Thursday, June 23, 2011

aha moment: three pages at once

When I was a little girl, and still to this day, I strive to make sure things are fair. I remember when I was in 4th grade my sister got a hot pink tape player for her birthday. Eight months later, when my birthday rolled around, some how I remembered the tape player and thought that my present wasn't fair?? One thing my mom really did an incredible job at was making sure she treated us the same without favoring, but I can still remember, clear as day, being very dramatic in my bedroom. I might have even wrote a sob story in my diary. haha. How would I listen to my MC Hammer tape? Anyways, I was scrapping a layout for Avery and then I felt bad for the other two girls, so, while I had all the supplies, pictures, papers, and layout design in mind I whipped out two more pages. Just to be fair.

Painted polka dots with one of my favorite masks then circled random ones with a pen.

The title is "No Matter What" then the journaling plays off of those three words for the beginning of each sentence.
AC: Cardstock, Dear Lizzy Thickers, Pen, Feather patterned paper
Hambly: Butterflies
AC: Cardstock, Dear Lizzy Floral, Thickers

Usually I scrapbook for creative play and to make something special for my children or my own life history. I generally don't scrapbook to "get 'er done" as Cleetus would probably say. This was a bit of both... creative play and get 'er done. I don't know if I will do this each time I make a page but it sure was easy since I had all the supplies ready to go and an idea in mind.
Have you ever tried this if you have multiple kids?

60 comments:

Unknown said...

Thanks for sharing.... always love your layouts! Wish I could get my hands on some more of your paper line here locally....

sophie said...

oh Liz, this is such a fab idea!! I love the colors and papers! your design is awesome!! I never tried that with my two kids but I should!! I think I get too obesessed with design sometimes!! your girls are so lucky to have such a great mum!

elizabeth kartchner said...

Thanks Veronica!

elizabeth kartchner said...

And U Jest, where do you live? I know I wish paper had a longer shelf life.


Thanks Sophie, you are so sweet!

Stef said...

Beautiful pictures and layouts! I have three girls, too, and it's always at the forefront of my mind to keep things "fair." You should see how many baby dolls we have, it is absolutely ridiculous! I have totally done layouts assembly line style. You're right, it's SO much easier. The keeping it fair thing with scrapbooking got too overwhelming for me though, so lately I've been doing more sewing. I just kind of rotate back and forth between who I'm sewing for. I'm sure that, no matter how hard we try, at some point they'll throw themselves across their bed crying and wailing about how we love their sisters more!

Ah well, you and Cleetus have a good weekend with those cuties!

Stef

:corinne: said...

Hi LIzzy! I get it...sooo get it. I have 23 month old triplets and barely have time to do any layouts and when I do, I feel like I need to make each of theirs the same. I'm starting to do a lot of digital, I still get to "create" and it saves me time and money. ;) Thanks for all your posts. I appreciate your inspiration.

Joanna said...

Aw these are great! Love the design! :)

Heather said...

Each one of my kiddos has five albums just their own, then I started doing family albums (although I still keep school albums together for each one; less pics, more memorabilia). I figure they can each take their own albums and then fight over the family ones someday when I'm gone :)

Your pages are adorable! I'm at such a busy work/school time of my life right now, I haven't scrapped in months. I can't wait to be done (next spring) and spend time printing out all of these pics that are just sitting on my computer. You're doing a great job juggling all of your things, Liz! Keep up the inspiration!

the nayz said...

I have two kidlets and I have done this several times now-especially if they are pictures of the same event. All I do is change up the colors-I have a boy and a girl.

Claudia said...

I got 2 girls & ever since the second one arrived I've been feeling guilty about not scrapping equally for the two of them. While I have yet to do the exact same layout for each, I like to use the same materials (e.g. I used the Emma Girl collection & made 2 pink canvas mini books I had laying around for each girl but different layouts, etc).

Rae said...

I do several of the same layouts because I have boy-boy-girl triplets. Generally they are the same exact layout and sometimes wording but colors and paper are different. Rarely do I use the same supplies except for when I need the exact story for everyone then it is digital and I print 3 copies.

Love your work!

Sheila said...

Adorable! Absolutely love the papers and colors. Such a lighthearted happy feel to all 3 pages.

stephanie said...

