London Anniversary

Does your journaling ever hamper your design? Let’s say you make a page, you love the look and then you have to figure out where to put the journaling. And everything you come up with just doesn’t look right?? OR, you make a page, know you’re journaling is going to go just here, then you start writing and the words pour out of you and suddenly that spot is no longer adequate to hold all of your thoughts? This doesn’t happen to me too often. I think the weakest point of my scrapbook game is my journaling. But when either of these scenarios happen, I have a trick I turn to time and again.

I write as much or as little journaling as I want. Typically typing it out and printing on plain cardstock. Then I make a pocket for it on the back of my page. It’s super quick and simple! Here’s an older page that I used this technique on: Hello There

For this page, I had a lot to say about my 10 year anniversary with the city of London. Enough to fill an entire 8 1/2 x 11 sheet. But there was no way it was going to look pretty anywhere on my nearly completed page. Which is why I opted to add a tab to the top of the sheet and make a pocket on the back of my page!

The layout is based off a sketch from the Simple Scrapper membership (Sketch No. 293 for all of my SS ladies!) I loved all of the March 2016 sketches so much! I made two pages using them, this and the Adult Today layout I shared at the beginning of the month.

I loved that the sketch called for blocks of patterned paper, my favorite scrapbook supply! These are three sheets from way deep in my stash: 7 Gypsies (top), October Afternoon (middle) and Basic Grey (bottom).

I could have put this design on a white sheet of cardstock and would have been totally happy. But I thought I’d switch it up and instead used this bluish gray. After all, London is typically pretty gray. I think it makes the photos and the paper pop more.

Red was my accent color. But I used it sparingly. It was at the top of that 3x4 journaling card (by Ali Edwards) so I matted it behind my photo. Then I stamped a red bus and added two triangle enamel shapes.

Aside from the overall design and the photos and the story, I think my most favorite part of this page is the tiny timeline I included as the “journaling”. It’s such a great way to show a relationship over time!

cheers & besos,