Top 10 Layouts (2010 in Review pt 7)

You will be pleased (!) to know that this is the very LAST post of my Best of 2010 series and, along with my look back to my top 10 photos, definitely my favourite.

This month marks our (Liberty and me) 5th scrapbooking anniversary and I think it's fair to say that we have both come a LONG way in those 5 years. My first pages are a lot of fun to look back on but not exactly the "best" as far as design principles or style. I'm hoping that you all have the same experience and know what I mean! It's not that I don't love the pages I made back in 2006, it's just that I LOVE the pages I made in 2010 - or at least most of them!

What is funny though is that even then, I wasn't worried about chronology, scrapping every photo, or only making things pretty. One of my first ever pages was this one that I made based on a BG sketch. I remember R being surprised that this was my subject - a couple of trees and some snow. Why wasn't I doing our holidays, the things we did, the places we went? And he didn't really understand when I told him that I wanted to capture the little things. The things that touched me. The everyday things that matter - to me.

I think you can't really read the journalling (already so important to me) but it talks about the view from our window and how happy I was that I had taken these photo at this time because at the time of writing, the beautiful, stunning, magnificent horse-chestnut trees were not there, having been cut down in the new year. 

And not a lot has changed in the years since then! Late in 2006 I discovered Big Picture Scrapbooking and Simple Scrapbooks and then never looked back. I was home! Pictures, stories, memories and pretty papers. Bliss! Along the way, Liberty opened up Bellaboo and I had a lot of fun helping her whenever she asked. Through this, we both got published and became regular contributors to The Scapbook Magazine which is such a thrill when I see our layouts in print!  

But if we fast forward to 2010, this was my most productive year yet. Thanks to a boost to the number of pages completed due to three months of LOAD, and then finding the style that I had been looking for in myself for so long (à la Nic H!), I can honestly say that I love more layouts from 2010 than I don't love. I discovered that I love distressing, I love clustering, white space is really hard for me, I love to write journalling, I often love to use more than one photo and I love the community I have found through blogging and through LOAD. I enjoy using sketches, challenges, prompts or others' layouts as inspiration. I love the work I do for The Scrapbook Magazine. I love it when I get to go to the Bromsgrove Crop organised by Liberty. It's just that I love this hobby of ours. Isn't it wonderful?

Back to 2010...

My total output was this....

... with the layouts on the left being those made in classes or just for me or for The Scrapbook Magazine, and those on the right being my LOAD February, May and October layouts. These piles of finished layouts make me feel GOOD! Look at all that dimension, all those products used up, all those stories told, all those photos stuck down and all that creative time! I haven't counted them but there must be 150 here as I know the pile on the right is 90. How to choose just 10?

Actually, this was quite easy. I just thought about the ones that stand out in my mind or ones that I love and haven't highlighted in the multi-photo layout posts from the last few weeks.

They may not really be the TOP 10, but they are all special - to me.

Does this sound vain or arrogant? I hope not. After all, "Do what you love and love what you do", right?

So, my Top 10 Layouts of 2010 (in no particular order)

1. This design was inspired by one I saw on the Studio Calico site by Maggie Holmes. I think I lifted the title too.  I have probably scrapped this photo a dozen times. Yes, I do that - a lot! But each time, the photo says something different to me and the title sent my mind off in a different direction too. This was one of my favourite kits from Scrapagogo last year, and of course, one of my favourite Yukon photos.

2. Yes, a featured photo (from my previous "best of" posts) and a featured layout. Me trying the simple approach with a bit of white space just to prove I can. I wanted to capture how wonderful it was for me to have my photo selected as one of the highlighted photos by The Pioneer Woman for one of her photo challenges. Photography is something I have been working on over the year, and this proved to me I was on the right track of what I wanted to produce.

3. A layout inspired by the Nic H BPC class that we did in the late spring/early summer and then completed during LOAD to the prompt "choose stuff you love" or something like that if I remember correctly. Love the photos, love the design, love the papers. An unusual layout for me as it has no journalling, but my clustering was growing!

4. A layout completed for LOAD in May - at the airport on the way to the UK. I knew I wouldn't have any other time so I packed a small box with some scraps, two sheets of cardstock, some photos, two packs of letters and a few embellishments and then sat in the airport bar and created this - of course without scissors or craft knife! I can't tell you how many funny looks I got - especially when I stood up and took a photo of it in order to upload it to the Flickr gallery. It made Flickr Explore on that day (I think because of the bokeh), but has since dropped out. That doesn't matter as it just proves that you can scrapbook anywhere if you want!

