April Crate Paper Guest Designer :: Melissa Stinson

I'm a 32 year old software engineer married to a full-time graduate student (and med school hopeful). We don't have kids, so my scrapbooks are filled with photos of our everyday (and not so everyday) adventures. We love to travel when our work and school schedules line up to allow it, and when we're at home we're always into something (the current project is DIY'ing a new kitchen from the floor, up). I love documenting all of those things in my albums and having them to look back on. It's amazing how many things my scrapbooks remind of that I would have otherwise forgotten!

I never know what to call my style and usually just settle for "simple and eclectic". I like lots of white space (though often that space isn't quite so white as I love using patterned paper backgrounds), just one or a few small photos blocked together on a page, and lots of little bits like die-cuts, stamped images, tags and other tiny pieces that I can layer up.

For further enabling of all things scrapbook worthy, visit my blog, The Scrappy Jedi.

I was so excited when I opened my box of Crate Paper goodies and saw that the Maggie Holmes mini album had been included! I love the look of a mini album with mixed size pages, but I can never quite seem to get the look right on my own. This kit makes it so easy!!

I wanted this album to have a "field guide" feel to it - as if it had been collected from odds and ends over lots of time (kind of like Indy's father's notebook in Raiders of the Lost Ark), so I let myself go crazy with the layering and really filled it up!

I always work on mini album pages in batches, doing the same step to each page before continuing to the next. It helps keep it balanced from beginning to end, just in case my creativity fizzles out as I get to the later pages. For this album, I started by choosing photos and arranging them, and then I went back to add journaling. All of the photos and words are from a blog post I wrote last Spring at the end of Cherry Blossom season (my favorite time of the year!), and I simply copied the text of the post into a word processor, printed it out, and then cut it into strips. After all of that was in place, I added a couple of rounds of embellishment to each page and called it done!

I admit that I developed a slight obsession with the gold glitter Thickers in the Maggie Holmes collection while working on these projects - I ended up using them on every single one! This page about my husband grilling in our backyard proves just how versatile they are - they went from a frilly mini album about flowers to a more masculine page (with the DIY Shop collection) without missing a beat!

Before this layout, I hadn't made a two-page layout in years, but with so many requests for them popping up on message boards these days, I thought I'd give it a try. I didn't have much of a plan going in - I simply pulled a bunch of photos from one of our trips to the Tennessee Aquarium out of my photo binders and sort of pushed them around the page until I liked the arrangement. After that, I layered just a few little bits here and there, but with so many photos on the page, I didn't want to include too much. I really wanted this layout to still reflect my style, though, so I still included two clusters of embellishments and some little strips of paper and washi along the sides to finish it off.

I put together this Project Life layout after completing the Cherry Blossom mini album by simply using the scraps and leftover bits that were on my desk (with just a few pieces of paper from the 6" x 6" pad added for good measure). Some people make cards with their leftover scraps, but since I'm probably the world's worst card maker, I just do a Project Life layout instead! :)

Crate Paper would like to kindly thank Melissa for guesting with us, and for instilling much love and effort while creating this outstanding array of projects. We think her scrapbook style is positively perfect with it's well thought out applications and random details - it's a striking balance that only Melissa can muster up and for that, we're truly grateful! THANK-YOU, Melissa!!

Comments

great job! Love your background choices. You are not the worst card maker by any means.

Posted by: Jean Bullock | April 15, 2013 at 08:32 AM

I love the mini album! Just beautiful! What inspiring photos!

Posted by: amber engelhardt | April 15, 2013 at 08:38 AM

Wonderful inspiration form Melissa - I love your style! And I love to see another scrapper who's enjoying recording the everyday things that don't involve kids, like myself ;)
Thanks for sharing, Rx

Posted by: Ruth S | April 15, 2013 at 01:45 PM