Memory lane: A road trip in a box

Before jumping to today's post, this:

On Wednesday, Dana from House*Tweaking featured our kitchen on her blog. It was very exciting to see it over there. I have followed her for a while and love her style. Thank you so much again for that feature! Dana was also sweet to tweet it out as well as Instagram it. 



I re-instagrammed her entry and then @ikeausa stopped by, not only liked my post but also "took a photo of me" and put it on their Instagram. Almost 800 likes came out of that! Wowza.



So much excitement all the way around! Thank you so much!
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Today, I am traveling down memory lane a little bit. Back to when a scrapbooking magazine called Creating Keepsakes held an annual scrapbooking contest: Hall of Fame. I competed in 2005 and 2006, taking home honorable mention both times a.k.a a shared second place. This contest had 25 winners and 50 runners up. I was among the 50. Me and second place are like >this<

This box was part of my entry in the 2006 contest. A contest entry consisted of 10 layouts - 6 had assignments, 4 were "freebies". In 2006 one of the layouts could be substituted for a keepsake of some sort.



Here is my description from back then. Basically "how to make an album if you have nowhere else to be and nothing but time on your hands". Don't try this at home

I stained and waxed a craft box and embellished it with ribbon and 7G hardware. Inside I lined the whole thing with Paper Pizzazz velvet paper and die-cut the title of the album and adhered to the inside of the lid. Inside on the bottom I put 2005.

The album inside is a 4.25x3 inch album which has 18 double spreads. Each page has a folded paper edge that is machine stitched. Each double spread has an vellum insert between the pages with journaling on it. Each spread marks a stop on our way to or in SF last fall.

All the left pages are set up as hybrids with 3-4 photos printed on one pag, then embellished with ribbon, pp etc. All the right pages has a larger photo of that particular stop. I couldn't show it all on the entry, so on the back I put 3 of the best photos. I will def. scrap these photos individually later.

The spine is machine stitched and the book holds 75 photos.

Now, some 8 years later, the flower on top has become something of a dust trap. The "K" inside it came off and is now sitting on my Owl drawing in the dining room.


Photo of the box yesterday morning.

I still love the album inside and want to keep it for B. He takes it out every once in a while and thumbs through it and we talk about our trip.

The outside of the box, I was not too keen on anymore, however. A little too scrapbooky

So yesterday, I unceremoniously took off all the ribbon and the flower. Sanded the box and painted it black.



And now it sits on the drum table next to the sofa instead of being hidden away. It's sort of like taking out your lawn and putting in asphalt. Or maybe not... maybe a little bit...

I am not sharing all 10 layouts in this post, just these next two. This next layout was the "10 photo" challenge. Make a layout using a title, 10 photos, journaling and 3 embellishments.

This is the one that was published in the Hall of Fame magazine. Creating Keepsake chose which of the 10 entry pieces to feature.





I liked the layout they chose, but this last one I will show you is still my all time favorite. I later framed it and it is hanging in my upstairs hallway along with two other favorites.



B on a sheet of metal.

I heat embossed the turquoise scrolls on the back of an EK success metal sheet. I crimped a strip of metal and used. I punched wholes with a heart punch and backed with red paper. I exactoed part of the title ("some"). I cut the heart and crumbled up and distressed with paint. The journaling is hammered into the background with MM metal stamps. Then swiped with paint into the grooves.

The journaling reads:

Some days we practice the art of boredom. I believe that from boredom comes true inspiration and creativity. It's a beautiful thing.

That's my little trip down memory lane because I painted the box black this morning.



My favorite memory from my scrapping days was hands down all the great people I met. Sort of like what blogging is for me today. It's so great to "meet" people online that you share a common interest with.

Scrapbooking was what started my interest in learning photography, design and most importantly Photoshop, which I use in my job as a graphic artist all the time.

I don't scrapbook anymore. It's sort of 'been there - done that' for me, but I learned so much from it and I would not do many of the things I do today had I not taken up this hobby back in 2004.