Scrapbook Pages.

Hi Everyone, I haven't posted any scrapbook pages for a while, but thought you might like to see these. This double layout was made in response to this month's layout challenge over on the Running With Scissors Shop blog at http://tj-runningwithscissors.ning.com/ Helena had posted this single page sketch.

and I immediately thought of the photos of the Hot Air Balloon Trip that Kate, Jim and I had recently. Kate had always wanted a trip in a hot air ballooon, for that matter so had I....lol... and as both Kate and our good friend Jim celebrated special birthdays this year, it seemed like an opportunity not to be missed.

Kate's birthday was in early January, not a good time of year for outdoor adventures, Jim's was in early September a much better time of year, and our trip was planned for 17th September. We spent a lovely day in York, mooching around the shops and having a leisurely lunch before heading to the racecourse to take our balloon trip, an experience we would all willingly repeat, and a real Red Letter Day for all of us.

There were far too many photos that I wanted to use, as I wanted to give a feel of the whole experience, so a double lay out with large flaps for hidden photos and journaling was called for, the sketch with it's strong horizontal lines lent itself to being used this way. The large areas of white space in the sketch also felt appropriate as I wanted to capture that feeling of being at one with the sky.

The Hot air balloon embellishments were simply rubber stamped and coloured in, using a stamp from Clarity Stamps, stamp club that coincidentally arrived in the post a few days ago. The image was stamped once on white card and once onto white shrink plastic, which was then heated, this helped give a sense of perspective, and the calendar page was created in Word on my computer, cut out and then a Stamping Up Border Punch used to give the spiral bound look. All the journaling inside the card was printed out from the computer and then cut into strips before adhering, as were the two Haiku poems I created for the fronts of the layouts. I really like using the Haiku structure to add meaning to my pages in a way that is different from that straight forward journaling.

The words read "A Hot Air Balloon, As one with Wind and Nature, Drifting in Clear Skies" and "Once in a Lifetime, A Different Perspective, A Red Letter Day"

The large letters for the titles were cut using A Slice machine.

I am really pleased with how these pages have turned out, thanks to Helena and her inspiring layout sketch.

Bee xx