I got my Scrapbooking Mojo back!

After months of birthdays and holidays...and just being a busy SAHM, I finally pulled out my scrapbooking pages again! The urge to scrapbook had been building up, but I've always put it off because it tends to make a royal mess of my dinning room table (yes, there is a table in my scrapbook room, but that's a subject for another day).

Saturday, while looking for Valentine paper at my local scrapbook store, I came across some glittery paper and embellishments from K & Company that is perfect for the fairy pictures I'd been dying to start on. There really isn't that much in the way of pre-made embellishments with fairies (unless you want Tinkerbell...then there's a ton to choose from). So I bought the paper, layed it out on the table and presto change-0...looky what I made:

There is another flower stem in the photo (by her head) that I should photoshop out, but other than that, I think this turned out cute. The banner under the picture says "the fairest flower."

Here is a close up of the embellishemnts I put together. The stars are from Natalie's old ballet tu-tu and I added the glittery flower stickers by K & Company.

Here is another page I got done...I even managed to write a caption too!!!

This tag is from My Mind's Eye (bonjour collection). I added the glitter to the letters and dressed it up with more flowers. I have 3 more pages in the wings, but I need to go get more background paper.

How to get more mileage from your 12x12 cardstock

Many of you already do this, but it's worth mentioning as scrapbooking paper can sometimes be spendy. I don't do this when using regular cardstock (unless it's a large photo), but if I'm using expensive paper, I like to get the most out of my paper. For the above layouts I used lots of glittery paper which sells for about $1 a sheet (12x12). I tend to mount all my photos on coordinating cardstock, so rather than have all the back go to waste, I cut 1/2" to 1" borders out from the edge of the cardstock and use the inside piece for another photo. Here's what I mean:

Here is the glittery green cardstock cut to fit my 5x7 photo.

If I cut waway 1/2 inch, I can then use the middle to mount a 4x6 photo.

You can't even tell the back is cut out!

Here is a look at how many photos you can mount with one piece of 12x12. I have one 8x10, two 5x7 and two 4x6 photos from just one piece. If I didn't cut out the middle, it would have taken two and a half sheets of cardstock.

Here is the back where you can see the cut outs.