June guest designer... Lisa!

 

I have been scrapping since 2003 when I created a scrapbook for my grandfather's 90th birthday and never stopped after that!  I live outside of Dallas on a farm with 11 goats, 45+ chickens, 2 donkeys, and 50+ guinea hens, plus our dogs and cat, so chaos rules especially since both my husband and I have full time jobs (the farm is a hobby).  The only calm element in our life is my DD who will be a senior at the University of Pittsburgh.  I no longer maintain a blog but am very active over at A Cherry on Top and really enjoy sketch challenges like Stick It Down.

I love double page sketches for travel photos and the grid design of this one was perfect to document a visit to the Guiness brewery in Dublin.  I admit, though, that the layout went through several versions before I was happy.  I began with darker papers and smaller squares but it was very busy so I went with larger squares and changed some to have more white space.  I have a philosophy that when using sketches or scraplifting someone that there is no reason to take things literally - use it as inspiration and a starting point, then adapt it for your style and situation.  

Another scrapping philosophy I have adopted in recent years is that not every photo you scrap has to be yours.  In the case of this layout, some of the photos are from Google Images.  When I gathered my photos from the trip I realized I had a lot less than I thought as it was back in the day of true film so I was much more conservative with the shots I took.   So I supplemented my photos with photos from the web.  After all, I did see everything in the images and it is the memories I am scrapping, not my personal photographic abilities :-)

You can find Lisa's gallery HERE