Photos in scrapbooks don't have to be special occasion photos, such as holidays, birthdays or vacations.  They can be everyday mundane parts of life.  And sometimes these moments are more memorable than last year's family Christmas party.

I find that either people love weddings or they just aren't that into them.  But no matter what you think of weddings, no one can deny that the bride is always gorgeous and the flower girl is always cute as all get out!  In this wedding layout, sweet pastels, watercolor and tulle combine perfectly, making a shabby chic page worthy of an oh-so-adorable flower girl.

Wedding layouts can be fun and frilly, shabby chic, modern, nautical or whatever fits your style!  Your wedding is uniquely you and so should your scrapbook pages.  Whether I'm doing a whole wedding album or just one or two pages for a "through the ages" album, I take the time to add the little details.

Sports are a big part of many of our lives.  But the scrapbook paper and embellishments don't necessarily have to be sports themed.  This pastel colored layout with fun patterns proves just that.

Sometimes scrapbook pages are about remembering and celebrating those that we have lost.  I always take special care on layouts and albums such as these.  I try to imbue meaning into several different elements of the page.

I love every season for different reasons.  New growth in spring, flowers in summer, the vibrant colors of fall and the crystalline beauty of snowflakes in winter.

Halloween is my favorite holiday.  Don't get me wrong, I love the Christmas and Hanukkah season--the joy, the snow, making cards, giving presents to my family and friends...but I love the crazy imagination involved in Halloween.  (I'm already planning what decor to add to my already growing pile of Halloween decorations.)


It's the one holiday where you can be as crazy and weird and fantastical as you want and no one can say otherwise.  You can dress up as a unicorn or zombie or your favorite book character.  (Hello, Hermione!) This past October was my family's first Halloween in our new house and I just had to continue in the theme of my Edgar Allen Poe "The Raven" theme.  We dressed up the house in a Dead & Breakfast theme, complete with a handmade sign out front (The Raven Talon Dead & Breakfast) and a skeleton in a lobby complete with bell cap and skeleton keys!


So I love making Halloween scrapbook pages!  LOVE IT!!  And since these adorable kids looked like a candy bucket full of "trouble," it made me think of the Song of the Witches from Shakespeare's Macbeth that was turned into a song for the Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban film.  So I incorporated the lines from the song and then made some potion bottles to go with.


To make the potion bottles, I started with a sheet of cardstock and die cut my own hand-drawn apothecary bottles.  I then inked, glued, painted and more to create the look of items in the bottles.  The werewolf teeth are really miniature leaves.

Want to create your own potion bottle die cuts?  Scroll to the bottom of the post to download your free cut file!


The vampire blood contains a few brads with diamonds on the head.  The witch cackles are swirl shaped buttons and the mummy bandages is crinkle ribbon.  Once everything was glued down, I covered it all with 3d gloss gel.  I also added some white sand texture paste to the lids and corks of the bottles to add some grit to the page.


These bottles took a long time to dry.  A looooooong time.  But once they were, I added a little more distress ink to heighten the color of each bottle.  Then I looped some jute twine around the tops and added the labels I had created with white cardstock, ink and grommets.


I cut out a patterned paper mat for the photo from some Tim Holtz Halloween themed paper, distressed the edges and inked it up.  I also created the strips with the words to the song and title and picked out my letter stickers for "Wicked."


Once I figured out placement, I sprayed matching colored mists onto the watercolor cardstock and held it up to let the mist drip down the page.  Once that was dry, I glued on all of my elements, adding some staples and enamel dots.


Products Used
Prima: Watercolor - cardstock 12x12; Color Bloom 2 - oregano; Art Basics - black gesso, 3D gloss gel; Art Extravagance - copper crackle, white sand  |  Recollections: Cardstock - white; Brads - small diamond; Microbeads - clear  |  Maya Road: Trinket Pins - leaf  |  Dress It Up: Buttons - color me pink  |  Tim Holtz: Distress Ink - fired brick, spiced marmalade, fossilized amber, peeled paint, wilted violet, dusty concord, ground espresso, black soot; Distress Spray - dusty concord; Distress Paint - barn door, seedless preserves; Idea-ology - crinkle ribbon, materialize  |  Tattered Angels: iridescent gold  |  Marion Smith Designs: Color Lab - merlot  |  Lindy's Stamp Gang: Moon Shadow Mist - burnt umber, incandescent copper, smoky sapphire; Starburst Spray - hag's wart orange  |  Ranger Ink: Alcohol Ink: poppy field, butterscotch, bottle, eggplant, mountain rose; Melt Art - UTEE  |  Nuvo: Crystal Drops - dark walnut  |  WeR: Typecast  |  Other: staples, jute twine, post dots, Halloween sticker letters


Keep scrolling for your free potion bottles die cut file!

Happy Scrapping!
Adrienne

>>Click here to download your free cut file! <<

I love steampunk, especially all the gears and clocks and the imaginative mechanicals.  My brother-in-law also loves vintage clocks.  So for his birthday one year, I decided to make a card full of gears and a pocket watch.

Many of the designer scrapbook papers come with double-sided pattern prints and it can be hard to stick glue all over a pretty pattern and stick it down so you can't see any of it.  That is why I like to distress my paper edges a bit so some of it peeks out.

Journaling can be an important part of scrapbooking.  Especially if you want to leave behind some notations for future generations, like which relative is pictured in a photo or telling the story behind a photo.