Bruges - Belfort, Fry Museum, Chocolate Museum

The pages in this post are more from Bruges, Belgium.  

Page #1 (above):  While I don't often use sketches as I prefer the pictures to mostly do the work, I found myself struggling with how to place the 7 pictures on this page and not just repeat what I'd been doing.  So, I went looking for a layout.  I found it at Sketch Savvy.  I was so grateful to find it.  Here's a picture of the sketch: 

I printed the photos the sizes they said, but found I had to let go of a photo and rearrange a bit to find room for my journaling.  I also printed the letters for the title.  It was too long to finish the ends of it's mat with the tails I like so much on the original sketch.  Also, I found the multi-colored polka dot pattern wasn't showing up well, so I inked the edges of the circle & matted the piece behind the title, putting it up on foam tape.  The most unusual part of this layout is at the top.  I had a ticket from the belfort that I wanted to save with this page, but I didn't want it cluttering up the page.  So, I wrapped the ticket in a leftover piece of cut-up sheet protector, and added the teal tab.  I affixed a cut envelope to the back of the page for the ticket to sit in.  Then I cut away part of the page so you can see part of the ticket.

Page #2:

This page is really in two pieces - both 6 inches wide.  This is because it is in a gate fold sheet protector.  This is what it looks like with the flaps closed.   I did something on this page that I "never" do.  I used the back of the inside pages to form the base for these pages.  The back was a different color, which I felt faded into the background well so the pictures could shine.  While I could have found another sheet of the stuff in my stash, I just decided to use the backs - made things less tight in the gate fold flaps, too.  Other than adding the pictures & journaling that I printed (note I used a part of a picture to create a title), I just made a border on either side of the photos.

INSIDE THE GATE FOLD:

When you open the gate fold, this is what you see.  It's all about the chocolate factory called ChocoStory.  The 6" wide page on the left shows the outside of the building, the center shows some of their shaped chocolate, and the 6" page on the right shows the downstairs.

Page 3?:

Here you can see a close up of the 6" pages.  As you can see, I added strips of the patterned paper used for the center page to form borders top and bottom of these pages.  I once again tried to use a sign as title, but not sure how effective it was.  I may go back and add a title with alphabet letters.

Page 4:

This page is the center one of the layout and is where the most fun photos are - all the sculptured chocolate!  As you can see, I liked the patterned paper for the background, but it was pretty busy.  So, I added brown mats to the photos - one large mat for the 6 photos at the bottom.

HD Floral Favorites - Oh So Sweet

Today I have five cards made from the Hunkydory kit called Floral Favourites, from the Oh So Sweet set.  Here's a look at the set itself:

As you can see, it consists of one and a half sheet of die cuts, and one sheet of Adoreable Scoreable (AS) printed cardstock.  Here's a look at all five cards I made using elements from this set:

Now for a closer look at each one.

Card #1: 

I started with the sheet of AS.  Since I like my slimlines to be 9 x 4 (so they fit in a business size 10 envelope), and I usually like a thin border edge showing, I like my front panels to be 3 3/4" x 8 3/4".  Since Hunkydory products are from the UK, they use A2 sheets rather than letter size, so are only 8 1/4" wide.  So, I need to add something to make them 8 3/4" when I make a slimline card.  Here you can see that I cut an extra piece of border to go on the bottom - and then trimmed both down a bit so the whole was 8 3/4" tall.  Then I simply added the die cut greeting from the set, and some thin line Dazzles to form the "hanger" for it.

Inside:

Here I used more of the AS to form border strips - accenting them with a happy birthday border from the set.  Then I stamped a message using a stamp from Crafter's Companion Compendium (CCC) stamp set - sheet called Birthday-Female.

Card #2:

I did a similar thing with this card.  Background was cut from AS, with an extra bit of the table added below (border from the set hides it).  I added one of the die cuts - with some extra die cut flowers to make the bouquet bigger.  I cut the small bow left over from the border & used it to appear to "pin" the greeting in place.

Inside:

Once again, I used more of the AS to form inside borders - adding some gold tag board and maroon card stock from my stash.  The small sentiment on the border is also from the set.  The stamped greeting.   The stamped message is again from CCC - this time the page called Thinking of You.

Card #3:

This card seems a little plain from the outside, but it's an easel card, and when set for display, it's very pretty:

The patterned paper is some digital paper I have that I printed up - not sure what company it was from. The sentiments are both from the set - the inside one is on foam tape to hold the folded front in position when displayed.

Card #4:

This one again uses the digi paper I printed.  I added a doily (backed with white paper because it was more translucent than I wanted).  The rest are die cuts from the set.  The bouquet was rather small, so I once again used their extra flowers to make it more full.

Inside:

Inside is simple - borders from the leftover printed digi paper, and a stamped message (one of my mom's stamps - not sure what company made it).

Card #5:

This one uses a piece of purple card stock from my stash - embossed with a Darice 5 x 7 embossing folder called Damask.  The doily was one that had a piece cut out of it, but you can't tell.  The border piece is made from scraps from the die cut sheet & scraps of gold from my stash.  The sentiment is from the set.

Inside:

The border was again made with scraps - decorated with a die cut from the set.  The stamped message is another CCC stamp - this time from the Thank You sheet.

Lace Museum & More Bruges

Today I've got a couple of more pages from Bruges.  

Page #1 (above):  This first one is pretty straight forward.  I took my cues from the bright yellow walls in the focal photo.  I used yellow patterned paper background (old HOTP), and printed pictures, journaling & title (using Microsoft Word).  The unique thing on this page is the small lace motif on the blue background.  I didn't want to put glue on the lace, figuring that over time it would discolor the lace.  SO, I took a piece of blue card stock, matted on white to look like the others.  I set the lace piece on that and slid the whole into a small ziplock plastic bag.  Then I folded the top of the bag to the back and glued the bag in place.  Now, if I want to get to the lace, I might destroy the bag, but the lace should be safe (hopefully the bag is acid free!)

Page #2:

For this page, I had a few miscellaneous pictures that I wanted to include in my album, but didn't want to devote an entire page to each - I'll already have 88 pages when I'm done - that's PLENTY!  So, I started looking at the photos and realized they fell into 4 different themes.  That inspired me to divide the page into 4 sections - one for each.  I used red ribbon to divide the page - and made a circular title piece that sits on top of where they cross.  I printed the pictures & journaling, but all the little titles were die cut with some of my alphabet dies.  What a chore!  Anyway, I like the way the page turned out.  Since the page sits beside the first one in this post, I decided to start with a similar background paper - in blue this time.

Bruges Canal Tour

Here I had a couple of tickets to add to the page.  I put them in an envelope I made out of vellum, because I knew they would stand up to handling - the paper is too flimsy.  Once again, I sketched a layout so I knew what sizes to print the pictures, title, and journaling.  

For the title and journaling block, I took a part of the focal picture -  zoomed in, and just used some of the leaves - to create the background.  

I hadn't been happy with any pictures with swans as one of the regular pictures, but decided to zoom in on a swan in a part of one picture and use it as a sort of embellishment for an otherwise rather plain page.