I have done this once with my kids, a "What you <3 right now.." LO for both.

I am always blown away at how amazing your pages are, how balanced and beautiful! And I agree that not being able to listen to your MC Hammer tape would have been torture! "Can't Touch This" was my favorite song and I still have it on my playlist for jogging. :)

Ana said...

Great idea. It makes things faster for me as well. Also, I totally understand your "fair" feeling and constantly I demand myself to be fair, even when I'm scrapbooking. Thanks fro sharing.

Ana
from Brazil

Unknown said...

LoVe TheSe pages. i'm a mother of 3boys so i love ur girly pages & just have to figure a boy way of these.. so cute

Tine said...

I feel u with being "fair". When i buy christmas presents for my niece and nephew.

These layouts are soooo lovely! LOVE your style!!!

Mooninmygarden said...

Wonderful design, and three pages at once, how fun!

Anonymous said...

I do this sometimes. I have one boy and one girl. I do this sometimes if I have "scrap block" and can't think of a starting point (which I do a lot). I recently did both of their visits to the circus and the pages were almost identical, one boyish and one girlish (as my daughter would say). I even did a copycat page of the joy of having a boy and joy of having a girl, entitled "my boy" and "my girl".

Nancy said...

I have been kind of smiling to myself since your third one was born that the creative time (or the blog posts with scrap pages at least) have really slowed down. It happened to me -- somehow three under the age of four really depletes the scrap time! Anyway my youngest is finally three and you really start claiming back hours in the day but until then I definitely scrapped three pages at once!! I have two boys and one girl so I change the papers and colors a bit -- but still utilize the same basic idea and get them all going at once!! I am sure they won't all sit together when they are old and look at them at exactly the same time, right?

Laurie LaRiviere said...

thanks for sharing those pages, they are beautiful! Love the circle theme and the pretty girly colors!

Miss Kathy said...

Beautiful layouts. I make a feminine and a masculine version of my pages, one for my granddaughter and one for my grandson.

Anonymous said...

YES!!! This method has been my saving grace when it comes to vacations, birthdays, etc. I really like doing this when I am creating a layout that has all of the kids in the photos. I simply "accent" the page with a single child as the main focal point...doing this for each childs album. It really is a super simple way to get things scrapped!!!

Lisa Valente said...

Beautiful layouts for beautiful girls! I have 2 daughters (20 and 15, it goes faster than you can imagine!) who are both company dancers. So once in a while, I do use the same supplies and embellishments on individual pages, especially if they have the same costume. But somehow, they're never "exactly" the same, but they're the same. Especially if one of the girls says "You're going to make my page like that too, right??"

Elisa said...

great idea!!! love all of them :)
i usually do that with cards, when I have many birthdays at the same time, I usually make one template for all of them, changing colours, papers, embellisment...
thanks for sharing

curlyqmosaics said...

What a sweet mama you are! Your layouts are perfectly precious! I am sure your girls will cherish them forever! TFS!

liza said...

lovely layouts! =) love those touch of polka dots on your page =)

Allison J Brown said...

I don't know about myself.. but my mom really did! Every Sunday she would scrapbook librarian style.. pretty much the same scrapbook pages except for our special highlights. I love it because now I have 15 huge scrapbooks filled and it is so easy to find pictures and very "fair"! Love your post liz!

Lisa said...

Loving your layouts. And YES the tradition continues my Mom did/does a beautiful job being fair and I too try my very best:)

Mary B. said...

LOVE these pages! So cute about being fair...

Windsor Andersen said...

So sweet and pretty. Love your designs.

XXOO

Windsor

http://eatlovebikini.blogspot.com/

erin s said...

This makes me curious. Do you keep your pages in a family album or individual albums for each girl?

fermoe said...

What a great idea! I often feel bad that I have done so many projects with my oldest daughter's pics and now do not have as much time to do the same with my youngest. I try as hard as I can to do the same, though, because I totally agree that might be noticed by them if things aren't exactly equal. I never thought to do virtually the same page for both! You're always giving me good ideas!

Michelle L said...

