Summer Layouts

I came across these great summer papers that I had bought weeks & weeks ago and decided to play with them. As I started creating the layouts, I started looking at my pictures to find the perfect ones to match the page I wanted to create. They are bright and fun and I love the way they capture some of our summer memories...

The small title on the paper says "Backyard Adventure" and I wanted to bring in photos of my kids enjoying our backyard and it came together like this:

I went through a box from my cruise scrapbook that I knew had tons of embellishments, to see if any would go with this layout and I found some great diecut accents by K&Co Citronella line that really complimented the page, like the "Say Cheese" (which my daughter is doing and they are also eating Mac & Cheese - Love it!), the "Sizzlin'", the swirl and Make a Splash.

The best part was that after I created a collage (love to put tons of pics on my layouts - thank you Picasa!) I wanted it to fill a certain space but none of the print options were working (either too small or too big), so I went another route - I dragged and dropped the collage into Word and made it the size I wanted. While I was in Word, I decided to add another smaller photo and create the rest of my title (hey, I was already printing on an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper, I'm all about maximizing my space!!!). That's where the "summer fun" title came from. I had forgotten how much I love Word and how versatile it can be, especially for scrapbooking! So I'll be using that idea again!

The photo on the left is the inspiration for the title (thanks Lisette!) and showcases one of our boating adventures...

Even brought out the stamps for this one: