Scrapbooking with Imperfect Photos

17:12

It’s easy for scrapbookers to fall into a kind of trap- thinking that some photos are more perfect, special, or more important than others, and are more deserving of our effort and pretty supplies. Sometimes the stars align and the lighting is perfect, everyone is smiling and not blinking, the composition comes together just right, and we get an amazing photo. That’s when we feel that, yes, this one is worthy of being showcased on a beautiful layout. However, more often than not, things don’t work out so well. That’s just life. One thing I have learned as a scrapbooker is this- as long as you have a story worth telling, it doesn’t matter if the photo isn't so perfect.

Recently I encountered this kind of creative block when trying to document two photos that I felt less than enthusiastic about. I had a really cool story to tell, but I wasn’t excited about the pictures I had. The framing isn’t great, the colouring is off, and there are distracting elements (ie. the photo of the woman’s face in the adjoining article). They also weren't in the same orientation. To overcome this, I decided to crop down the photos to just the most important parts- the people in the photos and the part of the article where my name appears- since I can’t read Italian and I still have the full article saved on my computer I wasn’t losing much. I also decided to dress up the photos with some cute frames from the Jen Hadfield Homemade collection. Now I had some photos that looked really fancy and fun, which made it a lot easier to get started on the rest of the process!

Supply List:

Maggie Holmes Styleboard collection was used for the background paper. I also cut the multi-colourd hearts border strip and the cameras from the patterned paper in the Maggie Holmes Styleboard collection.

http://www.cratepaper.com/default.aspx?PageID=252&CategoryID=650&ProductID=16241&RootCatCode=03000

Frames from Jen Hadfield Homemade Collection

http://www.scrapbook.com/store/ac-732956.html?w=jen+hadfield

Fancy That 6x6 paper pad, by My Mind's Eye

https://scrapbook.steals.com/p/3021151/my-minds-eye-fancy-that-6x6-gold-foiled-paper-pad?v=3089191&f=3011189&f=3011189

Newspaper Print patterned paper from The Primrose Stack by DCWV

http://www.amazon.com/PRIMROSE-Sheets-Printed-Cardstock-Scrapbook/dp/B00PLRUL1U

Heidi Swapp Color Shine in Gold Lame and Blush

http://www.scrapbook.com/store/hs-00791.html?w=heidi+swapp+color+shine

http://www.scrapbook.com/store/hs-hs01082.html?w=heidi+swapp+color+shine

I think I'm starting so sound like a broken record. This layout is influenced by a sketch by Glitter Girl. I've linked the process video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho_cxFmyZbk&list=PLPGeb3i8RXitkIS55AX_1lvXL8ESJHPKB&index=42