Scrapbook Layout: Home Ownership Ups & Down

My house is a source of joy most of the time but upon occasion the endless things that need to be taken care of or go wrong can frustrate me. I thought I'd make a scrapbook page about both sides of owning my home.

To make my layout I started out with yellow patterned paper for the background to match the paint color of my house. I cut two strips of white patterned paper for my ups and downs lists and rounded the corners before attaching them to the right side of the layout. I chose teal as my layout's accent color since the trim on my house is teal. I sketched and cut out a circular design combining an up and down arrow and centered it over my up and down journaling strips. I then used letter stickers to add "ups" and "downs" around the circle.

I added a picture of my house in the bottom left of the layout and positioned letters above it for the beginning of my title. For the second word in my title I traced out my writing, cut it out of teal cardstock and placed it over the top of my photo. I completed the layout by adding my journaling and my lists of ups and downs.

The journaling reads, "I love my house, I really do, but some days things happen that make me wish I was still a renter and could just call a landlord instead of having to deal with it myself. When I bought my house in the fall of 2007 I knew it was quite a diamond in the rough that needed a great deal of TLC but it was a great deal in the perfect location. I didn't know at the time what I was really in for but all of the blood, sweat and tears have been worth it (I think)."

My list of ups reads as follows:
- Painting my walls any color that I like
- Hosting parties on my backyard patio
- Designing my dream kitchen
- Old hardwood floors
- Having a garden
- Living in a home with over 100 years of history

My list of downs reads as follows: 
- Pipes freezing while I was on vacation in Australia and coming home to a mess
- Dealing with the historic association to change out a window to meet fire code
- My old furnace breaking in the middle of winter
- The water line to my fridge developing a leak and getting tons of things in my basement all wet and ruined
- My old door lock locking me out of the house so I had to break in through a window (yikes!)

Update: The white space of the original journaling for my ups and downs list and my typo was driving me nuts so I redid the journaling on the layout and added yellow stripes between the items on the list. The wording is a little different but the items are the same.

Scrapbook Layout: Enlightened

Over the past few years I've barely done any scrapbooking but I am trying to motivate myself to get back into it a bit. Hilary's comment on my Picture of the Day Post about the Fruit Juice Stand in San Pedro made me decide to finally get a layout done last night.

I had these pictures from Todaiji in Nara, Japan that I thought were fun so I decided to scrapbook the story behind them. I liked the tealish patina that the Buddha has developed over the years so I decided to use teal as an accent color. I wanted to keep things simple on the layout and focus on the pictures so I just matted my large photo, added a sticker title and drew a line to outline my smaller picture and journaling.

The journaling reads, "At the Daibustuden at Todaiji there is a special column off to the side of the great Buddha. It's said that if you are able to pass through the hole cut out at the bottom you'll achieve enlightenment. Despite being the only foreigner and one of the only adults in line (the opening is quite tiny) when my turn came I did it and was able to squeeze through. August 2010" 

Wedding Album for Ryan & Tsukasa

At the end of this summer two of my friends from my time living in Japan, Ryan and Tsukasa, got married in Nagoya and I was honored to be able to attend and be a part of their special day. Being back in Japan this week was the first time I've been able to see them since they were married and have a chance to give them this this album I made with pictures I took at their wedding.

To create the album I started with a small album that had a chipboard cover and 4-1/2" x 6-1/2" accordian pages. I removed the rings from the covers and adhered grey patterned paper to each side using an X-acto knife to cut out the holes for the rings. I reassembled the album and tied a dark grey bow of satin ribbon to the rings.

To decorate the front cover I added a strip of white pearlescent paper and finished it with a rub-on swirl embellishment and Ryan and Tsukasa's initials in grey chipboard.

For the inside of the album I wanted to keep it simple to keep the focus on the photographs so I just added grey patterned paper to every two or three pages. After adding the pictures the album was complete.

I am so happy for Ryan and Tsukasa and I hope that they have many years of happiness and joy ahead of them.