Day 5 – Real Life Starts at ____

Wow!  There are some days when the prompt is so LOADed that I don’t even know where to begin.  When I think of this prompt, I think about moving out on my own for the first time with my new husband.  Then I think about sending my kids off to college to begin their own adult lives.  I even think about how turning 40 (and coming soon, 50) has changed my perspective on being authentic to myself and how my real life is just beginning.  Too much to think about...so for this page, I opted to dip back into the college project box.  This time, I did a page about visiting my son at college and rescuing him from dorm life.  Is it a “real life starts at ___” page?  Not really, but then, which is real and which is not?  Moving away to college and being on your own, the dorm life of a cadet, or stepping off campus with Mom to eat some good food and feel normal again?

I think I found this paper at Hobby Lobby, or maybe it was Michaels – I’m not really sure.  One of the challenges I’ve had working on Steven’s college album is finding paper that works.  His school colors are maroon and white, and when I first started on this album, I used a lot of packaged school-themed paper licensed by the university.  Boy did that get old fast.  But I wanted to keep everything in that color theme as much as possible, so I started hunting for other kinds of maroon paper.  Believe me when I say there are days that I wonder if it is all worth it.  Maroon has to be the hardest color of paper to find anywhere.  It just doesn’t exist!  There is crimson, and there is purplish wine, but hardly anyone has any paper that is maroon.  So whenever I find any, I buy it all up!   This paper is closer to crimson, but since I didn’t use a lot of maroon embellishments or cardstock, it works just fine.  Once it’s in the album, it fits perfectly well with the theme. 

Some tips for finding paper that might work in your themed albums:

• Check your local scrapbook store as well as the big chain stores.
• Don’t look only at the section for that specific color – look through all the colors.  Sometimes you will find paper in another section that has enough of your target color to make it worth using
• Don’t tie yourself down to being matchy-matchy.  Just because the color is not exact doesn’t mean you can’t use it.  Just use it sparingly and be careful to avoid using two different variations of the color on the same page in case they clash.
• Buy combo packs.  Sometimes manufacturers will have a whole line that features your target color.  For instance, Stampin’ Up might have a designer paper series that uses Tangerine Tango with a lot of other colors or Basic Grey might have a pack with the same orange color.  Stocking up on packs like that will stretch your options because you can mix and match and still be on-theme.
• Check out scrapbookcustoms.com an online retailer that specializes in custom paper for schools and other organizations.  They also have a full line of generic paper in just about every color under the sun, so check out the Color Essentials section to see if your color is there.