Summer Scrapbooking
Not all summer vacations have to involve water, but that’s usually the first thing my family thinks about when planning a sunny getaway. Where can we go to get wet, salty, sticky, sandy, and sunburned? Sign us up!
When it’s sweltering outside, there’s simply nothing more refreshing than a cool dip in the ocean, lake, or nearest swimming pool. So for my latest Scrapbook Ellaments article installment, I gathered up four water-themed layouts (one from me and three from Ella readers) that present a representative sampling of America’s coastal destinations, and I’ll share a few tips and tricks for turning them into memorable scrapbook pages.
While blue is pretty much a given when scrapbooking about the ocean, you’ll notice that each designer pulled in a different combination of other colors to illustrate her particular angle and set off her photos.
The Pacific Coast
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Supplies: patterned paper, letter stickers, journaling cards, rub-ons, labels, vacation accent, adhesive fabric strips (Studio Calico's Documentary line) • 12 x 12 spread by Angie Lucas |
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Colors: blue + green and dark yellow
Why drive from Long Beach to Newport Beach in an hour if you can take two days to sail it—and get unbearably nauseated along the way? (Actually, that last part just applies to me, and I wasn’t even on the boat!)
Just last month, my little family flew 581 miles from Salt Lake City to Orange, California, to spend a long weekend with my sister’s family and embark on an overnight sailing adventure. Being an incurable landlubber (who had an adverse reaction to the anti-seasickness patch I tried), I stayed behind with my sis and her new baby while my boys took to the seas. Upon their return, I gathered up their best photos and documented the stories they regaled us with back at port. I needed a two-page design to fit all my photos, so I adapted a 7-photo sketch from Donna Jannuzzi’s Stretch Your Sketches eBook, which saved me a ton of design time.
Pacific Islands
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Supplies: patterned paper, rub-ons, die-cuts (My Minds Eye) • rhinestones (Kaiser Crafts) • white gel pen • corner punch • pop-dots • 12 x 12 layout by Melanie LaVergne |
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Colors: blue + tropical orange and pink
In 2005, Melanie, her husband, and five teenagers traveled 2,729 miles from their home in Everson, Washington, to Hawaii's Big Island. While there, she snapped this memorable photo of her little sister's best friend learning to surf, and she loved the photo enough to feature it solo on a scrapbook page. With no journaling really needed (the caption says it all!), Melanie enlarged her photo and matted it on an oversize mat, placing a layered, die-cut title on top. She then finished the page by trimming ten coordinating surfboards out of a sheet of patterned paper and adhering them to the page with dimensional adhesive. A handful of well-placed rhinestones add a bit of aqua sparkle to her design.
The Gulf Coast
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Supplies: patterned paper (We R Memory Keepers) • cardstock (Bazzill) • paper flowers (Hero Arts) • clear flowers (Heidi Swapp) • gemstones (Mark Richards) • puffy letters, vinyl letters (American Crafts) • buttons (Autumn Leaves) • journal spot (Little Yellow Bicycle) • pen (Micron) • adhesive (EK Success, Tombow) • ink (Colorbox) • thread • 12 x 12 page by Latrice Murphy |
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Colors: blue + red, green, and pink
Last summer, Latrice and her husband, George, headed to Gulf Shores, Alabama—just 741 miles south of their home in Aurora, Illinois—for a weeklong stay at a beach-front golf resort. This page highlights their daughter Annastasia’s sun-kissed face and her propensity to pose for the camera. (Adorable!) Latrice arranged her three photos in a diagonal line, filling in the surrounding space with coordinating strips of patterned paper. Then she included fun embellishment clusters (clear flowers + paper flowers + buttons + thread + rhinestone swirls) in purposeful places around her page. And finally, two fill-in-the-blanks journaling spots complete the vibrant design!
The Atlantic Coast
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Supplies: digital kit (Julia Makotinsky, Little Dreamer Designs) • Storybook Creator Plus 3.0 (Creative Memories) • 12 x 12 digital page by Angie Kyle |
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Colors: blue + bright yellow and red
Angie Kyle, who moved with her family to Florida a few years ago, didn’t have to travel more than 40 miles in any direction to capture this exciting assortment of “staycation” photos. To create her dynamic digital design, she compiled 17 favorite event photos featuring everything from Florida’s beaches, Sea World, and Disney World to Daytona, Major-League Baseball, and the Kennedy Space Center. After arranging the photos into an overlapping collage, Angie added various elements from a single digital kit to dress up her page, and she had it printed through Creative Memories’ online photo center. The light-blue background, dark-blue waves, green fish, and enormous yellow sun all contribute to the page’s fresh, aquatic feel.
Where are you headed this summer? Even if you venture no further than a plastic kiddie pool in your backyard, water-logged layouts like these are sure to make a real splash in your scrapbooks.
Here's hoping you have a bright (and wet) summer!
p.s. If you haven't downloaded your copy yet, Ella's Free Super Sampler makes for amazing beach reading. Simply download, print, and pack!
