A few weeks ago I read a great article in the Sunday Parade magazine called "My Story in Five Faces" by Connie Schultz.
Scrapbooker that I am, I thought: now this would make an awesome concept for a layout. So I set out to translate her concept to scrapbook form. Here's what I ended up with:
I designed a 12 x 12 digital template featuring four slots in which to feature 4 decades. I decided to cover the teens through 40s. If you're not that old, you could do the preteens through the 30s, or if you have more decades, you could turn this into a two-page spread.
I chose to make this page a hybrid project. I simply printed out my photos on separate photo paper, and printed the rest on a sheet of 12 x 12 cardstock.
Clean. Simple. Journaling rich. My kind of page.
JOURNALING READS: The Teens—Oh, this sweet, young face. When I look back at any photo from my teen years I always see the same thing: a girl who is trying so very hard to be the latest and greatest thing, but is missing the mark and deep down, she kind of knows it. I have a lot of compassion for this face and this girl. I look at her and want to tell her to hold tight; that her style will be coming; that she’s going to feel good in her own skin as soon as she makes the connection that being her—not being anyone else—is a pretty good and desirable thing. I also see way too much hair. Good God! Way too much time spent in hot rollers. I also remember a girl who didn’t want to move her head too quickly for fear of shaking out a those hard-earned loopy curls. Sigh. Those were the days.
The Twenties—Remember that movie called “Stella got her groove back”? I don’t really know what the film was about, but that title is how I felt about me and my 20s. Cathy got her groove back. Actually, because I never had a groove that wouldn’t really be an accurate statement. However, it was in my 20s where I feel like I connected to myself stylistically. It was in my 20s where my confidence —spurred on in my late teens from the whole new wave experience—continued to grow and increase and some might say blossom. In this photo, I’m already living in Minnesota with Dan, and it really was an era of fun, change, love, life and work. I learned to rock the lip liner and lipstick, as well as keep that skin pale, smooth and flawless. Ha!
The Thirties—If I found my groove in my 20s, I definitely capitalized on it in my 30s. But the 30s had one component that the 20s were lacking. Namely, children. I had Aidan when I was 30 and the face that was looking back at me then looked not much like what you see above at all (at age 37). My 30s saw my weight go way up and way down, and that decade probably saw more different faces of me than at any other time in my life. In a sense, the face you see above came towards the end of struggling with identity and how I fit into the world as a mother and later as a self-employed woman trying to make it all work. The hair definitely stayed shorter in the 30s. Again, being a parent, who had time for fussy hair?
The Forties—And here we are today. Key differences? This face needs glasses to see. This face has looser skin around the edges. This face has a bit of extra skin underneath it as well. I wonder if it’s too soon to categorize a decade into which you’re presently planted. I know that so far, my 40s have been good to me, but they have also been surprisingly challenging in some ways as well. I’ve chosen to make my 40s the time of quitting smoking and getting in shape. I’ve chosen to make my 40s about fixing the glitches in my marriage and building a new and different life with Dan. I’ve chosen to grow at a time when I could have sat back and simply said, “Hello status quo.” So this face? Unsure but hopeful. And grateful for every single minute of it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TECHNICAL NOTES: I created this page using my No. 99 Layered Template. Once I placed my photos and sized them to my liking, I then dragged all four photos along with their mask layers (dragging one photo and one mask layer at the same time) into a new document for printing. I manually added trim marks using guides and the pencil tool to draw them in, and then I made each layer mask a bit bigger on all four sides to accommodate for a bleed on each photo. I printed the photos onto photo paper. Back in the template, I turned off the photo layers and just printed the rest onto a piece of white 12 x 12 cardstock.
DESIGN NOTES: This page features a very symmetrical balance structure. What you have on the left you have on the right. Also, repetition is strong as the photos and journaling boxes repeat across the page. There is also equal amounts of white space around all of the elements and a nice wide margin of space cushioning the entire design. Font harmony is achieve through the use of a single font for the title works and subheads. Of course, because I own that font, I used it for my journaling as well.
SUPPLIES:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To celebrate the release of my 100th template at Designer Digitals, come back tomorrow for a seriously cool giveaway. I'll give you a little hint: It might involve Photoshop CS5.
Hope to see you back here tomorrow.
