Tales of a Craft Class Junkie: Old Photos

This month, the Masterful Scrapbook Design seminar features the use of Old Photos. While I am lucky enough to have many of them to document, I often find the task overwhelming. My style is not necessarily vintage shabby chic. I have found that I felt compelled to scrap the photos in this style since that's what is shown the most often in scrapbook galleries. When I was assigned to work with older photos for Get It Scrapped, I tried another method to choose the right products for my layout.

Feeding the Deer by Christy Strickler |Supplies: Cardstock: Colorbok: Patterned Paper: October Afternoon: Alphas and Trim: Webster’s Pages; Doily: JBS Mercantile Stencil; Flowers: Maya Road, JBS Mercantile

I started with these photos. The fact that my husband's family was feeding deer by the side of the road intrigued me. I loved the cut edges of the photos. Since they were a good quality, I scanned them and used the originals directly on the layout.

Once my photos were chosen and digitally preserved, I set about finding the right paper.The deer on the October Afternoon patterned paper caught my eye. I then based the color palette and embellishment choices around the paper. If you look closely, the flowers are the same color and shape as the ones in the paper. Lace and crochet trims add a vintage feel and give the layout more texture.

Instead of choosing a style for my layout, I let my photos guide the process. It's the same thing I do for current photos. Somehow, older photos seem to hold the mystique of age and value. They seem so fragile and we are often afraid to document them the same way we do with current photos. Give yourself permission to use your style and your regular methods of memory keeping and scrapbooking those older photos will be a breeze.

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