Have you ever.....

• gotten excited about scrapping some really cute pictures?
• come up with the perfect paper and embellishment ideas?
• worked a whole day putting lots of detail into the layout?
• felt a real sense of accomplishment when you were finished?

Only to discover when you got out the album that you were going to put it in........

• YOU HAD ALREADY DONE A LAYOUT USING THOSE VERY SAME PICTURE.
• THAT THE LAYOUT AND COLOR SCHEME WAS TOTALLY DIFFERENT
• AND YOU COULDN'T DECIDE WHICH LAYOUT YOU LIKED BEST

I did it not once but TWICE.


This layout was for my Book of Me. It is not something I work on often. I do a page every so often with the thought that someday my grandboys will want to know more about their Gammi.

This picture was taken at Michael and Amy's wedding. It is one that I actually like. That doesn't happen often. So I decided to make a layout for my album.
About a year later I found a digital overlay of a saying that I liked and was using as a tag line in my emails at the time. I decided to make a layout using it. So I picked my paper and printed the overlay directly on to the paper. Then I went to my stack of pictures that I keep in a basket on my scrapbook table. I found this one. I had forgotten that I had already used it. I completed the layout and discovered the first layout when I went to put it in the book.
For now - they will both stay in my album. They feature the same picture, but the layouts themselves take 2 very different directions. The first one is introspective. The second puts it out there. Both describe WHO I AM..........

In this layout, the pictures came first. Then the layout and all the embellishments. I did this layout 1 month ago as I was filling in months in Adler's scrapbook. Everything was planned after the pictures were printed.....but I forgot doing this page. Blame it on the fact that I was planning our vacation in Key West. Blame it on the fact that I was in Key West. Blame it on the fact that I just have "Gammi" brain and forgot.

But nonetheless....I was looking through my beach embellishments and paper and found the Sun and Waves tags. They were some digital files I had printed a long time ago. I was fascinated with how easy it would be to add dimension to them. So I did. I used Diamond Glaze and tiny beads to create the beaded backgrounds. I added brads where there were brads on the tags. And I cut out the sun and the beach ball and used pop dots to raise them up and add dimension.

Then I found cardstock to match the tags. Planned the layout. Printed the pictures. And cut the title. This is what I ended up with. When I opened Adler's Scrapbook my heart skipped a beat. I couldn't believe I had spent so much time and energy on the same pictures. I felt pretty dumb to have forgotten using them at the time, but I have learned something from this.

Inspiration comes from different sources. Sometimes it is the pictures themselves. But more often it is another element that catches my attention. The pictures become secondary in the creation of the art. Regardless of the inspiration, though, in the end the outcome will be the same. I will have preserved a memory in a way that only I can. I have created art and preserved memories that will mean something to my family and future generations who see my work.