My Topic:
Today I am not writing to you as “us”—Finders Keepers. Today I am writing as Sarah, 1/2 of Finders Keepers, and I am going to write about Rachel, because it was her birthday this past Thursday. So I wanted to create a layout for her and all about her, which is harder than you might think, because she is such a diverse person and there are so many really wonderful pictures of her that capture her little quirks and bits. Rachel is funny and kind. She is a fiercely loyal friend. She loves animals, little, plush, puffy creatures whose names elude me and white chocolate. She is adventurous and fun. She likes to shop for crafting supplies and little useful knick knacks, but not clothes or food.
Your Challenge:
Celebrate yourself! Find your favorite picture or pictures of you and then create a layout with your favorite kinds of embellishment—paper, buttons, ribbons—or washi, as I’ve done here. Find the beauty that others see in you (don’t be coy—you know they do). Through a little “Me Party” on the page. And stop periodically to thank yourself for everything you do.
The Design:
The layout I created was a result of deciding to use my all-time favorite picture of her and only that one picture. I love this picture (taken in Hawaii when her rental car was a convertible) because it reminds me of Rach’s adventurous spirit and her sense of fun. She looks so free and happy. So what to do with the rest of the page? It came to me while I was driving my daughter to karate: Rachel LOVES washi tape (and I think it’s fair to say she has an extensive—perhaps excessive?—collection of it), “So,” I thought to myself, “I shall simply washi the living hell out of it.” And then I did.
I think that anyone could do this pretty quickly by using a 12×12 white page, placing the picture and laying in the washi and then simply cutting the whole layout into 4×6 and 3×4 pieces to fit your pocket pages.
But I was out of 12×12 white pages, so I used a bunch of 4×6’s that I had on hand. I laid them in the same arrangement as my pocket pages.
Then I taped them together to keep them from sliding all over the place (I allowed a little space between the cards). Be sure, if you aren’t using a symmetrical page layout, to turn your arrangement over and tape on the back or your work will end up backwards.)
Turn the whole shebang over.
Here is my layout with a hole where the picture will go. The offset 4×6 in the lower left corner is where the calendar will go.
Then I just started running washi in concentric squares around the picture. I got this step done in 1/2 of an episode of Marvel’s Agents of Shield, so it went fairly quickly. I used scissors for a straight cut instead of tearing the tape, because I wanted squared corners.
Then I cut it all apart, inserted it into the pockets and voilà.
You are totally worth this little bit of time to create something special about yourself and nothing you can say will convince me otherwise.
Freebies:
Don’t forget to get your blank calendar and “February box” from our free downloads page, here.
Let us know how it goes!
