National Storytelling Week ~ using scrapbooking to tell my story....

Last week was National Storytelling Week, which I only found out was a thing towards the end of the week.  I wanted to find out a little bit more about it and it turns out there is an actual Society for Storytelling which has been going for 24 years!  It's mission is....

 "....for the promotion of the oral tradition of storytelling, the very first way of communicating life experiences and the creative imagination". 

My niece and nephew love stories and when Auntie Fifi visits they always get an extra story at bedtime!

Anyway, this got me thinking about a craft I have not done for a while, scrapbooking.  You may be wondering where the connection is but bear with me. Scrapbooking is a creative way to tell a story, your story. It's about getting the photos off your computer and sharing your memories.

I have wanted to put together a scrapbook of our wedding since we got married over 6 years ago. So with Valentine's day this weekend what better story to share with you?!....

What I used 

• CraftArtist 2 Professional (PC)and Letters Photo edges digikit
• Card to match my colour scheme:
• Champagne cut to 20x20cm to fit a 8x8" scrapbbok.
• Candy pink cut a square 15.6 x 15.6cm and use off cuts for die cutting
• Mint green cut a square 16.4 x 16.4cm and use off cuts for die cutting
• Glorious Gerbera Dies by Xcut
• Marianne Design Creatables Dies-Anja's Vintage Swirls 
• Green ribbon
• PVA glue
• Ball tool, you can use specific ones for papercraft but I use these Sugarcraft Modelling Tool Kit
• A craft mat, for example a parchment perforating mat or mouse mat
• Crystal Stickles
• Victorian Velvet Distress Ink

What I did...

I chose to do an 8x8" size, traditionally scrapbooks were 12x12" but they certainly don't have to be. If you are new to scrapbooking and are daunted by filling a large page, this size is ideal.

I used CraftArtist 2 to import my photos and add artistic edges.

If you have not tried digital crafting CraftArtist 2 is straightforward and designed to be used with PCs but you don't have to use software to scrapbook.  

Top tip - if you use your original photographs make sure your adhesive is acid free to protect them from discolouring and disintegrating.

My design from CraftArtist 2

For the background I used a photo of the floral display my mother-in-law created in the church. By using the software I was able to use the transparency to soften it for the background.

The text I added was a poem that I found when researching readings for the ceremony and I came across this one. It's such a lovely poem and described how I felt perfectly so I wrote it in a card that I gave to my hubby on our wedding day. (Sorry if you now need a sick bucket!).

The final image measured 15x15cm and I mounted it onto the pink card and then onto the green card to make it stand out.

I punched a heart design into the printed image before mounting it onto the pink card so the colour shows through.  With scrapbooking don't be afraid to cut or punch into photos.

Gerberas were my flowers for the day, they are such happy flowers, I made my paper flowers by cutting them out with the dies in the green and pink card.

The dies set allows you to make various sizes, so I made one large and two smaller gerberas. I used four of one petal size and then two of a smaller size to create one flower.

Once I cut them out I layered the petals glueing in the centre as I went.  Each layer was slightly offset for a more realistic gerbera.

Using my ball tool I pushed the flower into the mat using a circular motion in the centre of the flower, this adds dimension.

I used creative license to create a gerbera in pink and green!

I added Victorian Velvet distress ink around the edges and added Crystal Stickles to create the middle. I also added a little sparkle on the petals to look like dew drops.

I added a little flourish using the Marianne Creatables dies.

And here is the final page....

You may notice I have also used a green ribbon in the background.  I used this ribbon on our wedding invitations.

I've only done this one page so far, but now I've started my wedding scrapbook I have lots of ideas to create more pages.

Scrapbooking is a great way to showcase your photos and memories so I hope this has inspired you to get your pictures off your camera.

fizzi~jayne x

Disclaimer: The Amazon links in this post are affiliated.