Nerd Nest Challenge 13 - Make It Fit

Another layout for Megan Anderson's Pocket Your Year 31 days of Challenges. This challenge is called Making It Fit and even though Megan focuses on making your pictures and embellishment cards fit on the backside of a page protector you used for a previous layout, so you're kind of stuck with it for the left page of the next layout, I focused on a different aspect of the idea of making it fit.

I'm finishing up the album I've made for our Walt Disney World trip in December 2014. All I have left is to make layouts with the journaling cards I wrote, talking about the items I liked of the trip (which I wrote 1 1/2 months ago) and talking my husband into finally writing his impressions and making his layout. My boys did this months ago for me so their layouts are done. I made this fit in two ways: I have ten cards to mount on 3 pages, with 12 openings in the pages and I want to do one 4x6 card per opening. So on this first page I didn't use a journaling card for the first opening, I used a title that I hadn't used elsewhere in the book (and since I don't know if we'll go to Disney World again, this page made it so the title didn't go to waste) and the last of the twelve openings has a Mickey Mouse that is part of the patterned paper instead of a journaling card. So I made the number of openings I had verses the number of journaling cards work for me, instead of trying to somehow put two journaling cards in two of the pockets.

The other way I made this work was for the background paper I used on this page. I thought it would look cool to have alternating squares of two patterned papers for this page. The problem? These were both 8 1/2 x 11 paper that I only had one of and the pockets are 6 x 6. I cut each paper into 5 1/2 x 6 pieces. The 5 1/2 side is the vertical measurement, which worked for my idea to make it fit. I cut each of the 5 1/2 x 6 pieces at a point that a 1/2 inch gap would either be covered by the line of washi tape I used to anchor the title or the 4 x 6 journaling card. I then cut a white piece of card stock into 6 x 6 squares to mount the patterned pieces on. For the title card, I used some of the leftover scraps of paper to cover the 1/2 inch gap since washi tape isn't completely opaque and I didn't want a white line showing behind the washi tape where it's not covered by the title. The seams in these scraps are covered by the title so it worked. On the other 3 cards I made sure the 1/2 inch gap of white was covered completely by the journaling card. I made sure the washi tape was in about the same place on the bottom of each segment so that it would go well together. I used washi with dots on it because it reminds me of other Disney patterned paper I've used in this album.

I think this layout shows off the idea of making what you have work with a little imagination really well!

Nerd Nest "Pocket Your Year" class: Challenge Number 9 from 31 Days of Challenges

This year I've been doing an online scrapbooking class from The Nerd Nest called Pocket Your Year. It's a class about pocket scrapbooking (Project Life by Becky Higgins is the best known pocket scrapbooking line). I started pocket scrapbooking last year after going to a scrapbook convention for the first time in years and seeing all the new products and page protectors that were available. I had hoped that maybe it would help me to catch up a little in my scrapbooking. This year I decided to take an online class about it since I was hoping to get ideas and inspiration and loved the ongoing nature of the Pocket Your Year class.

In August, the teacher is doing 31 Days Of Challenges, with each of the days of the week devoted to a different type of challenge. I admit that I'm not doing great about watching each challenge as it comes out, usually watching a few challenges every few days. Today I watched this week's Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday's challenges and was motivated to share for Sunday's challenge. Sundays have the theme of using your stash with this Sunday's theme being using difficult page protectors. The idea is that not everyone is going to be totally comfortable using every type of page protector they've ended up with and if you buy the big value packs, you'll probably end up with a few you don't use often and so you have a huge stash of them. The teacher showed how she used a page protector with 4 6x6 pockets, which she often doesn't use since the pocket page protector items out there are 4x6 or 3x4 cards, for the most part (though I do have a pocket life monthly kit from Citrus Twist that comes with an assortment of 6x6 pages each month, so I do think people are trying to change this). I haven't had an issue using this type of page protector, but that could be because most of the pages I've done recently were for a Disney World trip we took the week before Christmas last year. I got a bunch of 12x12 Disney Scrapbook papers and just cut them up to match the page protectors I decided would work best for the pictures on each page, which made it easier to use this page protector, since I wasn't depending on pre-made cards for my pocket backgrounds.

