Self Love – Scrapbook Layout

Hi hi

Another challenge group that I’ve been meaning to join in with is CSI (Colour, Stories, Inspiration). If you’ve never seen one of their challenges, they base their prompts on a criminal investigation case file so there is a crime scene and clues to help you “solve” the case. I worked on major crime for about 8 years so this is right up my street! They currently have 3 challenges per month, with prizes, and this one is based on using up old stash. I’m on a scrappy spending freeze so, again, this is right up my street.

Being February, part of the modus operandi is of course about love. I was looking for a photo of Mr Pretty and I because I wanted to document how we’ve just got stronger together over time. But of course I’m usually behind the camera so there’s not many of those pictures! I came across this random pic of my hand – no idea why I took it except that I had just had my nails done by the look of it. Then it struck me – I’m wearing my rings. I don’t know how long ago this was but I haven’t been able to wear my rings for years thanks to my sausage fingers. Wearing my rings again is definitely a goal of mine and that means showing myself some love and taking care of myself. Nobody said you can’t be your own Valentine, right?

So in the spirit of using up old stash, I found a paper pad by Crate Paper called Paper Heart, which is from 2011. I think that counts as old… In my defence I haven’t had it quite that long, I bought it from TK Maxx so probably about 6-7 years ago. Of course it didn’t come with anything other than paper so I set to work making my own title and embellishments. It was still missing something so I looked through my colour coded boxes of stickers and die cuts and found some Jenni Bowlin journaling spots. I bet a lot of people don’t even know the name Jenni Bowlin, let alone have any of her stuff in their collection.

I used a new prompt from Scrap Squad for the placement as it happened to vaguely fit with my photo – I’m finding using sketches and scraplifts are really helping my productivity and I’ve fallen back in love with scrapbooking again as a result – yay! It also had a scalloped border strip and border punches were also one of the clues in the CSI case.

I did add a few enamel dots because the blue was looking a bit isolated but even they are about 3 years old. There were lots of sprinkles in the “scene” to inspire us and one clue was to use tiny stamps or hearts. I really do neglect my stamps so I have no idea how old the heart stamp is. The only new item on the layout is the Bramble Fox ‘love’ dangly that arrived as I was doing the layout, which I considered to be serendipitous. But in terms of investigating the case of using up older stash, I think this one is officially solved.

Stay safe and keep smiling x