Day 21 – Whoops!

If you’ve been following along with my blog while we explore LOAD 514, you may have noted a wide range of styles and embellishments.  I’ve done a few pages with a lot of bling, flowers, or other embellishments, but I’ve done quite a few with almost no embellishments at all, too.  I know that one of the trends is to use a lot of different embellishments all stacked up in clusters, but for me, that style doesn’t always work.  I like my embellishments to have a purpose.  I feel like they should be a part of the story, not just something pretty to look at.  

Today’s “Whoops” page has almost no embellishments at all, and I don't think it really needs any.  The paper, the title, and the “splash” of bling all help accentuate the story of how I got my phone wet.  And since the focus of the story was the phone, I decided the best way to use this out-of-focus photo was to give it a little perspective and pop it up.

I popped up the phone in the photo by printing a second copy of the photo,
cutting it out, and adhering it over the original photo with foam squares.
To give it perspective, I only put the foam under the top 3 corners, and I
tucked the bottom corner into a slit in the photo underneath.

What is your embellishment style?  Are you the “many embellishments of all kinds” type, the “barely any embellishments at all” type, or something in between?

Day 16 – BBQ Time Out

Our prompt for today, “Time Out”, was supposed to be about punishment, but I had these pictures that  were the next page in sequence for my son’s Texas A&M album, and I just couldn’t resist.  The patterned paper was so busy, I just couldn’t make myself put a bunch of embellishments on it.  I thought about trying to find some good die cuts on one of my Cricut cartridges while I was cutting out my title (From My Kitchen cartridge), but I couldn’t find anything that really fit.  Let’s just call this page simple and move on.  I’ve stated before…not every page has to be a beautiful masterpiece.  It’s better to have a plain but finished page than to have a really good idea for a page that never gets done.

Day 12 – Seeds of the Future

For my “Seeds of the Future” layout, I couldn’t resist digging out these pictures of my son, Steven playing on the computer when he was little.  He’s such a little game-nerd – he will hole up in his room and play for hours if I let him – especially now that he’s in college and can decide for himself how to spend his time.

There’s been a trend in recent years of doing pages with a lot of small, layered or clustered embellishments.  I really like that look, but get stumped when it’s time to create one of my own.  I think mostly that stems from having a hard time finding embellishments that I think fit.  I see a lot of pages that use things like tickets, bingo cards and other embellishments that are completely unrelated to the subject of the page.  They look really cute, but I just can't make myself do it...at least, not yet.

For this page, I scoured my supplies to find a few fun little elements, but not nearly enough (in my opinion), to create that layered look, so instead of stacking them in clusters, I scattered them like confetti.

If you like using lots of little embellishments, too, you should check out some of the examples and tips on this blog:

http://debbiehodge.com/2012/09/5-liftable-ideas-scrapbook-page-by-leah-farquharson/

http://debbiehodge.com/2012/10/fabulous-embellishment-clusters/

Thrifty Thursday

Sometimes I come across a thrifty idea for budget-minded scrappers like me, so I thought I might start up a “Thrifty Thursday” post now and then.  This week, I stumbled across an unusual place to purchase “bling”…the grocery store!

Yep, you read that right, I bought bling for my scrapbooks at the grocery store.  What I actually found was this cute Halloween pumpkin decoration.  Priced at just $3.99, it’s a lot cheaper than anything equivalent I could get at a local craft or hobby store. 

This got me to thinking…maybe there are some hidden scrapbooking gems in the Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Valentine’s Day decorations, too!

Do you have an idea for Thrifty Thursday?  Send me an email at Thrifty@craftyneighbor.com.  If your tip is used on my blog, I’ll reach into my prize vault and send you a little goodie.