What inspires me?

Over the weekend, I was able to finish one more layout. While I was scanning these to upload, I started to think about the process of how I actually get to finish a layout. Hopefully, by hearing this process, you'll appreciate the final project a bit more. It's a little more difficult, for me atleast compared to Lisa Bearnson or other scrapbooking icons out there.

My first step is to take a look at my photos. I've already gone through the 7 month photos and determined what two photos I want to leave in 4x6 as focal points. Then, the rest are uploaded to be printed as wallets. This way, I can get atleast 12 more photos onto a double layout.

Once I have them at home, look at how many I have in portrait vs. landscape format, I search for ideas by number of photos. My biggest form of inspiration is Becky Higgins! This woman is incredible! She and Lisa Bearnson, the founding editor of Creating Keepsakes, have turned scrapbooking into a multi-million dollar industry. Becky's book, Creative Companion and Creative Sketches for Scrapbooking Volume 1 and 2 are my main source for layout ideas. However, sometimes I'll come up with my own just by looking at all of her ideas.

For instance, I took this layout ....

and this one...

and created these...

Take this photo as color inspiration from his shirt...



Take the last two layouts, combine, and eventually turned into this...



So, now that I've explained my process (not to mention the hour that I spent trying to find a font that matched the pre-printed "stud muffin"), hopefully these layouts will mean a lot more to you. Hope you enjoy. Let me know what you think!