Milestone: My First 8.5 x 11 Scrapbook Layout

I've had "make scrapbook layouts" on my list of goals and dreams for a while. Obviously I'm doing it with Project Life, but I wanted to challenge myself to make "real layouts" that start with an empty sheet of paper and don't have the convenient constraints of all those little pockets to fill.

I've been intimidated by that concept and unable to get started. Finally yesterday, when T was on her first-ever "sleepover" with my parents, I decided to Just.Do.It.  I grabbed Cathy Zielske's most excellent book Clean and Simple Designs for Scrapbooking and started to read. The book is 9 years old, so some of the papers and embellishments look a little dated, but overall her design is so clean and classic that I knew they'd translate well to current papers and color schemes that are my style.

Click any photo to see a larger version.

Here's the design I "scraplifted":

Cathy Zielske, Clean and Simple Scrapbooking, p 37

Here's mine:

My first 8.5x11 layout!

Details.

It's obviously a copy of the original design, but I love how it looks updated and more my style, with colorful patterned papers (Amy Tangerine Yes, Please and Sketchbook 6x6 pads) and color photos all taken on my phone.  The squares are 2x2 inches, which is small enough to make a nice grid, but large enough to *see* the photos and add some journaling.  I didn't use the slide mount "pockets" as she used, and just arranged the photos on the page directly. I added a date stamp to the bottom.  I started with the heavy white woodgrain embossed cardstock I've been hoarding - that stuff is truly lovely.

The title block is up on thick foam dots, higher than the ones I used for a few of the grid squares.  The letter stickers are from Kelley Purkey's collection at Simon Says Stamp and the enamel dot is from the super-cheap-on-sale Kathy Davis packs at Jo-Ann Fabric and Crafts.  I had to restrain myself from using a ton of little sparkly things and stamps - I wanted to retain the clean look of the original.

On a side note, if you have any tips on getting tiny letter stickers straight, I'd love to hear them.  I used a ruler, and they're STILL not perfect.

I usually HATE journaling in the second person ("you") like you're writing a letter to your kid, but I couldn't figure out what else to do on this spread.  Using third person ("she") seemed too impersonal, and using first person from T's point of view ("I") seemed cheesy and contrived.

While I adore the look of computer journaling, it would have taken way too long to format, print, cut and paste it here. It's also important to me to have my handwriting on my layouts somewhere - I think that makes it more personal and "handmade"-looking. I know, this is just my own quirk and laziness mixed in and that's why Cathy Z is a professional and I'm just copying her work :)

But this was REALLY fun to work on.  Once I got past the block of the blank page and just decided to lift someone else's design, I felt free to make changes to "make it my own".  Baby steps, I guess!

Now I can't wait to make more.