A Spectacular Tribute - Part One

It is amazing how time starts to fly as summer kicks into full swing. Between being outdoors and on a little vacation it feels like summer is already half way over. I've been working on a few long term projects so between those and life I've had little time for anything else! Which is why my newly redesigned blog has been a bit sadly neglected.

But I finally have new stuff to show!!

My biggest long term project as of late has been a memory album for a spectacular lady. A grandmother contacted me to create an album for her granddaughter of her great grandmother. Follow? So the album is for a small child to have of her great grandmother who just passed a little more than a year and a half ago.

The woman who the album is about was a classic and simple woman. No frills, no pretenses, no fluff. My instructions were to keep everything very simple and not fussy. I received 16 photos and some memorabilia. I knew that since this is a gift for a child that I didn't want a huge album that would be cumbersome to handle or pull off of the bookshelf. But I also didn't want it to be too small as the life of this woman was wonderful and I wanted the album to have presence to reflect that.

I decided that 8x8 was the perfect size. After receiving the photos and sitting with them for a bit to think about the theme I was drawn to the SU! Rose Cottage Simply Scrappin' kit. I find it elegant, both in color scheme and accent paper design. It's elegant without being fussy, classic without being pretentious. Purely Pomegranate, Soft Sky, River Rock and Chocolate Chip...how could I go wrong? I picked up the kit plus a pack of each of the complementing colors. Then I went to purchase the album that would hold all of this loveliness. Do you know how difficult it is to find an 8x8, simple, brown leather, post-bound album? Seriously? ACM, Michaels, and Joann's...none of them had anything that I could use. It shouldn't be that hard! And I'm a little OCD in the way that I can't start a project like this until I have every piece. So that even though I knew I had decided on 8x8 layout size, I couldn't start until I had the actual album in hand. Because in my experience, all insert pages are different. And knowing that the album came with only 10 pages, I purchased an extra pack so I wanted to make sure that those fit correctly, that they were the correct ones...etc..etc. I wanted to make sure that when I cut the 8x8 base page for my layout that it fit perfectly into the top loading page and wasn't "a bit" too small and would slip around in the sleeve or "a bit" too big and be too crunched in the sleeve. (I tend to be a bit verbose at 3:53 am when insomnia sets in...bear with me)

So...I purchased the album on line at www.scrapbook.com. They had a great selection. I like the We R Memory Keepers line so I went with that. It arrived quickly and I got to work. I did not have a deadline for this project so I did take my time with each layout...sitting with the photos and supplies reflecting on the material as well as the child (and her family) for whom I was making it.

And after I figured out the very first page, the rest just flowed. I got into a vibe for a few weeks and before I knew it, I was photographing it and packing it up for delivery. I will be posting pictures of each page individually because even though my layouts are simple I want to give each page it's due.

So without further delay...here is the album cover and page one.

I hope that everyone is having a very creative week!