5. A very silly one that I completed for The Scrapbook Magazine. I was given the assignment to use the colours of the German flag, use the topic of "my hero" and to incorporate paper punches. Liberty gets credit for giving me the idea of using Jacob (swoon, swoon) as the subject and I was really pleased with how it came out. See, I can make relatively flat layouts when I try!

6. Another October LOAD layout responding to the daily prompt of a layout without a photo. I think I had probably seen this idea somewhere and it was in my sub-conscience but at the time I was thinking about it, this idea just jumped into my brain out of nowhere and I knew I wanted to do this. I sat down and wrote and wrote and wrote - a stream of babble! When I read it now, I know that there needs to be a second one to this as there are so many things I missed out - not least how important family and friends are to me. I don't think I say this enough to those who matter to me.

7. 12 photos to celebrate 12 years since the day we met, inspired by my 12 on 12 series. It was lovely for me to look back over those years, find a photo for each year and see how happy we have been/are, how young we once were, how much thinner we were back then and to see just a few of all the cool places we have been. I just wanted to capture some thoughts on the day and love how it turned out.

8. Yet another one of my "how many wonderful Yukon photos can I fit onto one page?" layouts. The design was inspired by one I had done in a Nichol Magouirk class and used another one of my favourite kits from Scrapagogo. Just my kind of colours and textures. I loved the fact that I got to use one of my real Canadian maple leaves even though it is very fragile and probably won't hold out all that long.

9. One of the additional layout designs from the Nic H class Dimensional Details. This was definitely the best class I have ever done and while I am still improving on the the whole clustering, distressing, layering thing, this is where the theory and practice came together. I love the colours I have used here - soft and pretty and perfect for those glittered cupcakes.

10. A simple one to finish off just to prove that I can do flat and straight lines if I want. This often happens when I have a lot of journalling to write as was the case here. Just highlighting a wonderful weekend catching up with some friends we met at university.

Top 10 Photos (2010 in Review pt 6)

I've said it before and I'll say it again - I take photos. LOTS of photos. Thousands of photos. And I love it.

The storage is proving a little tricky these days, and I have way too many to deal with, edit, print, look at and share but I enjoy the process so much that nothing is going to stop me! I'm not an expert but through practice, I think I have improved over the last couple of years. I know my limitations, I know what I like, and I am trying to learn.

According to iPhoto, I have 6,303 photos in my 2010 album which is quite low considering we took more than that number when we went to the Yukon! But I think there are quite a lot of duplicates in there and many, many, many bad ones that would be better deleted (part of my 2011 resolutions). Trying to pick just 10 of these was quite difficult, but here are 10 that came to mind when I was thinking of them. None of them are perfect. But I like them.

My Top 10 Photos of 2010 (again in no particular order)

1. This was my first session playing with DOF and bokeh. I have a small USB string of coloured fairy lights around my computer screen which proved perfect for a bit of pretty. I liked the fact that the jar was full of my favourite colour - pink - and I adore using buttons on my layouts.

2. And this was from my more recent playing around session with DOF and bokeh. This formed the basis of my Christmas card. I love the bokeh effect and you will no doubt see more of these types in the months to come.

3. I am not very good at taking photos of people. But I love taking pictures of nature and macro type shots of details. We had loads of spring flowers planted on our balcony last year and I spent hours outside getting up close to all those pretty springtime blooms. While this one of a grape hyacinth was gorgeous in colour, I decided to try it out in B&W - I like the effect.

4. This was a shot in response to a photo challenge on The Pioneer Woman for "Green". Who can resist pretty, sparkly glitter? I was thrilled and honoured to have this chosen by her as one of her highlighted photos. Very cool!

5. Cupcakes at Mum's birthday party. I couldn't resist that edible glitter on the top - incredibly pretty in real life and totally delicious at the same time. I applied an effect through an iPhone app that I have - love the grungy look it gave.

6. I spent a few minutes one morning when I was in the UK snapping a few shots of the über-adorable Isabella. I have loads of gorgeous photos to choose from as she is just so photogenic. There is something about her eyes here - so serious. There are others which are more fun and funky, but I think this is my favourite.

7. You've seen this before on my Christmas round up and in my December journal. I was again responding to a photo challenge from The Pioneer Woman for Holiday Bokeh and I just love the subtle colours and the pretty bokeh in the background. This is not a perfect photo at all, just pretty.

