Final letter to Camp

The hardest part of this project was writing that final letter to camp.



Camp has been such an important part of my life for the last 10 years. I wish everyone got to experience what I have. I know that camp is sometimes difficult to understand and it can seem all-consuming to those of us who have gone. But, camp is the place where I met some of my most favorite people. I love camp because I love the people who are there. The relationships that I've built with some of my family and friends over the last 10 years are some of the most important relationships in my life. I love all those crazy, wacky people that Iroquois Springs has introduced me to.

This album was made to close a chapter of my life but it was also an homage to all the camp people who have come into my life. It is a 'thank you' to them that I've poured my heart and soul into for the past four months. Looking back through this album has brought me moments of joy, tears of happiness and sadness too. But I wouldn't change a thing. It's perfect and so are the memories in it whether they are bad, good or sad.



So, this is a final farewell to this project. It was a wonderful opportunity to summarize a large chunk of my life. I hope you've enjoyed sharing the journey with me along the way.

Now, I think I'll go eat a s'more and pretend it's a few degrees warmer outside.

So long sweet summer.


Krista

Story

This is the finished product of what the story pages look like in the project album.



I used a digital Cathy Z template I bought on Designer Digitals. It was easy to use. The hardest part was honestly telling the stories themselves. After I printed them on Orange Peel cardstock I couldn't shake the feeling that they were just a little too plain for me.

So, I turned them into hybrid scrapbooking pages-a combination of digital and media-and added that washi tape to the bottom of each of the 10 stories. It adds a little colour without taking away from the stories themselves.

Krista

Facing Challenges

Last night was our final presentation. We had may people attend our celebration and view all of our projects. The projects were all wonderful and you could really tell that a great deal of work went into every single one of them.

This project was an opportunity for me to try something new in the world of scrapbooking, a medium I dearly love. It was an opportunity to tell my story in a new and different way. As much as I loved this project I will admit that it wasn't without it's challenges.

I struggled specifically with the size of the layouts. I am not used to using a rectangle base for layouts-8 1/2 by 11 was challenging for me. I like things even and square so I resorted to a lot of sketches and drew on a lot of inspiration from scrapbook designer Kelly Purkey in particular because she often uses that size.

I also underestimated how thick my book would get. I love dimension and texture so I did use a considerable amount of 3D dots for that look. Turns out I really like dimension because my book was very, very full at the end.

The digital scrapbooking pages were something new I tried. I liked that they were quick and easy and after some fiddling in Photoshop they were relatively easy to navigate as well. I don't know that I would use them in my everyday scrapbooking though. I prefer to touch my supplies and hold things in my hand rather than use my computer to manipulate them. That being said, I do think I'll incorporate some of the simple features like text and brushes into my work going forward. I liked the way that looked on the pages.

I also tried the hand stitched pieces as well. They were very time consuming but last night I got so many compliments on them. Everyone thought they were wonderful. I also loved the way they looked so I'll definitely be using up some of that left over floss in future layouts and albums.

Perhaps the hardest part of this project was writing the stories. I had no idea how hard it would be in some cases to open myself up to others. I had to edit and re-edit myself many times to get just the right saying or to express my ideas properly. The stories were sometimes happy and had me in stitches laughing but some of the memories that I called on weren't so great. I'm appreciative for the time to reflect on all of them.

All in all it was a wonderful project though and I now have a wonderful keepsake going forward that I will keep and display for ever.

Krista

Project Presentation night!

Tonight is the project presentation at the university. I've been working diligently on revisions for this paper. Here's the before-



Yep. That's a lot of revisions I had to do on 10 stories.I'll be posting more pictures of the final project in the coming days.

Wish me luck tonight in our presentations!

Krista

I'm so close...

...to being done.

I just finished revising all of my stories and writing my final letter to camp. That was a hard one. I'll have more to post tomorrow but I wanted to share the excitement that I'm almost there.

Krista

Opening Page= Done.

I finished the opening page. I managed to do it without any tears! That's saying something. I imagine the final page will be the hardest to write. It's going to be a letter to camp. Probably the letter that I'm going to send when I give them my final 'no, i'm not coming back'.

Here's the opening page:



I also got the piece in the front cover. It's done in navy & yellow, the camp colours. I just used the title and then the years down below.





We're getting close now.

Krista

More to Share

Another page to share today. This is the opening double page of my album. It's a compliation of a whole bunch of photos that I had left over from the layouts.


My inspiration came from this layout pinned on Pinterest and made by Susan Weinroth. This is a great way of including a ton of photos on a layout.

So, this is what I have left to complete.




I'm using post it notes to identify what goes where. So far this has been an awesome experience. I know writing that last letter will be heartbreaking for me. It's something I'm planning on doing in a quiet house while nobody's home so I can cry to my heart's content.

Krista

Stage 3: Complete

Thought I might share some of my completed double page layouts here on the blog. These are some of my favorites.

Note: I apologize that some of the pics are fussy within the pages but I had to blur the faces of the children for privacy's sake.

Let's talk a little bit about design as we go through them.

So right off the bat I will tell you that I STRUGGLED with the 8 1/2 by 11 size of this album. That page size was difficult and challenging to work with. Initially, I chose it because I never use that size and thought it might be fun to try something different. Turns out 8 1/2 by 11 is a LOT smaller than the 12 by 12. And it's a long rectangle which made it much more difficult to work with. I don't think it deterred me form using 8 1/2 by 11 because it is a nice size to add some variety to a scrapbook 12 by 12 album and I know lots of people love it and use it exclusively. But, it was a learning experience for me that's for sure.

I used a lot of sketches to spark my creativity here and used this project as an opportunity to try out some different designs-linear vs. a little crazy. I LOVE how some of them turned out.

This is very simple and linear-there weren't a lot of photos to work with for this layout either so I kept it streamlined and simple.


This one is FUN. love the color combo and again more streamlined.


I like the banner on this one. This one came from a sketch.


Simple again. A lot of pastel colors-not something I usually do but I enjoy it.


This one's wayyyyy out of my comfort zone but I LOVE how it turned out. I especially like the layers of embellishments on the left.




And this is the last one in the album and I love it. Went for a collage look and I've been saving that American Crafts paper for ages, deciding how I would use it. I LOVE this layout!!!Lots of bits & lots of pics.




So that's a few of the double page layouts. We're getting there.

Krista

Working like a Dog

It's been a while. Honestly, I've been pumping out layouts upon layouts but I've been so productive that I just went with it. I was on a roll.

I just finished stage 3 which included the double page layouts for each year-that's 10 double page layouts. I'll post some of those tomorrow and talk about my designs. My stash is getting killed as I go, which is awesome, and the album is getting increasingly thicker. It's starting to shape up really nicely. I'm finding that the formula that I came up with originally is great for this project. It provides structure but allows room for lots of creativity within each year as well.

Now, I'm onto stage 4 tomorrow. I have two layouts to finish and then I have to figure out how to print the digital pages. Anyone out there in blog-land have any suggestions? They are 8 1/2 by 11. I've thought of printing them on cardstock and then adding a little something to them. Any suggestions would be helpful.

Krista