Ever since I bought my first big pack of Becky Higgins page protectors at Michael's craft store with a 40% off coupon, I knew I'd have a hard time with the protector that has one 4x6 pocket in the top corner and the rest are 3x4 pockets. I've learned over the years to try to fill my view finder (or equivalent, since most of my photos are now taken with my smart phone) with the subject of my photo. I don't always succeed, but a good portion of my pictures tend to have something I want to keep in areas bigger than 3x4, so these are hard protectors for me to use.

One reason I decided to take an online class was that my scrapbooking, which I had done so well jumpstarting with the pocket page protectors in March of last year, was sidetracked by a fairly severe flair up of depression triggered by a tragic event in July of last year, along with generalized anxiety triggered by that event, which I'd never had before. In January, I was trying to get scrapbooking again, thinking that a hobby that I enjoyed might help with the depression. In March, I got to a part of a book my therapist had recommended that suggested that keeping a gratitude journal would be helpful because it helps you to focus on the positive at least once per day. Instead of using a journal, I decided that I wanted to make a gratitude scrapbook, including pictures of the things I write about each day if I want to. I have to admit I don't do it daily, sometimes not even weekly, but it's better than nothing.

When I decided to do this scrapbook, I realized that this page protector design would be perfect for it. It's a lot less intimidating to face a 3x4 journal card at the end of a day than a 6x8 page in a journal, which is what my current journal size is. If I need more room, I just use more than one card. I make a note of pictures I need to print for this scrapbook in Evernote on my phone, which I use to organize pictures of my papercrafting supplies, since I tend to collect things like stamps and die cuts to run through my die cut machine (have you looked at my organizing my stamps post from 2014?). I haven't printed any of the new pictures I want to use but since I finished the journaling cards on the newest two page spread today, I decided to post about it to fulfill this challenge.

The first picture is of the two page spread. I alternate between a purple and pink pen each day, so that it's obvious where one day starts. Since I live in a house full of men, I don't often get to use these colors on my scrapbook pages and they are my two favorite colors, so I decided to journal with them. The cards that are blank purple and pink are where the photos will go when I get them printed. The 4x6 pockets are either used for a title (one page on a spread) or for more pictures (so far ones that I found in left over pictures that I hadn't used on scrapbook pages that I've already finished). On this spread, I used an Amy Tangerine stitching kit I bought on clearance at Studio Calico to stitch the word love on one of the 4x6 cards surrounded by stitched flowers and on the other one included older portraits of my boys (who are now 21 and 19 and are consistently two people I am grateful to have in my life, though the book challenges us to write about new things every day, so they only appear sometimes in the journaling). You can see I need to print photos for 4 places on this spread (I swear when I was looking at the page in the album I saw 4 photo spots but in the picture I only see 3). The hearts on the spread came from a monthly kit, though I can't remember if it was Studio Calico or Citrus Twist.

The second picture is of the page I just finished the journaling on today. The last three cards are filled with today's journaling, which was about how I was glad I went outside my comfort zone and signed up for online classes this year, since they have been inspiring to me. Today's journaling was inspired by how the Nerd Nest Challenges I watched made me think and get excited about scrapbooking, so thank you for all your hard work! I'm horrible with names, so don't remember the teacher's name off the top of my head and I've restarted this blog post 3 times on my phone because I'd go to look something up and forget to save so lost everything I wrote, so I don't want to chance forgetting again but I am thankful for her inspiration and hard work!

She had a side challenge going that if class members post 500 new spreads during August and September, she'll expand the class to last through January 2016 instead of ending in December 2015, so I wanted to make sure and post at least one spread. I hope this counts, even though the pictures aren't printed yet!