Scrapbooking and I have a long history, mostly because I find it fun and a little relaxing. I also really like taking photos, so it gives me something to do with ‘all those pictures’. Up until Jake was born I did the old fashioned, as I call it, style of scrapping. It included either 12×12 or 8×8 inch photo albums, lots of paper, stamps and stickers. It was usually stuck in a never ending ‘catch up’ condition that took me much more time than I really wanted to spend on it. Yes, I love scrapping, but I didn’t love spending a week on getting a few months memories done.
Enter: Project Life. My super good friend told me about it, but I was skeptical. I didn’t like the idea of someone else ‘designing’ the layouts of my pages. Then said friend came over for a scrapbook day and I became hooked. It was so easy to pop in the photos, add some cards and be done. Plus, the journal cards really forced me (in the best way) to add more captions and texts to my pages, something I rarely did with the old scrapbooking.
Pretty soon I became an addict, with the 3×4 punch, the corner rounding tool, more core kits than I care to admit and very few other accessories except stickers. LOVE the stickers. I started Jake’s first photo album with Project Life, and I love it. The week by week format makes it easy to keep up (and quickly) and his first year is extremely well documented, perhaps too much so? No such thing!
However, I missed the old fashioned cutting and layering on my pages, and now that I don’t work I have trouble justifying buying embellishments online that may or may not be what I really thought I wanted. So for our second Jake/Family photo album I decided this would change, but how was another story. I spent some time on Pinterest and some sleepless nights (I don’t lose sleep over scrapping, it usually is my son and those stinky molars!) thinking about what the ideal layouts would include and how I could make that happen. One night at 3am it hit me: cookie cutters! Jake and I (mostly just I) had made Halloween cookies that day and I decided I would use cookie cutters for patterns/stencils the next time I scrapped and just see what happened.
Here are my Halloween cookie cutters, from the box of 101 cookie cutters. Yes, that is a lot. But could be really useful if my plan is a success.
Here is my background paper (12×12 inches) with the photos I wanted to use on the page. I cut them using the 3×4 inch punch from Project Life, then trimmed a little on the sides so they fit with space between them.
I added the brown strips to the top and bottom to ‘anchor’ my photos, then used the pumpkin cookie cutters on different colored paper (including a Project Life card! Sneaky!) To achieve that embellished, layered look I wanted.
The next page was a focus on my handsome little penguin. I had seen people use sequins in holiday books, and I found a bag of Halloween confetti I wanted to use. So I purchased the Project Life fuse tool (at 40% off!) and tried it. Again, I used the pumpkin cookie cutters and stencils, first on a flat piece of black paper as the back drop, then for the pocket that would hold the confetti.
I am pretty pleased with the outcome, and even happier that it didn’t seem to take a lot longer to complete my layouts than if I had done only Project Life cards. In hind sight, testing the fuse tool would have been a clever idea, but that isn’t really my style. Tomorrow I expect my Ali Edwards December Daily Kit to arrive in the mail, and while I am very excited about that, I am also really excited to use my Christmas cookie cutters as well!
I would love to hear what other people do for their layouts, including where you purchase from locally! I used to LOVE Scraps, but have not found a good replacement since they closed.
