Letting Go

Something finally just clicked in my scrappy brain today. It's something that's talked about widely in scrapping circles but not really anything I'd actually thought about in my own personal pages. And that is the entire concept of letting go and just going for it! I've heard it talked about so much but really only got it today.

I feel like I've been putting a lot of pressure on myself lately, which photos to scrap, what products to use, some prescribed idea of what I want my pages to look like, deadlines, minis...ahh! It's been stressing me out and making me not want to scrapbook. Which is so not how I want things to be! I love scrapbooking and I want to enjoy doing it.

So that's the attitude I had, when I approached 2 of these 3 layouts. [I'll let you ponder which one I felt "forced" to do] I just did what I wanted and what I thought was the most appropriate to the photo. I didn't look for any inspiration anywhere, I just sat down and played. And man did it feel good!

Fruity Drinks

What I remember most about Cabbages and Condoms (and if you visit Thailand you have to go!) is the lovely glowing atmosphere and the awesome plaid table cloths. I so love plaid and had the perfect paper to go with this photo. Every single piece of of Basic Grey's June Bug line is beyond drooling gorgeous! And for this layout, I used two pieces of it, the plaid background and the flowers. I also painted! Love this technique and I'm happy that I went with white ink instead of black.

Birthday Brunch

The class prompt for this month's edition of Patterned Paper Every Which Way, one of 2Ps year long classes, was to use your punches. So I went to town with some patterned paper scraps and nearly all of my border punches. The only other element to this page is all of my handwritten journaling. It doesn't really match the photo, but I kind of like that. I guess I'm taking a page out of Stephanie Howell's book.

Trekking

This photo is very near and dear to my heart. I love elephants! And getting to spend some time with this one was amazing. Moni and I nicknamed him Mr. Narwhal. Cruising around in the jungles somewhere in the vicinity of Chiang Mai, Thailand, the scenery was so lush and green! I had to use some green patterned paper, another of Basic Grey's June Bug line. I cut the flowers with my Slice and layered them to resemble the flowers in the paper.

So there you have some of my latest and greatest. Lots of color, only one photo, and three complete pages. A very good scrapping day :)

xxbesos

j.leija