Enjoying Nature

Since marrying Jim and doubling the size of our family, my scrapbooks are bursting at the seams with layouts of the four kids and their activities, and Jim's hobbies. In addition to the music, state police, video games, reading and therapy layouts I have done for the boys, I have added wrestling, soccer, softball, college, drama, skiing and hiking layouts for the girls and hunting, ice fishing and golf layouts for Jim. I love how our family scrapbooks are exploding with so many diverse interests and hobbies.

The girls had done some hiking with their mom and shared these photos with me. I absolutely love it and consider it a privilege when the girls will hand me a flier, ticket stub, newspaper clipping, etc. and say it is for the scrapbooks. I love that they will indulge me in this passion and even share in it to some extent.

Shortly after we blended our families, Alyssia, who was only 11, asked me who would get the scrapbooks when I died. I told them they could do whatever they wanted with them, and apparently it has already been discussed and settled that the four kids will split the albums up and all take their own layouts and divide the rest. The boys will get the albums I've made for Dave and the girls will take the albums I made for Jim. I know it is a compliment that they would want the albums, but it did surprise me how quickly and efficiently this was decided. If only everything in life could be decided this

easily. . ..

I thoroughly enjoy getting to scrapbook the girls. The only downside is that it is more difficult for me to do the journaling because I am not always there to take the pictures and witness the event firsthand - especially when creating a layout of when they were younger. Sometimes I leave the journaling space blank and have them dictate to me what they would like it to say, and other times, as in the Enjoying Nature layout above, I keep it short and sweet.

Scrapbooking Tips:

I loved the smiles and beautiful scenery in these photos, and I didn't want to crop them down so I left them all 4x6. How I came up with the design for this layout is actually pretty unique. . . .

I have come to the conclusion that I have too much patterned paper. I have been going through my ample stash and cleaning out sheets of paper or whole collections that I have not used in years, or realistically know that I will never use. It's a long, tedious process and my goal is to drastically cut my stash down by the end of 2022.

While doing this, I stumbled on a few sheets I had left of Basic Grey's Green at Heart paper collection - stuff I had bought over 10 years ago! I had used most of it, but there were a few sheets and scraps left and this purple paper was too pretty not to use! I measured what I had and found an Allison Davis Sketch that worked with what I had. I measured very carefully when I went to cut my paper, and pieced together this layout. Even the embellishments worked with the topic of the girls enjoying nature.

Speaking of embellishments, I had a package of brads that had come in this collection. Brads are not my favorite embellishment - I tend to stay away from using anything metal. But in an attempt to use what I had, I created a visual triangle and actually poked a tiny pink brad through my photo.

I used bold white stickers because I wanted to the title to stand out against all the busy colors. I love these casual, loopy letters from Doodlebug Design. They add a whimsical touch to any layout.

It felt awesome using up my supplies and pushing myself to create a beautiful layout with what I had. It actually inspired me to go through my supplies and see what else I could use up!