8. I have a large picture frame in the bedroom with an Ikea poster of roses which I want to replace with one of my own photos. I think I want to use one from this session of a bunch of peonies. One of my absolute favourite flowers and of course, I adore these colours.

9. Something that was inspired by Flickr - can't take any credit at all for the composition. But I loved the idea and set it up on a sunny day, loving the result. I have used it a couple of times on love themed layouts. Such a pretty idea.

10. This one kept grabbing my attention as I scanned through the year's photos. When the Chances were here over the summer, we took our regular trip to the local zoo. The Asia zone had recently opened and we were excited to see what animals they had. I think we were all a little bit disappointed with the zone as a whole but one of the highlights was seeing two incredibly beautiful orangutans resting right next to a viewing window. This shot was taken through the window using my little point and shoot and it almost breaks my heart every time I look at it. If that isn't the face of someone (let's face it, they look so human) who is fed up and disheartened, I don't know what is. Again, it's a far from perfect photo, but it speaks to me.

I am planning a short blog series about photos - probably not for a few weeks now with January hurrying along and LOAD coming up for February. I thought I would share some of the things I have picked up along the way that have helped me improve my photos. I have a LONG way to go before I can honestly say that my photos are good, but like I said at the beginning, I know what I like and concentrate on making baby steps of improvement. I want to learn so much more but it's time and money. Maybe sometime in the future...

Do you have a favourite photo of your 2010? 

Top 5 Projects (2010 in Review pt 5)

2010 wasn't really a busy year for me as far as non-scrapbooking projects went. Or so I thought. 

I did try to make cards (and I made quite a few actually) but still think I have a long way to go on that creativity. And there were a few older projects that I finished off - some years after I had originally started them (here or here or here) and I loved that feeling of completing something that had been sitting around, unloved, unfinished for so long. 

Again, when I look back, there are lots of smaller things that I made over the 12 months but really, I was so busy with scrapbooking, that they slip into the background. So in the spirit of highlighting those projects that particularly appeal to me, here are my top 5 of the year.

1. Valentine's Day card. This was inspired by something I saw online if I remember rightly and was so pleased with the result. It took me ages because working on such a small scale is really hard for me but it was worth it.

2. My December Journal. Ok, so in reality, I completed it this month, but I did a lot of the leg work in December and started it on time. Although it's a bit of a disaster (!!!!), I still love it - proof of a relaxed, enjoyable Christmastime 2010.

3. Photo A Day albums. I have been taking photos more of less every day since January 2007 and have been trying to find a way to showcase those I choose to represent the day. I had various ideas and this one won out. These two albums are not perfect and I learnt a lot about how I want to do them other years but I still like the format and the concept. I will get around to making them for every year - just a matter of time!

4. Halloween banner and decorations. I had great fun this year pepping up my Halloween decorations and using up some of the wonderful papers and bits and pieces I have lying around. I loved the results. 

5. Anniversary card. I was pleased with this card which took me a long time but came out even better than I had envisaged. 7 years is copper so I used a lot of of copper wire and kept the rest simple. 

My heart will always be with scrapbooking, but sometimes it's great to step off the page and try different things. I have a list in my head of things I want to try this year including improving my card-making. Deb is so inspirational and I want to learn from her and join in some of her challenges.

What about you? What off the page projects do you want to try in 2011?

Me in 2010 (2010 in Review pt 4)

I can't say that I looked my best in 2010. 

Too many extra kilos ignored, far too many new grey hairs that I was too lazy to cover up most of the time, too little time spent on looking after myself. In fact, when it comes to me, I am pretty lazy! I have my fair share of vanity, but more often than not, the laziness wins out! LOL. But I thought it would be interesting to see what I looked like through the year - hair, wrinkles, clothes, smiles? So, maybe this is a vain 2010 review but I think we often don't look at ourselves enough. I try to get plenty of photos of me as I scrap a lot about me (if I don't, who would?!) but I can definitely see that this year was limited as far as photos of me, and photos of me and those people around me. Anyway, here are a few that stood out.

1. Mum's special day. When I look at photos like this, I struggle to find any resemblance at all. This photo especially, makes us look like day and night! 

2. Me at the coal mine. I was surprisingly clean when we arrived back on the surface after three hours more than a kilometre underground. But boy, the dust was everywhere! The shower water was black and it took days to get rid of the last fragments of dust from my nails and (horror) up my nose!!! A wonderful experience which was worth the dirt. Can you tell how utterly exhausted I was?!

