Happy Scrappy New Year! See What's Coming!

Happy 2014!  I hope that this year brings you many wonderful memories that will fill your scrapbooks to overflowing!

The last couple weeks, I have been busy planning what the "Living a Crafting Life" blog will include for the new year. Here is what you can expect:

• Learn how to easily incorporate Faith and more of Yourself into your scrapbooking;
• Begin card making with simple, fast and cute cards from your scrapbooking supplies;
• Be inspired by many project ideas with current and "throwback" paper designs and kits;
• Have fun with unique scrapbooking challenges and techniques;
• Find shopping links to items showcased on the blog if you want to add to your stash; 
• Enjoy FREE video tutorials, sketches and printables;
• Benefit from more fun, subscriber only freebies and prizes!

So have you subscribed here yet?  Do so today so that you don't miss the exciting announcements coming later this week! (It includes the word "FREE!")  

Use the social media links on the top of the right bar of this blog to find me on Instagram, YouTube and Twitter.  Let's stay in touch and have some scrappy fun together!

Scrapbook Process: Learning to Trust Your Scrapbook Style

Do you have a certain style, a "go-to" that you seem to repeat in your scrapbook pages?  I do. Even though I try various styles and use different sketches to help me change things up a bit and to expand my art and knowledge of this craft, I tend to lean toward the balanced, classic and clean style of scrapbooking. Maybe it's because of all those years on the yearbook team in high school!  Even when I will follow a sketch, my chosen result, especially if I want to do more journalling, will become a simple style for a two page layout.  Here is what I mean:

This was a sketch for a the current challenge over at The Memory Nest:



And here is the two page layout that came from this sketch:

No mixture of patterned paper or embellishments like on the sketch, but you can see a couple elements that inspired me.  This project was finished with a paper kit that had great paper choices, but no embellishments.  The paper was two-sided, with decorative designs on one side, solid on the other.  From this photo, you can see that I chose two different backgrounds, but mirrored the same dark blue strip on each page, in addition to the red across the bottom that continues to bring the two pages together.

Although these pages are not fancy, and there aren't any embellishments to speak of, I am happy with how this turned out.  These pages are telling a story, so in this case, I don't want extra items to take away from what I want to say.

To make meaningful scrapbook pages, remember: It is definitely okay to use a basic style for your pages. You don't have to be an artist, spend lots of money for embellishments or incorporate all kinds of techniques to get a wonderful result.  Go with what you know and do with what is most comfortable. When my youngest son looks at this layout someday, I want him to enjoy looking at the many photos and reading my memories of that day, and not necessarily  how I incorporated color and style together.

Here are close ups of each page:

So if you feel pressured to finish fancy pages that you see in the magazines or on the blogs, don't.  Take inspiration from it, but it is more important to get it nicely scrapped so that your family will have those memories.

If you want to know more about the sketch challenge I completed, be sure to visit the The Memory Nest's Sketch Challenge.