Scrapbooking with October Afternoon 'Gravel Road'

What happens when you see a piece of scrapbook paper that you really like, but aren't sure how to use? Quite often, I won't actually buy it. If I can't see a way of using it, then although it's pretty, it's not really something I can afford to spend out on.

A while ago, I saw this video and found it pretty interesting. Even though I didn't have any scenic style paper to use, it was good to see information showing how it's possible to use it. So, when I had to order a new ring binder for my layouts, I had a quick flip through the 'sale' items (it'd be rude not to!) and I came across one of the papers Shimelle used in this video, 'Gravel Road', by October Afternoon. When I saw the video originally, I thought it might be good for use with some pictures of a old gold mining ghost town we'd visited. As it was only 23p in the sale, I didn't think there was too much to lose!

I trimmed it down, similar to the video, but not so much...

I then took the grey in the design and went rummaging for a mat for the photo. I found something from a travel themed kit I've had for years. I'm not so keen on the part that shows the washing line, and river, and bearing in mind there was no river at the place we visited (or washing!) I thought that would be a good place to put the mat. So, it currently looks like this...

 

The script bit of it will most likely be covered, or at least the best part of it will. I'm thinking about using this as a sort of intro page and then putting a few more photos and some journaling in a divided page protector following it in the album. That's not something I've done before so we'll see how that goes. I've got to fish out any info I have on the place, and see what else there is to add, and find out some facts about it and note them down to add to the layout. The picture I'm thinking of using is a plaque that's on a pillar there that says about the founding, and subsequent abandonment of the town, so it might be a case of the picture serving as some of the journaling.

These sort of papers don't seem to need a lot of embellishment, but of course, that depends on your style. At present, I have a couple of little things I think I might add, but they may end up on the additional pages, rather than this one.

 

I tried to ink the middle one, and scruff it up a bit, but I don't have any staz-on type stuff in brown, so it pretty much just came off again, as did the alcohol inks I tried. I hadn't really planned for any shiny silver metal so we'll see if that makes it in.

 

 

I like these little transport charms that, again, I've had for too long. One of the pictures I know I have is of a really broken down old car/truck type thing so that might be good. I need to research a bit more and see if the railroads of the time were part of this settlement. It was really in the middle of nowhere!

 

I'll come back and post the finished layout when it's done. Hope that's given you some inspiration in the meantime!

 

 

Love, Maxi

I've Been At The Glue!

At last! I am back! Apologies for the delay. We actually took a bit of time off and if you follow my other blog at Scribbler Maxi, you will know from this post that we had a lovely week up in the Peak District and Yorkshire, exploring places like Chatsworth, the Bronte Parsonage and the rather fun and fabulous National Media Museum at Bradford. I would highly recommend the latter for passing time on a rainy day. There's a tonne of stuff to see and plenty of hands on things to keep both little, and big, kids amused.

I knew I wanted to keep some sort of journal for this trip. Let's face it - our first holiday since 2005, I think deserves some sort of celebration! :) I'd looked around online at the Smash Books but I had two problems with these; one, I thought they were kind of pricey and two, I wasn't sure if I was keen on all the designs in each book so in the end I decided to make my own version. That way I could choose the papers, knowing I liked them all.

As it turned out, the week before our trip got a bit hectic so I was, at one point, regretting not having ordered a book! In the end, I sat down and at half ten the night before we left, had the pages ready to go. I didn't have time to bind it, which meant that it wouldn't be accessible to drop in a bag but I could live with that.

 

 I had ordered a Smash pen which has a pen one end, and a glue stick the other. Here I made a boo boo - I chose the 'pink' version thinking it was just called that as it was supposed to go with the pink-bound book. Wrong! It has pink ink. Not what I had planned for. Oops! Anyway, I took it, along with another black ink fine writer, and a tape roller. I don't know if anyone else has had an issue with the glue on the Smash pens but my postcards were coming unstuck within a very short time so I am glad I had taken the extra tape roller as back up.

I had lovely time sticking in brochures, entrance tickets, receipts and postcards, and although I didn't always feel awake enough to journal at the end of the day, it was all done pretty close to the actual day.

 

 

When we got home, I cut the covers out of mountboard, covered it with some more paper, and washi tape and bound them with my Bind It All. I had an offcut of coil left and I actually prefer this look to having a full length binding in this case.

 

 

And I've no idea why this won't load the right way up...

 

 

 

Once it was all done, I found that I actually had some pages left over, so I didn't put them in the book and will just use them on some layouts.

 

I also printed a few photos and put some of them in there when we got home, but even this could be done 'on the road' if you have a mini printer, or are somewhere you could drop into an instant developer.

 

Hope you like it!