3. Halloween. I tried extra hard this year to come up with a "good" costume for myself! I even planned it a bit, although I only put it together about an hour before our guests arrived! I had seen something on the Martha Stewart website which inspired me with the face make-up and just built on that. I was very pleased with the result although my trailing veil proved a bit of a health and safety hazard!

4. Just me. This was probably one of those 12 on 12's self-portrait photos (check out the mess in the background!). It's not pretty, not posed, not really edited and therefore, it's pretty real. Actually, I like the colour of my eyes here and so many freckles! 

5. A girl and her camera. I see these photos so often online so I tried to replicate them - with limited success! Rather wild, grey hair but this represents what I looked like for most of the year!

6. Classic Cosmo. Christmas Eve, Cosmopolitan in hand, silly paper hat on head, dinner with the love of my life. Who could ask for more?

7. New Year's Eve. We dressed up. The others came in jeans. It was a lot of laughs and I got to wear my wonderful Cadbury's dress (so named because of the gorgeous jewel purple colour of the dress which is very similar to the royal purple that Cadbury's use for their trade mark Dairy Milk bar of chocolate!) After a pre-Christmas trip to the hairdresser, my fringe is back and that makes me happy. Little things, huh?!

8. Faded me. Another 12 on 12 self portrait which looked so serious that it came to appear on at least one of the more serious layouts I did this year. I have to work on smiling more this year.

9. Hiding behind the camera. Another attempt at the photo in the mirror with camera type shot. I like this one better because the camera is hiding most of my face!

10. Just the two of us. I noticed that we didn't take so many of these types of photos last year - need to improve on this in 2011.

I think it's really important that I feature in our photos of our life. Last year, I forgot this a bit and when I look through 2010, there really aren't enough. And there certainly aren't enough of the two of us. This will be added onto my list of things to remember for 2011.

Try looking back on your own photos of you in 2010. What can you tell about yourself from them? 

Top 3 Classes - and a half (2010 in Review pt3)

Over the year, I did my usual signing up for more classes than I could really deal with! At BPC I took 6 classes, received prompts from Shimelle's LSNED and JYC (you are automatically in the class each year it runs once you have joined the class for the first time), and also joined in various challenges including LOAD. I was successful (!) to a greater (at times when I was über-motivated) or lesser extent (due to my own laziness or lack of concentrated effort), and only really completed one of the classes from beginning to end but I did manage to complete a layout every day for the three months of LOAD (February, May & October) which I am very proud of. A pile of 90 layouts is really something I can tell you! Some of my favourite layouts of the year (to come) came from these classes and from LOAD - they filled me with inspiration and motivation.

My Top 3 Classes of the year were therefore:

1. Dimensional Details by Nic Howard (BPC)

If you are at all familiar with Nic's work (she is on the design team at BasicGrey and also Prima) you will know that she is all about the clustering, distressing and dimension. Originally, I wasn't sure but she was so highly recommended on the LOAD message board that I signed up and it was FANTASTIC. You have to get on board if she ever runs this class again. Every week was stunning: full of inspiration and beautiful layouts as well as great assignments and clear, motivational instructions. I loved every minute of it and completed every assignment which is a real achievement for me. It's really hard to pick a favourite layout from this class as I truly love them all but this one was so much fun to do.

Through this class, I really feel as though I have found my style and that feels great. I love the curled edges and the piles of embellishments and the paint and ink and bits and pieces. I have no idea how I will get them all into albums due to their dimension but I don't care! I haven't put a single layout into an album for more than 18 months and just adore sitting looking at the huge piles of finished layouts I have.

2. Colour! or is it Color? by Nic Howard (BPC)

Once you've done a Nic H class, it will have you coming back for more! She is delightful and fun and inspiring and has a wonderful NZ accent which we all love. She produces just the most gorgeous layouts and has a style all her own (which I want for myself!!). So when this class came up, it was a no brainer for me. Ok, so I haven't managed all the layouts yet but I am working through the assignments in my own time and loved the first couple that I did. As you might have guessed, this class was all about colour and we went through the colours of the rainbow to create a collection of cards and layouts that represent each colour considering the meanings behind each colour and thinking about the mood or feelings they can represent. I just finished green last weekend (so 2011) but managed red and yellow last year. Yellow is therefore my layout of choice to represent this class.

