A Few Favorites

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What’s your favorite color? No doubt you have been asked this question countless times in your life. Your answer may be the same now as it was at five years old, or it might have changed frequently over the years. So, what is your favorite color? And your favorite food, family moment and pair of shoes? Added up, what do your favorite things say about you? We each have a special list of our life’s favorites that reflect our individual tastes and preferences. Your inventory of favorites is unique. It’s a quirky part of your personal story.

A mini-album offers a fun and friendly format to express your feelings about the things you love in life. Your album might simply be a collection of favorites from different aspects of your life. Or, you can give your album a focused direction by building it around a specific theme. For example, celebrate your favorite no-fail recipes or illustrate a top 10 list of fantastic travel finds.

Once you decide the album’s direction, choose an album format to house your project that reflects the mood you want to convey. Next, put together the supplies you're going to use. Use a big baggie or folder to hold the pieces of your album kit. To simplify the creation process and provide continuity throughout the album, use a coordinating product line or a scrapbooking kit. Employ a common design thread for easy, consistent structure. Get started on the album’s contents by creating a title page to set the tone of the album. As you work on the filler layouts, be sure to include a date on each one. As your favorites evolve over the years, you'll want to remember the date for each entry in the album. Make extra embellishments when working on the album and keep your album kit together so you can easily add more pages in the future.

Take a look at the following album ideas and get inspired to scrapbook of few of your own favorite things.

Favorites @ 5280
The city in which you live is not just a name on a map; your town is the setting of your daily life. Use a mini-album to document your favorite aspects of your city. Think about the kinds of places that make up the character of your town. To which landmarks and restaurants do you always take out-of-town guests? How about those unique shops where you go to find a great gift, or the family-owned businesses with lots of heart? After you formulate a list of favorites, take photos and journal about why you value them.

I created a hometown album about Denver, where I have lived for the last eight years. For the album’s title, I utilized a variation of Denver’s nickname, the Mile-High City. (Denver’s altitude is 5,280 feet, which equals a mile.) For this project, I chose a coordinating product line and album in colorful, modern patterns to reflect the energy of this cosmopolitan city. I created a simple, graphic design template on the computer, which I then adapted for each layout. After placing the photos and journaling into the digital design, I printed the finished units on photo paper and mounted them on the layouts. I made a photo montage for each location and then explained why it’s a meaningful place. The album pages work as a photo-documentary chronicling places in Denver that are dear to me.

supplies: Light teal, white papers • 8 x 8 album, patterned paper, acrylic embellishments (KI Memories) • Photo paper (Epson) • Ribbon • Silver thread • Foam adhesive • ClassizismAntiquaBook font (moorstation.org/typoasis/designers/klein03) • Albatross font (abstractfonts.com)

Think about the things that define your tastes and bring pizzazz to your everyday life. Compile that good stuff into an open-ended favorites album. While the individual layouts may cover a variety of topics, they are united by a common theme: You love each of them. Get started by celebrating little luxuries, such as your favorite foods, scents and colors.

For my own favorites album, I chose colors, stamps and fabrics I love. The materials themselves are a reflection of my personality. I kept the background fabric and text treatments in monochromatic purple to allow the photos and brightly colored embellishments to pop off the pages. I used iron-on adhesive to keep the fabric in place and then sewed and frayed the edges. For page accents, I used watercolor paint on stamped images and mounted them with foam adhesive for depth. I wrote about why I love each favorite and then gathered my “props” together. I did a photo shoot in my backyard in the late afternoon to get even sunlight on the objects and reduce the likelihood of harsh shadows. This “just for me” project was fun to create, plus it was a great excuse to buy ice cream and a latte!

supplies: 8 x 8” album (Mara Mi) • Purple paper (Bazzill) • White paper • Patterned paper (Paperfever) • Photo paper (Epson) • Stamps (Paula Best) • Nick Bantock Van Dyke brown dye ink (Ranger) • Angora watercolors (Canson) • Fabric • Ribbon • Purple thread • Brads (Die Cuts With a View) • Flowers (Prima) • Index tabs • Purple pen • Foam adhesive • Heat N Bond Lite iron-on fabric adhesive (Therm O Web) • My Own Topher font (abstractfonts.com)