Making Stickers Go Farther

One thing leads to another!  In my last post, I shared a layout that included leftover sticker scraps.  That reminded me of a time when I created a layout that involved deliberately cutting a sticker into pieces.  That layout, "Smolny Cathedral" (below), was for the Color Room Palette #50.  I created it back in March, before I started this blog.  Slowly but surely those older layouts are making their way onto my blog.

Supplies: cardstock (American Crafts), doily patterned paper (October Afternoon), mottled blue patterned paper (My Mind's Eye), fussy-cut scalloped paper strips (Kaiser Craft), fussy-cut stars (Echo Park), border sticker (Doodlebug Design), alphabet & snowflake stickers (Bo-Bunny), label sticker (October Afternoon), pen (Gelly Roll by Sakura).

The photos on this layout are from my 1995 trip to Russia.  For me, the photos capture the essence of Russian winter: snow, bundled-up pedestrians, and beautiful architecture, complete with onion domes!  The journaling reads: "April 2: One of our first excursions was a trip to Smolny, where we heard a concert."  If you ever make it to Saint Petersburg, a trip to Smolny is worthwhile.  The cathedral is no longer used for worship; instead, it's a concert hall.  You can also pay a little extra to go up into the top onion dome and look out over Saint Petersburg.  Our group opted not to do that, since the weather was so cold and snowy on the day we visited Smolny.  However, I did get to climb to the top of another cathedral dome (Saint Isaac's, which you can see here) to get a panoramic view of the city on a sunnier day.

As you can see from the in-progress photo above, I made the two snowflakes on either side of the layout by cutting apart a larger sticker.  After I completed the "Smolny Cathedral" layout, I still had pieces of the snowflake sticker remaining.  You can see them on either side of my scissors in the photo.  I was able to assemble them into a complete snowflake on a different layout (which will appear in a different post).  So, I got three snowflake images from a single sticker.  I love it when things work out like that!

Before I sign out, I wanted to share one more thing with you.  Tomorrow is the first day of school for most kids in our city.  I'm very excited for my son, because this year in school his class will be scrapbooking, after a fashion!  When I attended Parents' Night last week, I got a copy of this note: 

"This year we will be journaling daily.  We would like the journals to be more meaningful and something kids want to save and add to later.  We will be creating "Life Books" this year and are asking kids to bring in pictures and items that can be put in their books before they journal.  Examples of items that kids can bring in are postcards, ticket stubs, napkins, part of a box from food or toys, etc.  Please help them be creative.  They can bring items to add to their journals anytime during the school year.  Please get them started by finding 4-6 items."  

I think this is a great project!  Using photos and memorabilia seems like an easy way to jump-start kids' writing ideas.  My son already likes to scrapbook alongside me, so this kind of project will be perfect for him.  He was very excited when I told him about the project, and he immediately picked five items (three photos, a postcard from our summer vacation, and a pocket map from the Minnesota Zoo) to use in his first journal entries.  I'll be sure to let you know how his journal progresses during the school year.

As always, thanks for stopping by my blog!  See you again soon in cyberspace.