I can actually hear the delivery van now, I know its distinct sound so I am already at the door waiting for him to arrive at my door. On Thursday my new stamps from Kellie Stamps arrived and I was just a little excited. I admit that I may have done a little "hands in the air, twirling happy dance" and said the odd woohoo, and why not? Have you seen these stamps?
Inspiration for journaling can come from many different places. One of the reasons I think journaling comes so easy for me is that I don't have any rules or guidelines on how journaling should look, sound or feel. As long as the story is told I am happy. That is what I am after, the story because I am not always going to be here to tell it. That might sound a bit morbid but that is the truth. Your journaling turns a photo into history. It gives the photo depth, meaning and most of all emotion.
Quite often I am inspired to create a layout because of "product". It might be a piece of pattern paper that instantly makes me know how I want to use it or it might be a journal card that triggers a memory. When I opened up my stamps, I started reading through all the words on each of the stamps. As I was reading some of the words I was instantly transported back to earlier this week and how I was feeling about going back to work after a two week break. I knew then, that this had to be a layout. I even knew the photo I wanted to use. Using these stamps and adding a few extra words takes a "foot" photo and gives it so much emotion and explains exactly how I felt that day.
First was to grab all the stamps that I thought I could use. I then laid them out on a piece of paper from top to bottom. Next I just needed to come up with some extra lines of journaling to go between the stamped images. This was so easy. Because I had laid my stamps in an order I thought would work the extra journaling just came to me. It was almost like these stamps were created just to describe how I felt about going back to work. I used Word to create my typed journaling. I used my ruler to get a rough guide as to how much space I needed to leave to between lines so that I could add my stamps and then printed it out onto white cardstock.
I chose an orange ink to do my stamping with to match my handbag in my photo, added my photo and a few embellishments. I mounted my white cardstock onto pattern paper and stitched around the edges and my layout was complete.
TIP: you don't always have to use stamps the way they come. For my title I used one stamp on a label. I simply inked just the first two words and stamped it onto the label. I then cleaned my stamp, inked it again but this time I only inked the last two words and then stamped underneath the first image. I also used this same stamp down the bottom of my layout but I only used the first two words so that I could add it with another stamped image to create different wording.
I hope this has helped and inspired you to add journaling to your layouts. If you have any questions please make sure to leave them in the comments section.
Have a great weekend
love me :-)
It certainly is inspiring! As well as raising a smile, of course. The contrast in typefaces held together with the orange ink and contrasting with the black is wonderful. As is your line : 'journalling turns a photo into history. It gives the photo depth, meaning and most of all emotion.'. I'm going to write that down. Super post :).
ReplyDeleteLove this layout and how you were able to use so many stamps to include with your journaling
ReplyDeleteSo awesome and fun!! I've not used stamps that often so it's nice to see how you use yours!!
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