Gifts for the Girls

At the last minute I decided to throw together a couple of scrapbooks for the girls as Christmas gifts.   Arielle has been doing some dancing at college this year.   She’s part of the Martini Dancers…a swing group.  They performed at the Christmas Convocation and it was awesome to watch one of my girls dance onstage again.  I thought those days were over.  I guess it’s more fun at this age than it was when they were 5!  She’s also been clogging but of course I forgot about that when I put the book together and didn’t make any reference to it.  Oh well, that’s what those extra journaling pages are for!  Her favorite color is red so I incorporated it with the black and white from the stickers.  I think she liked it!

You might notice that on the Martini Dancers page the word “dancers” is a combo of different fonts.  The letters are all red and glittery but the fonts include upper and lower case as well as a variety in font styles and sizes.  Not only does this prevent boredom from creeping in…it’s also a great way to use up your letters.  If you’re like me, the vowels are always the first thing to go, especially the As and Es…so it helps if you can mix it up a bit.

Ceara’s book is SO typical of her right now.  She’s definitely into black and purple with zebra and leopard prints!  Her dorm room is flooded with the stuff!  She’s also ALL about her friends and hanging out with them.   I can barely get her to pose for a picture but there seems to be no shortage of pictures of her with her roommates and other friends. 

I haven’t been using my Cricut much to make letters for the paper bag books but I like the way this turned out.  The purple letters with the white borders were cut with the Cricut and then raised with foam spacers.  I’m loving foam these days.  The white letters are also out of foam.  I love the 3D effect.  That was part of the reason I got away from using letters cut from my Cricut.  I didn’t like the flat look but add a few spacers (pop dots…whatever you call them!) and oh so much better!  

Another thing I’ve been trying to do more of lately is mix unusual patterns and colors.  I used to be all about the matchy-matchy, but not anymore. For example, a year ago I probably would not have put together the leopard print and the zebra print in the same book…let alone add purple to the browns of the leopard paper.  But I think it works fine.   It makes the purple pop (the colors are a little more vivid in real life than what they show up like on here.  Don’t even get me started on issues with my camera!).  Anyway…I’m less concerned these days if the printed paper and cardstock match perfectly or if I’m putting together too many prints.  There’s got to be some contrast or it’s just not interesting visually.  Besides not every single item in the photo is going to match the page exactly.  AND…scrapbooking should be fun…not stressful!