Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Ang Scrapbook ni Lola - Part 1

Still here!! Very busy working on my grandmother's digital scrapbook though. 

So I've mentioned several times that I want to put all my grandmother's old photos, which I scanned a couple of years ago, into a digital scrapbook. And as a shortcut, I was using ready-made quick pages which I downloaded from several sites. Halfway through... I realized I didn't like what I had so far. The quick pages were really, really pretty. The layouts are way better than what I'm capable of. But since I can't customize them, the pages seem a little impersonal... with captions sometimes being way off. So... I decided to scrap all of them and start from scratch :(

Doing the layout from scratch and getting it to look just right takes a while! I only have 3 pages right now. Here's a sneak peak of the 3 pages that I have completed. Credits to designers and image sources can be found below the photos.

Elements from: Saphira's Scraps - Lost Melody Kit, Scrappin Cop, Russian/Dutch Heart - Precious Moments Kit
The lady on the lower left corner is my great grandmother. The original photo was small and already faded. It was taken in 1904. The writing on the notepad is a poem she wrote in 1965. It was a draft, written on scratch paper, so you can still see her corrections. 

Elements from: Granny Art, Rina Kroes - My Dad, My Hero kit, Sandra Cutts - Family Tree kit, Everyday Mom Ideas - Cozy Cottage kit, Jennifer Riggins - Old World Charm kit, Akizo - Cosmos kit, Saphira's Scraps - Lost Melody kit, Designs by Blagovesta - FB Fans Freebie Kit
This one is the only photo we have of my great grandfather. He died when my grandmother was just a baby so she never met him and she only has this 1"x1" photo of him. It's sad. My grandmother once told me that sometimes, she prays to God to let her see her father in her dream when she sleeps. But that has not happened yet.

The layout for this page took me FOREVER to finish! But this has got to be my most ambitious layout to date. I had to learn a lot of Photoshop functions to make this layout look like a table. Notice how I cast a shadow of the lamp on the wall? (Please look!!) But when it came time to cast the shadow for the ink pot... I got a little lazy so no shadow. I'll fix that.

Elements from: Saphira's Scraps - Green Like kit, A Saxon Creation - Vintage Rose kit
This last one is a very simple layout. I used photos of my grandmother as a young lady, before she got married, with the members of her family.

I provided the links for all the kits I used. I mix and match elements from different kits to get the look I like, as long the color scheme is mostly browns to match the photos' sepia tone. All the kits I used are free so you can download them too! Thank you to all the generous designers!

More pages coming up soon!

4 comments:

Deepthi said...

Wow!!! Lot of work done..... And yes I noticed the shade form the lamp..... :) :) :)
But working with photoshop has its own merits...u can change them whenever you want...
Keep up the gr8 work...

Deepthi said...

And yes you are lucky that u have their photoes and that poem as a reminder of the past....

Diane Writes said...

Wow, you were able to present pictures of your great grandparents, galing!! Kasi sa amin, after ng Ondoy na wash out lahat :( You have something to show to Andrea and I love the templates you used. Vintage, simple and elegant. Can't wait to see the entire book

agy said...

Oh, it has a really romantic feel to it! Weel done.