Scrapbooking layouts

I haven't done a lot of scrapbooking lately, but I am working on one strictly of Arizona & the places I've been, like Sedona, The Grand Canyon, Tombstone, places in the Valley, etc. I'm trying to incorporate more of the feel of an altered book into it, so I'm using different materials that I wouldn't ordinarily use in a scrapbook, like fake flowers and material, and tearing up paper to get different textures. It makes the book seem a bit more unique. I think scrapbooking is fabulous, and I see some of the books at shops that are just fantastic, and so much better than I can do, but at the same time, they're starting to feel all the same. It should be how the picture speaks to you, what kind of mood you want to portray, rather than how structurally pleasing to the eye the page is, with three different colors echoed throughout the book and a ribbon with a button to show your creative side.

Anyways, that's my little rant. I like to be messy with my crafts, and experiment, so I think this book will eventually veer into a bit more of a deconstructed look than it is now. It's fairly clean at this point. Also, I actually used my OWN handwriting for a quote. That's pretty amazing for me- I HATE my handwriting. It's atrociously messy and never looks good, but my printer wasn't working. It kind of works for the crumpled paper I wrote in on though.

Edited photos using Picnik

Have you ever used Picnik (http://www.picnik.com/) to edit photos before? It's a lot of fun, and I've been playing around with it the last couple of days using photos from my sister's wedding. I think my favorite features are the 1960's effect ( I like anything vintag-y and old) and the lomo-ish effect, which simultaneously seems to brighten and darken the photo.


A few of my (very amateur) favorites:

Craft - Picture mosaic/tile

I found the initial idea for this craft on instructables, but I modified a few of the instructions. Basically, its a photo that I took and "blew" up to a 12 x 12 image. Its nine pieces of the picture printed individually on tissue paper, then ironed to plain white tiles. the nose is slightly off balance because I didn't line the tiles up perfectly to take the picture. It's of my gorgeous mother on her wedding day.



Edit: The link to the instructables is here
I changed a few of the instructions- I ironed the paper on instead of gluing it, and I added a sheen to it with a spray adhesive. I used Gimp (free on google) and divided the picture into nine parts by making the grid at 33% and 66% for both vertical and horizontal, adjusting if the line landed at the eye.

Great Poem By Emily Dickinson - Death

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

Or rather, he passed us;
The dews grew quivering and chill,
For only gossamer my gown,
My tippet only tulle.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.

Children's Book

I never realized how talented children's book authors are until I had to make one for my creative writing class. Seriously, with a kids book you have to come up with an age appropriate moral and an interesting story all in one. My writing was laughably bad for this assignment; I wrote about a girl who was too tall but felt better after seeing how tall the giraffes were. Plus, we had to illustrate it, and I'm definitely no drawer. For that I turned to my scrapbooking. This is my favorite page from my 10 page book, mainly because of the illustration (I didn't draw the giraffe or the lion, I just printed them from google images).

For the ground, I used a bunch of different colors of brown torn up paper and a little bit of brown paint. The same goes for the pond & the greenery.

Poem- Satriani

That's actually not the title, I'm just supremely lazy and horrible with titles. It is a line from the poem though. This is from an assignment we did titled "Home & Family"

A riff
a string
Satriani
a rattle
a pot
overflowing
a puff
a mattress
Inflating
a click
a key
Opening
A shriek
a hug
my family's home

Poem- Change

Modeled after a soliloquy from Shakespeare's Macbeth.
I think I really like this one because it's more formalized/very stylistic. I don't ordinarily like non free verse poems of mine, but this one is a bit whimsical.

Yesterday, and today, and tomorrow,
Change creeps in on stockinged feet from dawn till dusk
Greeting victims with deceptive smiles;
And all our yesterdays are seemed forgotten
'Till tomorrow appears. Come, come, dear change!
Life's but a still sailboat; a ship without wind,
That rocks and sails the quiet endless sea,
Searching for a port; it is a life
Unwanted by the living, bereft of passion,
Signifying nothing