I made this layout in the spring (based on Moxie by Diana Chen). Later, I realized it was missing something. A whole lotta something. It was totally missing the story! It had cute photos, design, and products, but what was it about? Yeesh. Clearly, I was much more focused on the fun of crafting than on WHY I was making this layout. I was pleased with how the page looked (and I did have fun making it, which is valuable in itself), but I wasn't happy with the layout. It wasn't finished.
I really needed to add more photos and words to complete this layout, but didn't want to try making another 12x12 scrapbook layout to go with the first one. Thankfully, I had an easy solution: photo-sleeve page to the rescue!
Here are the two pages together in my album. Now I'm very happy with this layout!
I love the photo sleeves from We R Memory Keepers. They're great quality and they allow me to add more photos to a layout quickly and easily. I've had the ones with six horizontal 4x6" sleeves for a couple of years (since Y&T '09 with Ali Edwards), and had been thinking about using them more regularly in my scrapbook albums. A few days after reading this blog post from Melissa Stinson, I ordered a variety of photo-sleeve pages from Scrapbook.com. I like having lots of photos in my albums, but don't necessarily want to give them all the royal treatment (i.e., full-on scrapbook layout). Timewise, that's not a practical approach for me, either.
I'm excited to have these page protectors from We R Memory Keepers on hand and ready to go!
There are even more configurations, but these were my favourite. I also bought a pack of the 3-up pages by American Crafts, and I wish I had ordered some of the full 6x12 pages as well. I had some and have used them up. (Noell Hyman of Paperclipping.com wrote a great blog post about using 6x12 pages to add more journaling to single-page layouts.)
Someday, I want to go through my scrapbook albums looking for places where additional photos and/or journaling would complement single-page layouts I made in the past. Actually, I really want to run and do that right now!
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And now back to my rescued layout... I also used The Story digital overlay from Ali Edwards at DesignerDigitals.com to frame my journaling on the new page. As you can see, I had quite a bit more to say than I included on my original layout:
In the fall of 2010, Madeline decided she wanted to try Taekwondo. We thought it was a great idea! Unfortunately, her first lesson was a rocky start. She was sad that there were no other girls in her class, and she wouldn't join her group despite gentle prompting from the instructor. She watched and listened, though, and practiced the positions from a distance. After that first lesson, she was more content as there was another little girl in Taekwondo, and her regular instructor was a young woman, Ms. Stone, a 10-time national champion. Ms. Stone said that Madeline was an excellent student of Taekwondo. In December, Madeline worried about her first exam, but she did well and earned her yellow stripe. Nevertheless, Madeline decided not to return in January. Since her lessons and exam were always after school while I was at work, I didn’t get any pictures of Madeline in her dobok. In July 2011, I decided to get that photo while her dobok still fit!
