Gifts from Crafty Friends

When I went "dark" (aka- left my blog to fend for itself for almost a whole month while I was waiting for internet to be installed in our new home,) I relied a lot on Instagram to keep me in the crafting loop. To give me my daily dose of beautiful scrapbooking layouts and diy projects while I suffered without internet. A few things I learned-

1) I am far more productive when I don't have the internet .
2) Instagram is way better than google when you're searching for something specific, just search the hash tag and all pictures ever posted with that hash tag pop up in chronological order; meaning I can cull through all the images on one page and simply click the ones I love and find who posted them.
3) Instagram is an amazing way to meet awesome new women interested in the same things I am. I had no idea how easy it was to have conversations on Insta before now! I've met the craftiest ladies.

Here are a few layouts I've been working on since being inspired through new instagram friends.

In my first layout, I pulled out this gorgeous picture of me around age 3. I love everything about it- that I'm standing in front of my grandma's house, the big puffy floral print dress, and especially the bright light leaks from the camera. (I've been obsessed with Holga images lately because of the unique color leaks and reflections that pop up in the film and this photograph reminded me of that.)

I have the tendency to really over do my layouts, always feeling like they aren't finished and wanting to add more. When I started working on these pages, I was extremely intentional about what I was embellishing and when I decided the page was done. There's so much extra white space in both layouts, it was hard to walk away and say it was done but I'm really glad I did because the simplicity of these layouts really make the photographs the focus of each page.

The second layout is a photograph of my baby sister and I when I was around 12 and she was 4. We were on a sunken ships glass-bottom-boat tour in the Great Lakes. I was holding her and I'm pretty sure we were actually singing when the picture was taken. Don't mind the awful glare and reflection on the picture, it doesn't actually look like that in person but this one was hard to photograph (just another reason I hate glossy pictures and prefer matte ones.)

I simply added some journaling to the last layout using a project life folding card and used the paper clip to keep it shut. Loving the gorgeous blue chevron paper from one of my old 6x6 paper packs. I used lots of layers behind my picture in this one and wrapped it in black twine afterwards. The layout finished up with some flair/brads and of course Thickers. "The Little Things" was a perfect title for the journaling I included about how I was overwhelmed with love and a happy heart when my sisters came along and I was able to do little things with them like brush their hair and sing with them.

 

Who are you favorite crafty ladies to follow on instagram? You can find me on Instagram @laurarahel .

 

xoxo, Laura