Do You Get the Birthday Page Blues? -- A Crash Your Stash Page!

Every year, there are birthdays.  Every year there are photos taken at birthday parties, gift opening, blowing out the candles, etc.  It can get a little repetitive...

When I first began scrapping I ended up having albums that seemed the same...started with New Years, then a few snow scene photos of winter, then a few birthday pages, then spring and Easter pages, then spring birthdays, then a few pages of summer activities, followed by autumn birthdays and activities, then right into Christmas then the whole thing started over again. 

I don't scrap that way anymore.  I look for the little everyday moments and try to focus on those.  But I still scrap some birthday pages, I just try to keep it interesting by way of the story.

This one was all about this first little photo and that face as she saw her cake for the first time.  That's it.  That's all I needed to tell the whole story, that very happy little face!  

I also do not purchase or use much in the way of themed "birthday" papers.  I still subscribe to my old tried and true, look to the photos for your color choices.

 Here the color that drove my choices was that pink sweater my Bella girl was wearing.  With that in mind, I chose some older Echo Park and Crate papers and the coral pink Thickers.

Because the papers are busy, I did not choose to use a lot in the way of embellishment, just the dialogue bubbles, one of which I used some Simple Stories stickers (Snap! and the camera sticker).  And rather than layer the photos on top of more and more color and pattern, I used one coordinating paper and then two layers of crumpled and flattened tracing paper. 

Letter stickers (foam Thickers) were chosen for their color, and again I did not want the old stand by, Happy Birthday title.  I mean it's fairly apparent it's a birthday page.  So I focused on the fact that it was her 3rd birthday and that's a pretty special one... no longer a baby, a big girl. 

Since there was so much color going on in the lower part of the page, I wanted to make sure there was some color at the top too.  A couple of paper strips (plus some fussy cutting along that ric rack edge) and a piece of washi tape took care of that. 

And there you have a birthday page, sans birthday themed papers. 

Don't get too concerned with themed papers for scrapping  your life events.  If the color works and the overall feeling of the papers' design fits the mood of your photos, go for it!

best to all,
Cheryl