Saturday, July 12, 2014

Russian Words, American Holiday (SOC Week 5)

Journaling: "I was amused by the 'Russian Word of the Day,' пляж (beach), because we really did go to the beach the very next day."

I worked hard to learn Russian in high school and college, and I use all sorts of little tricks to keep my language skills from going stale.  One of my latest tricks is "Russian Word of the Day" e-mails, which are free from Transparent Language.  I had to smile at the word I got on July 3, which was пляж, meaning "beach."  The example sentence for the word was "She and I will go to the beach tomorrow."  It fit my life perfectly, since my family and I really did go to the beach the next day...as did millions of other people, I'm sure.  :)
 
Supplies: cardstock from Pulp; patterned paper from American Crafts; alphabet & label stickers from October Afternoon; all other stickers from Bella Blvd; stamp from Inkadinkado; pens from Zig; upcycled bubble wrap & punch card.
 

In fact, my family goes to the beach almost every Fourth of July.  That means that I end up with lots of Independence Day beach photos every year.  Sometimes it's hard to think of a new and different way to scrapbook all those photos.  But this year, I was inspired by the пляж e-mail.  I printed the message and based my layout around the printout.


This week's Summer of Color palette is red and royal blue, with a pop of light blue--perfect for this scrapbook page.  My pop of light blue comes in the form of the page title--"July."  Anchoring the title is an American flag sticker.  Regular printer paper is translucent, so I placed the flag sticker under the paper for a subtle, barely-there effect.


Beach layouts usually seem to lend themselves to the smudgy, carefree look of mixed media, so I did some stamping and stenciling along the top and bottom borders of my layout.  In addition to a regular rubber stamp, I also stamped with upcycled bubble wrap from a padded mailing envelope.  My stencil, also upcycled, is actually a frequent-buyer punch card.  I'm ending up using the card much more for paper crafting (see here and here) than for shopping.  :)

My son usually plays along with the Summer of Color, but so far this week he has not gotten around to it, even though he likes the color scheme.  If he does end up making a project before the deadline, I'll be sure to add a photo of it to this post.

11 comments:

Kristin said...

xo

Sharon Fritchman said...

Beautiful scrapbook pages, Denise! It is so wonderful to see another scrapbooker!!!! Great use of this week's SOC colors!

Cindy McMath said...

Fun layouts and great use of the week's colours. I'm impressed with anyone who can speak and/or read more than one language!

IrinaR (Irina Rakovets) said...

Как классно обыграна тема, Дениз!!! и все сделано без специальных материалов, что называется, из подручных средств. Здорово!

Tanya Dudkina said...

This is so cute!
Nice photos and nice story))
And a few words from me to your sweet layout))
ракушка - seashell
seashore - побережье
sea - море

:)

Dana Tatar said...

Super fun page! The word of the day is a great page starter. Maybe I will sign up for the French version. :) Thanks for sharing!

Bleubeard and Elizabeth said...

You know I always love what you do, especially bringing in upcycled and recycled products and tools that work as well, if not better, than what artists pay a fortune for.

I enjoyed reading that you get a word a day. That's a great way to keep your language skills fresh. And it certainly helped in this beautiful sea side layout.

Virginia said...

Fabulous page!

Patricia said...

love your style of scrap !!!

Mary Jo said...

Very cool page, Denise!
And I think it's great you are keeping up with Russian.
Wish I could say the same about all the French I studied in high school!

Caz said...

Lovely page, simple but really lovely! I'm so jealous you learnt Russian! I had to learn French but I wasn't very good at it!