Scrapbook Layout: Wedding Weekend in Atlanta

The Story: I was asked to be a bridesmaid in a very dear friend’s wedding.  Mr. P and I flew to Atlanta for a weekend’s worth of wedding activities.  It was my first time being in a wedding!  Other than my own, of course.

Three Pages, Could Have Been Six:  I originally planned one page per event in the wedding.  I went to a bridesmaids lunch, rehearsal, rehearsal dinner, the wedding, reception, after parties every night, plus seeing a bit of Atlanta.  I stepped outside of the box here and mixed everything together.  I realized that it wasn’t my wedding so I didn’t have to break it down into ever detail, nor did I have to use every piece of ephemera I saved.

Different Sizes, Black and White: I mixed photo sizes and mixed color and black and white photos.  It could have been a hot mess but actually ended up pretty cohesive looking!

Headline on Photo:  This was a new design challenge and I love the clean modern look of how it turned out.

Photos of Important Keepsakes: Remember, when you can’t put something in a scrapbook, take a picture of it.  The bride had handpainted fans made in China for the wedding guests.  She also bought each of us bridesmaids a pearl set from her friend’s shop in China (she’d take Mr. P and I to that very shop five years later).  The mother of the bride also gave each of us a handkerchief to carry with our bouquets.  Before working on the page, I put the pearls, the handkerchief, and the fan together and took a picture.

Fonts: Nevis, Century Gothic | Tools: Epson Stylus R2000 (photos) | Supplies: Pioneer SJ-100 Jumbo Scrapbook (scrapbook & pages), Epson Semigloss Photo Paper (photos), Fancy Pants Designs/All My Heart (patterned paper)  | Ephemera Included: Wedding invitation, wedding program, rehearsal dinner invitation, transit card, boarding pass, room key, brochure.

Scrapbook Layout: High School Graduation

The Story: My little sister’s high school graduation.  Boy did it rain that day!  I made sure to note it in the handwriting up the side of the page.

Christmas colors!: My high school colors are red and green, which meant I got to use the paper I normally reserve for Christmas layouts.  Having those school colors was totally awesome and festive.

Negative Space: I want to use negative space more and did here with the headline.  I like how it fits very neatly with the page.

Rounded Photo Corners: I’m playing around with the best way to do this.  The photo corners here are not rounded.  Rather, I cut a piece of white cardstock with the silhouette and stuck it on top of the photos to give them a rounded effect.

The Invitation Opens: I like it when my pages are interactive.  The invitation opens all the way and can be read.

Font: Lobster | Tools: Epson Stylus R2000 (photos), Silhouette SD (headline) | Supplies: American Crafts/Holllyday/Merry Dimples (patterned paper) | Ephemera Included: Graduation invitation.

Scrapook Layout: Nurse Pinning Ceremony

This super duper simple layout is from my sister’s first nurse pinning ceremony.

I actually had the invitation and a copy of the program.  I thought about it for a long time and decided to pick one thing.  Yes, including keepsakes is my priority but it doesn’t mean I have to glue down every last thing I save.

I included a small single photo.  My pictures from this event were few and they were not good.  The event was in a dark theater and it was many moons 3 or 4 cameras ago (can’t remember exactly).

I added a headline and then hand wrote my thoughts on the day and my sister’s achievement.

I know, we’re rocketing back and forth from layouts chock full of stuff to painfully simple!

Font: Lavanderia | Tools: Silhouette SD (headlines), Epson Stylus R2000 (photo)

Wedding Scrapbook: Invitation Layouts

3, count ’em, three pages for my wedding invitations.

Seem like overkill?  I don’t think so.  I was determined to find a place for each piece of our invitation.  That’s the entire point of having a wedding scrapbook as opposed to an album.

Yes, I could have tucked all the inserts inside the envelope on the first page.  But I worked hard on them and want people to look at them.  Plus, I don’t want them falling out years down the road and getting lost.

On the first page, I have the invitation itself with the inner envelope.  This is where I ran into the issue of needing pink shimmer stock: the title simply didn’t look right without it.

On the second page, I included the outer envelope showing the return address along with maps I made.  I used two copies of the map so I could show both sides.  I wrote up a little blurb about making our invitations and the fun we had getting response cards in the mail.

The third page takes a bit of explaining.  I kept all the response cards we received (I’m nerdy like that).  I wanted to include some of them, but who to choose?  I decided it would be nice to honor our grandparents.

I included their three response cards and backed them on patterned paper.  I took pictures of each of them walking down the aisle at our wedding and put them opposite their cards.

And just like that, I’m three layouts into the new section!

To find out about the papers I’m using for my wedding scrapbook, visit my post on the Wedding Scrapbook Paper Scheme.

To view all of my wedding scrapbook layouts, visit my wedding scrapbook page.

