Hi scrappy friends! It’s Meg here for my turn to wish a very Happy 14th Birthday to Elle’s Studio! The March kit and add-ons were the perfect way to celebrate and if it just happens to have also been my birthday, I was more than willing to share the party! Doesn’t every new release kind of feel like a present anyway?
Supplies | March 2021 Kit, Happy Birthday Journaling Tags, Light Teal Cardstock Label Stickers, Happy Birthday Chipboard Stickers, Tiny Shapes and Dots Puffy Stickers – Cool Tones, Celebrate 6 x 8.5 inch Paper Stack, Make a Wish Stamp, Parker Number Stamp, Dated Stamp, Good Times Tab Stamp, Daily Tabs Stamp, Layered Card Metal Die
I know I say this all the time, but one of the things I love about having all my photos organized into pocket page albums is that there is a spread waiting for every mood or product. I’ve recently been working to get all of 2020 printed and laid out, so when the March release arrived in all its celebratory awesomeness I decided to jump right into the birthday weeks!
One year on, this week has become a bit infamous as the point the whole world changed. On a smaller scale, it is also known as my birthday week. Both the week and the spread walked the line as transition from the ‘before’ and ‘after’ times. Lots of cancelled plans. Lots of ‘the last time we….’ moments. It seemed like as good a page to jump into 2020 documentation as any.
I set a mini goal this year of making one date tag a month that is just a little more creative than my normal go-to. This month I decided to include more of the patterns by using the fun scallop from the Layered Card Metal Die to trim down my favorite tag from the March 2021 Kit. Because I like to keep my pockets as flat as possible, I cut one layer of teal cardstock to pop it up with—it adds just enough dimension to be noticeable and there are little peeks of teal at the edges that coordinate with the rest of the spread.
I used the scallop die on the right side as well, this time cut from the Celebrate 6 x 8.5 inch Paper Stack to layer the same pattern. Just a little nod to the title tag at the end of the spread. The beauty of making your repeated technique tool-based is that you can do it over and over again. Bonus points for the number of label choices included in the Light Teal Cardstock Label Stickers!
I’m a huge fan of using numbers in my yearly albums and am already a little obsessed with the bold chunky Parker Number Stamp. On this spread, I used it to record my neph-pup’s first birthday, my own current age (a little higher than one…), and a simple timeline of the unfolding events. For better or worse, I suspect my 2020 album is going to be full of milestones, statistics, counts and dates. Starting with a layout using numbers as the main embellishments made perfect sense to me. I also used the amazing Large Acetate Numbers to make my cover page, which you can check out here.
Sitting down to an entire year’s worth of memories can be intimidating, especially when that year was 2020. If you needed to take a little pause last year it is definitely not too late to go back. Even though my album spans from January through December there is no rule that says I need to make the pages in order—I just jumped right into a spread that inspired me and I will figure out the rest. What is a project that you would like to make progress on right now?
We’d love to see how you use our March kit and add-ons in pockets! Share with us in our Elle’s Studio Facebook Group, or on Instagram using the hashtag #EllesStudio!