3. Camp Scrap by May Flaum (BPC)

May offers a completely different style of class but is so much fun. The pace is faster. There are always loads of examples, assignments, challenges, handouts, chats and giveaways. She has a great style and loves to make simple but quirky layouts using mostly 6x4 photos either complete or cropped down which I love. Most of her layouts are multi-photo (now there's a topic for a blog post ;-)  ) and are easy but effective. She's not a perfect scrapper which suits me down to the ground. Camp Scrap was a summer class with all the fun of, well, camp! Ok, many of us non-US'ers didn't really know what happened at "camp" but it was all good stuff and we had a ball. Again, I didn't do all the assignments but that's the joy of lifetime access: I can go back over the ones I missed and fill in. I completed 8 specific challenges or assignments but this one of Charlie is my favourite for sure.

And I am going to add in a 3a which would be the October LOAD - it was a wonderful 31 days and I have 31 wonderful layouts to prove it. Check out the link above to find out about LOAD 2/11 and I promise you, you won't regret joining up - if you complete 28 or just 2 layouts! I will be blogging more about LOAD later in the month but this was one of my favourite LOAD layouts where I followed the prompt (purely optional and sometimes I do, sometimes I don't).

Are you a classaholic like me? If so, what is your favourite - I'd love to check it out.

I am currently *shock horror* classless but am planning to join May Flaum again at BPC for her Creative Retreat 2011 starting in Feb - it might be crazy to join at the same time as LOAD, but heck, I am just a crazy girl sometimes ;-)

Top 3's, 5's & 10's (2010 in review pt2)

Even though I was glad to say goodbye to 2010, when I was thinking about the year as a whole, there were many highlights which is always great to realise. Sometimes, when you are in the middle of it, it's difficult to see the positive and hindsight then becomes a wonderful thing.

And so, on I go to the first batch of top #'s (all featured in no particular order)

Top 10 Events of 2010

1. The Chances visit Germany. Always a treat to have them all over here. We fitted loads into just a few days but the highlight was definitely getting us all on the same photo.
2. Easter.  What a surprise, a totally pink affair full of prettiness. It's such a great time of year to decorate the place with glitter, flowers, feathers, eggs and pretty, pastel colours. So very me! It's a great way to welcome the spring.
3. Our trip "Untertage" (or us down a coalmine!). A life-changing experience which I know sounds a bit exaggerated but it was a spectacular adventure that gave me a much greater sense of respect for those who work (or have worked) underground.
4. Liberty and I taking mum for Prêt à Portea at the Berkeley Hotel in London for her birthday present. A fashion collection inspired afternoon tea followed by Mama Mia in the West End. It was lovely to spend the day together and I think we all enjoyed ourselves so much and had a lot of laughs. My favourite delicacy was the Chanel shoe - what a classic.
5. My brother-in-law's wedding to the wonderful Elke. Ok, so I didn't want to post a photo of them here as I haven't asked their permission but they set up a self-portrait corner for the guests to have a bit of a laugh and we spent five minutes there taking some silly photos. Silly being the operative word! If you know us, you know that is not hard for either of us!
6. Mum's visit to Germany for my birthday. I blogged about it but it was lovely to have her here for my birthday and to check out three Christmas Markets in as many days. We never find ourselves together in a photo so I was especially pleased with this one. 
7. The World Cup in South Africa and Germany coming third. I did support England through the fírst stages until they lost against Germany (an ever so slightly awkward moment!) but then it was all out to cheer on the German team to their well-deserved third place. It's hard to support England over here (!) but at least I get a bit of the best of all worlds in being able to support them both. (And I am really NOT a big football fan - once every four years only).
8. Surprise flowers from a very special friend. I wrote about reconnecting with a wonderful schoolfriend earlier in the year. We hadn't seen each other for 9 years (since I moved to Germany) and I went to vist her in May. We chatted and laughed and caught up as if we hadn't been apart all that time and then she surprised me with these beautifully thoughtful flowers to let me know she was thinking of me. Good friends are so hard to find and it's one of my resolutions this year to do better at keeping my friends in my thoughts and to keep in touch more regularly. 
9. Halloween. This year I really went to town on the crafting and decorating for Halloween and was thrilled with the result. We had our usual small party with family and friends complete with very ingenious costumes and it was a lovely, relaxed evening. 
10. 24 hours in Hamburg with Ted. My first time to this very beautiful port city and even though we were there for such a short time, and we kept to a real budget, we managed to see the main highlights of the city. It's really a lovely place and I hope to go back one day with R to look around in more detail. A very successful weekend.