Moriah's December page and extra

Just one last page to share from the girl's 2015 albums, it's Moriah's December spread.

It always feels a bit strange sharing Christmas layouts long after the holiday has been celebrated, but there's still something magic about the combination of bright green and red and gold isn't there?

I was very good this last Christmas season and didn't buy anything new for myself. I am lucky though, I still received new season products, but they were either from DT arrangements or products I happened to win. So I mixed in these new things with my old Christmas stash and it breathes fresh life into all of it.

The red and mint and gold sparkled stuff is Stampin' Up Hello December collection whilst most of the rest of it comes from Studio Calico kits from Christmasses past :-)
And that hand-drawn tree that Moriah did? It's my absolute favourite!!

As a little bonus page for the album I included our traditional end-of-year family photo very simply paired with a paper from the Studio Calico Pop Art kit. Simply but creates an impact, and was the best way to round off the album.

Now that I've finished off those albums, I really should be thinking about starting the 2016 ones right?!!

Moriah's August and September pages

In an effort to actually share everything and get up to date I'm going to try and speed through some of the pages I haven't yet put up on my blog yet.

Moriah's August page was very school-focused and the bright bold colours of the Studio Calico Pop Art Project Life kit suited it well. Even those rubber lemons... which really don't have anything to do with the page... at least the colour matched perfectly!

I don't know about you, but I found that so many of my photos of the girls seemed to be when they were dressed in their school uniforms which doesn't particularly make for an attractive page, but I guess at least it was consistent. No pinks and aquas on this page!

So it was a good thing I could get back to my favourite colour scheme for her September page then. I feel much happier in my comfort zone ;-)

Still lots of school photos, but this time I balanced out that horrible orange with plenty of white so it didn't seem quite so overwhelming. And the floral pinks of the Brimfield Project Life kit were much more my style.

This was obviously the month of dress-ups for Moriah as she had four different events she needed costumes for in September. I know you can only count three photos here, but when I couldn't fit the fourth one onto this page I stuck it on a separate little insert on the page opposite. You'll just have to take my word for it. 

So not only were the colours in Brimfield more my style, but the 'Costume Party' and 'Story Time' cards were just perfect for the occasion too! Love it when that happens!

Jot Issue 12

Along with all my Christmas projects that appeared in the latest issue of Jot Magazine (see my last blog post) I also had a couple of other non-themed projects featured including this double-page Project Life spread.

I do as many double-page PL spreads as I do double-page layouts, which is to say... not a lot ;-) I have to admit I cheated a little by making them 9x12" pages so that I didn't have quite as many pockets to fill, and I made sure I picked a subject where I had a tonne of photos to include. A weekend trip away with the family to Phillip Island was perfect because we packed SO many adventures into those two days it was ridiculous!

I essentially broke our trip down into 5 different activities that I had photographed, and I included 2 photos from each making sure I had all the family members covered. I numbered them accordingly and used that same number when I wrote out my corresponding journaling. I hope it still makes sense to me later on down the track!

Because all the pockets are a square 3x3" I had to trim down my traditional cards to make them fit, but as a bonus, the Studio Calico Pop Art Project Life Kit had a set of 3x3" die cuts which are the circle and heart shaped cards you see. I've included this spread straight into my regular 12x12" album and I'm really enjoying the variety this one brings.

One of my favourite galleries in every issue of Jot has to be the story-telling one. I'm pretty sure I've submitted a layout for this gallery every single time because you know me - I've always got a long story to share!

In this issue the theme was "When I Grow Up" and I had the perfect photo to scrap since Moriah had also recently had this same theme as a dress-up party at school. What was even better was that whole event actually HAD a story to be told (which you can read about if you can be bothered getting up close with my journaling!) which was above and beyond what my normal caption would have been like for a photo such as this.

I'm not scrapping a lot of layouts these days so when I do I find it a good opportunity to pull out some of my old supplies and mix and match different things. But actually what I decided to do this time was go a little hybrid and use a painting that Moriah had done for the background paper. It seemed quite appropriate. I scanned it into the computer and dropped down the opacity before printing it back onto some card. Now I feel like I've achieved something even greater with this layout - a good story and some kid-art recorded in the same place!

You can see these layouts and all the other fabulous inspiration in the pages of the FREE online issue of Jot Magazine right here. Happy reading!