely simple, but I love the colors, and I'm happy with it and it makes me smile! That's all that matters here.

I love the non-traditional aqua paper and always try to use my scraps like I did for the strip along the bottom. I typically matt each photo, because I love that look and in my mind it kicks the layout up a notch. The title was done by mixing some pieces of titles in Design Space together. That's my favorite thing to do. I cut a few snowflakes and placed them around the page, both on, off, and overlapping the pics. The fancy ribbon on the journaling tag adds a bit of sparkle to draw the attention to the story behind the photos. I could have added some bling to the snowflakes, but really like the simplicity of this as it is.

Hope you are enjoying the countdown to our celebration of Christ's birth!