I love your pages! This is very true! Everyone told me that with my second baby I wouldn't take as many pictures or be as dedicated to making his baby book so I've always made an effort to make them as similar as possible. The stories may not be the same but I even counted how many pages are in each in case one day they decide to compare!
Some of their layouts are almost identical and it helped! I only copied ones that I really loved the first time around so it's not exact.

Angela said...

I saw you on studio 5, which lead me to your blog, and I LOVE your scrapbooking layouts...very inspiring! But, I just wish I had a little girl to decorate my pages as cute as yours. Any ideas on how to embeliish boy pages without it looking too girly?

Stacy W. said...

I hear you on the being fair bit. I am one of three kids and I'm the middle one ;) Not old enough to do what my older brother did (even though he is less than 2 years older than me) and too old to do what my baby sis did :) I have two boys and have been in a scrapbooking slump lately. I like your idea of doing a layout for both at the same time. They love looking through the books and get disappointed if I update one but not the other. I love your layout and the title/journaling play...gonna have to give it a try! Thanks for sharing all of your great ideas and spreading so much inspiration.

Tara McGrath said...

I have 3 kiddos and as much as I love the creative process I too feel guilty about whom I do a page for. Not to mention if I truely love the LO or product I usually repeat for all. I figure they will each have their own books and every page is not repeated. I love that their lives are being documented. I will also change things up a bit so they are not 100% identical. Who knows your girls might actually love they have some of the same pages! Love the LOs BTW!

Patti said...

You have the most beautiful children! Your blog is my go-to for inspiration.

leah said...

Gorgeous layout! ^_^ Adore all the circles...

Mindy said...

this is how i "get 'er done". i have three little girls myself, and when i find a layout that works well, especially when the pictures are so similar, i do it in threes. then i usually like it so much i do a fourth, just for the family book. :)

Mauri said...

I have 5 kids and I often do this for times when I have pictures of all of them from a certain time or event. It makes life so much easier and I get 5 times as many pages done as usual!!

Unknown said...

Ha ha! My little sis ALWAYS got better presents than me...and still does! (My b-day is Aug 24th, so I got school clothes EVERY year. We were poor so I didn't complain, but I still sulked.) Last year my mom gave me two T-shirts. My sis got a Harvest rotation system from Shelf Reliant. REALLY???? Fairness is very important to me now!
Anyway, I had to get my complaining out of my system...
I scrapbook like this all the time. I have 4 little boys, and I get the paper, supplies, etc. all ready. I print off different pics for each kid and sometimes the layout is a tad different, but the boys all like that they each get a new page in their scrapbooks at the same time. (Plus it's a huge time-saver!) They all do get some different pages, depending on the pictures I've taken or stories behind them, just to show that they are unique and special. i think a healthy (fair) mix is the best way to do it.

Kylie D said...

Love the layout and colours scheme. I really liked the 'dots' you created and because funds are limited I re-created my own dots by using bubble wrap. just carefull painted them for the pattern I desired. Very cool. Thanks for the inspiration!

wedding photographer said...

At some point they'll throw themselves across their bed crying and wailing about how we love their sisters more!

Jean S said...

Love the designs. Given me inspiration for some pages to do for my own daughter. Only got the one (so far) - so putting your words on fairness into the back of my mind for future reference!

fishing tasmania said...

One can really learn from this one! This is a great moment, i would like to give you a dozen of thanks.

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The work is just fabulous. I like this type of art and collecting pics and making them in this manner. Thanks.

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Nice Blog!! Its never thought to do virtually the same page for both! You're always giving me good ideas!

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Well this sort of things i also do in my life. This method has been my saving grace when it comes to vacations, birthdays, etc. I really like doing this when I am creating a layout that has all of the kids in the photos. Thanks for showing this thing to world.

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I was scrapping a layout for Avery and then I felt bad for the other two girls, so, while I had all the supplies, pictures, papers, and layout design in mind I whipped out two more pages.

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This was a bit of both... creative play and get 'er done.

car error said...

There is no such thing as a great talent without great will...so sweet

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I like beautiful pictures and layouts. I like this type of art and collecting pics and making them in this manner. I like this all the time.

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A moment of clarity, the aha moment is a defining moment where you gain real wisdom - wisdom you can use to change your life.Thanks for sharing.

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