I’ve been heavy on the digital side of scrapbooking these days and besides making minibooks, haven’t really created an old fashioned paper page in a while. One my issues is the want to use bulky items that would obviously not work for putting in a scrapbook album. Also, after moving to Italy things changed drastically because I don’t have access to many scrapbooking products. Although I still love playing with new products, I’m also relieved that I can’t buy as much as I could before. It makes me get more creative and even more importantly – focus less on the cute and stylish products and more on my scrapbooking memory. I have also learned so much from my membership to the Paperclipping videos, helping me understand the design principles in scrapbooking instead of focusing on specific products. As part of the Paperclipping Festival Event – sort of blog hop coming up soon – I wanted to create something to show what I’ve learned and participate with the community. I decided to change up the rules a bit and create a scrapbook page in a frame. The shadow box format allows me to bulk up the page as much as I want. It was so liberating to give myself the permission to create without the worries of archival materials, staying inside the page or limiting my layers.
My idea was to mix a grungy and loose style with the classic, rustic feel of a Tuscan lifestyle. It’s when things look sort of casual, but still so put together and detailed at the same time…European chic perhaps? So I started my page with a piece of cardstock inked up with yellow, green and brown colors – drawing from the warm colors of the photo of me and my husband. The colors gives the background a bit of texture as well as creating a horizon line, anchoring the whole page. I added a piece of white veil material for more texture then layered journaling tag shapes, corrugated cardboard and my photo together as the focal point. Then there’s the big white flower embellishment, with little bits around it to form the grouping. I included my favorite pasta shape – cellentani - to mimic the swirls of the flower along with a piece of cork and twine embellishment. These are everyday items from our Italian home – both evoking the memory of good food and drink we enjoy so much here in Italy. In the upper right hand corner you can actually see a bit of my reflection in the tag while taking the photo! It’s a golden tag recycled from a clothing purchase – I even use the original ribbon, adding a heart brad to finish it off. The last item I stuck on was the title “italia.” It’s handcut from a piece of brown cardstock, with white acrylic paint on the edges and then heat embossed with sparkly clear powder. You can see more close-ups of various spots of the page below.
Throughout the entire process I used a lot of principles I learned from Paperclipping videos. Episode 144-How to Mix Styles and episode 142-Scrapbooking With Everyday Items both come to mind, just to name a few. More than anything, I really enjoyed the process of creating with freedom, letting myself go and having fun while reminiscing a great memory. The photo was taken during a day trip to San Gimignano and we do these day trips quite often actually. It’s something I love so much about living here in Italy. There’s always something to explore, something new to see and so much story and history in everything around us. I soon realized that Italy just changed my perspective on life. I’m sure it was a combination of many life changes, but now I see all the visual delights around me and have learned to indulge in the senses…really enjoying your life to the fullest. When I look at this page that is what I will remember…the magic of this land we call “italia” that changed my life and our life together.
Posted on June 16, 2010 at 6:21 pm | Showcase, scrapbooking | 8 comments
