Same-Month Scrapping

Working on a layout featuring photos taken within the same month...is that an even thinkable task with scrapbooking?! With the blossoming of Project Life style scrapping, i.e. daily, weekly, or monthly recapping of life's happenings, this idea is becoming more realistic. Add to this equation tiny printers that you can wirelessly send your photos to for instant printing, and you've got a recipe for some same month scrappin.

Well, I don't have a Project Life album per se, and I don't have a cool new Selphy printer, but I do have pictures, an album and I do have a printer! So even though the ink is running out in said printer, I did print off my fourth of July pictures and scrapped them within the same month. I'm pretty proud of this accomplishment.

I started with a series of photos of my family taken down at the beach as we waited for dusk to turn to night. My hunny is known for his dislike of the traditional family portrait taking session, but my mom's got an iPhone, so within the 30 or so pictures she snapped I found three that I really liked and wanted to have all on the one page. You can tell when looking at the photos that I was trained to hold my picture smile! 'Cause I am like the wax statue that my family is posing around lol.

This year I've been working really hard towards reaching for my not-favorite items. Not that I don't love all my products, but there are definitely some with dust accumulating on their edges. Instead of patterned cardstock, I got into my patterned paper (probably purchased over a decade ago) and chose an unlikely sheet of a snow covered treescape. It reminded me of that grey light that our eyes see as the sun sets. Next I pulled that striped sheet from a gifted paper pack which includes the die cut letters you see in my title.

When I have trouble getting my die cuts to pull cleanly from their background, I simply cut around the letter for a fun and funky new look, and then pull up the edges on the letters for a bit of dimension. This saves me a lot of frustration (and wasted letters)! Plus, on this layout especially, it can lend my alpha a bit of visual weight it may be lacking.

Under my title I added some scraps as banners. Some banners got their edges inked for more depth, and I even cut the lighthouse from Graphic 45's By the Sea collection and turned it to create a nautical flag as well. There are so many different reds in the picture itself that I didn't worry about matching, and tried to use bright, dull, and everything in between shades without fear. The same idea was in mind for the many blues, and it seems to have translated well. Rub on stitching and Queen & Co.'s star shaped rhinestones helped to emphasize our Fourth of July fun.
It doesn't show much in the photo above, but I got really creative with some washi tape fireworks as well. I'll be sure to post an additional entry with my completed left page and a close up of what I think are some of the coolest fireworks amongst my album to date. Thanks for reading today, and don't forget to comment for a chance to win either a die cut or a scrapbook page designed just for you in my Scrapbook Expo contest going through the end of the month.