My friend, Laurie, is a brilliant card-maker. She’s spent thousands of dollars on supplies, and her cards are simply gorgeous. She sells them at a local boutique and on the Internet. Luckily for me, she sends some to me on a regular basis just to say hello and keep in touch. I couldn’t bear to throw them away knowing how much time she put into them. I could save them, but she sends a dozen or more throughout the year and it would quickly add up. I came up with a better idea.
Lately I’ve been cutting the fronts off her cards and using them in my scrapbook albums. At first it felt a little odd putting something in there that someone else had crafted, but then I reasoned that the embellishments I buy from the store are also hand-made by someone else. Why not use something from someone who cares about me?
In the image to the right, I took two of her cards and used them as the focal points for my pages. The scarecrow on the left opens up. I replaced the back piece that had her writing on it, and attached it to the page. It now holds the journaling for the layout. For the other scarecrow card she sent, I again removed the back. It’s now a popup of a pumpkin patch with my kids’ faces on the pumpkins.
The pages are tied together with punchies of various leaves. The colors from both cards are used as the primaries, with green matting for all of the photos and journaling spaces.
I love Fall layouts, anyway, because they’re so forgiving and easy to do. Using the strength of another made this one even easier. That’s what scrapbooking is all about – using what’s at hand to make life a little more beautiful.