Scrapbook Layout: Wedding Scrapbook Rehearsal & Dinner Layouts

Alright folks, this is it for pre-wedding layouts.  I can’t believe it!

This section of my wedding scrapbook is finished off with our rehearsal and rehearsal dinner.  It was absolutely necessary to use a ton of photos, so I knitted a bunch of them together on an orange background.

Originally, I was going to put the rehearsal on one page and the dinner on the other.  Orderly.  Instead (so very unlike me) I mixed everything up because the rehearsal pictures all together would look sort of boring.

There is a ton going on here and I’ll point out some of the features.  First, a headline cut out with the Silhouette.  I decided to put it directly over the picture.  Trust me, it’s easier to read in person.

There are 2 separate blocks of text, one about the day in general and one about the gifts we gave to our wedding party and families.

Our invitation was a PDF (more on that later).  I shrank down the PDF to print 4 pages on one sheet:

Then I put it together into a little booklet like I did in this post.

Something else you may have noticed is the row of tiny black and white photos on the second page.  I used a bunch of black and white kid pictures of us for the rehearsal dinner (more on that project later) and decided to incorporate those into the layout.

Wrapping it all up, here is the finished product.  I’m happy with the nice mix of people, decorations, the gifts we gave and all the fun:

This page is part of my ongoing wedding scrapbook.  To see all the pages, visit my wedding scrapbook page.

Scrapbook Layout: Wedding Scrapbok Bridal Shower Layouts

Lots and lots of stuff to stuff on this page!  I’ve been saying that with pretty much every page, so I should be getting used to it by now.

The left page captures my “main” bridal shower that my sister-in-law was good enough to throw for me:

On the right page I captured two different work showers.  I alternated the headline on this page to make it less matchy.

My absolute favorite part of these layouts is what I did with the cards I received:

I picked my favorite cards and cut out squares.  Sometimes I used the front of the card if it was a pretty design, other times I cut out the message someone wrote.

All the cards, pictures and stories are backed in cardstock from my engagement paper scheme.

A second element unifying these pages is the large keepsakes on both pages.  On the left, I have the shower invitation.  On the right, I made an envelope to store cards my coworkers gave me with marital advice.

I made the envelope out of plain white paper and lined it with grey patterned paper (Bella Blvd Socialite – Tango), a sample I ordered when I was trying to pick the paper for the book.  Both the envelope and the liner were made using Paper Source Envelope Templates and Envelope Liner templates.

With this, I’m well over halfway through the engagement section of the scrapbook!

To see all of my wedding scrapbook pages finished to date, visit my wedding scrapbook page.

Scrapbook Layout: Graduation Title Page

Simple simple simple.

I took the printed invitation to my college graduation and gave it its own page.  This is a right-facing page, so this is sort of a title page and then there will be a graduation double page spread next.

I could have done something very intricate, but leaving it simple and unembellished is more powerful.

The font is Miama (free download here).  I printed and transferred it to the page using my makeshift carbon paper method.  I’m planning on taking the font and super simple look onto the next two pages to complete the graduation story.

Only 3 pages left to go!

Click here to see my other scrapbook layouts from my college scrapbook.

Scrapbook Layout: A Layout with Zig Zag Binding

This is a really picture-heavy event.  I had scrapbooked it two times already for previous years and it always took up 2 pages.  I wanted to do something different and try a vertical headline.  2 pages just wouldn’t seem to work.

This was one of those layouts I had to stare at for several days, waiting for the light bulb.

Enter Zig Zag Binding

Stumped, I was surfing around and saw this video tutorial by Elise on zig zag binding.  That’s it!  It was the perfect way to include more pictures in the layout without them being overwhelming.

Zig zag binding is very easy.  You use an accordion folded piece of paper as the base and then glue your pages to it.  The result is a cute booklet.

I had the program from this banquet, which was an 8.5×11″ piece of paper folded in half.  I attached it to my accordion-folded piece of paper and then added extra pages.  Looking at the page, you only see the program.  However, when you look through the program, it now has several pages of pictures behind it!

It went something like this:

Gluing the pages to the accordion and to each other (just watch the video and this will make sense).

Presto!

I won’t go into detail about how to do this because the video is pretty comprehensive.  Make sure to check it out!  It is super easy to do but there are a couple ways to go way wrong if you don’t cut the accordion correctly.

I will definitely use this method again, maybe on a smaller scale next time.  I can see  making a small photo flip book to go on a page highlighting something from that event.  What would you do with this technique?

Scrapbook Layout: Two Events, A Single Layout

Two separate events.  Both involve wearing pretty dresses.  Both involve celebrating the University’s birthday.  How about combining them into one 2-page layout?

My goals for these two pages were:

• Keep some “white space”
• Experiment with photo blocks
• Use one keepsake per page.