Memories of family and fun times are important to me. I like to take pictures (lots of pictures, sometimes way too many pictures) when our family gets together and especially when we travel. Lots of those pictures end up here on the blog, but some are put into special scrapbooks that I make through Shutterfly and then they are shared with family members.
These are especially popular with Keith’s Mom. She doesn’t always get all the pictures she wants of her Great Grand Children on her camera, so the fact that I take a million pictures and put them into a scrapbook for her is a good thing. It makes a great gift that does not take up a lot of space and she can enjoy it for years to come. And last summer we had a West Coast Vacation that allowed us to visit Keith’s family in California and then take his mother up to Washington State to spend time with all five of her Great Grand Children. You better believe that warranted a scrapbook.
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Usually when I make my scrapbooks with Shutterfly I make my own pages from scrap. What I mean is I use their 12 by 12 or 8 by 8 page templates (important to use these so that you get your margins right to allow for page bleed, etc.) and design the page from the ground up in Photoshop. But last year my appendix ruptured not long after we got back from our trip, so after I recovered it was the middle of Fall and I needed to get to work on these so that I could have them ready to give as gifts for Christmas.
So, instead of designing them 100% on my own, I used one of Shutterfly’s premade templates and just popped in my photos and text. I used the Chalkboard Chic Storytelling Style. It has a lot of page layouts with space for single or multiple photos, text, embellishments, you name it. And it was easy and I was happy with how it turned out. And it was a big book, I think over 80 pages when it was all said and done.
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I used a layout with a grid of square photos for my title page which allowed me to include a picture from each of the many significant parts of our trip, starting in California and ending in Washington. This was such an event packed trip and this really captured almost all of the stories on one page.
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While we were in California, we did some touristy things, like visiting Chinatown. I had never been and it was fun to spend the morning in downtown LA.
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And we went down to San Clemente and had a cookout with cousins. The Chalkboard Chic collection had some nice collage page layouts that allowed multiple photos. Which is great for me; remember, I love to take pictures and these collage pages allow me to get lots of them in my scrapbooks.
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And there were also everyday moments – like fixing a leaking sprinkler head in the back yard. And Keith was very happy to show he only got his hands dirty and there was not any bleeding involved. That’s always a good thing when Keith works on projects. And this was another layout that allowed lots of photos on one page, a nice sentiment (which by the way, all of these sentiments and stamps are part of the Creative Chic Collection or other collections and are easy to add) and a block of text.
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Another touristy thing we did was visit the garden at the San Fernando Mission, which is just minutes from Keith’s parents’ house. I liked the chalkboard hand drawn frame look for this picture which is another page layout available in this collection.
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We also drove over to Malibu one night and had dinner at Duke’s, a landmark restaurant there. It is a great place and right on the beach. Think Gidget and surfers and you get the picture. It was a great dinner and a fun evening spent on the coast. Below is a video of the ocean taken from inside the restaurant.
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Then we headed up to Washington with Keith’s mom so she could visit with her newest Great Grand Daughter Laila and all of her Great Grand Children at one time. Keith’s brother lives in Washougal along with our nephew Kurt and his family. And our nephew Kevin, who lives in Concord, CA, was driving up with his family to spend some time with us before we all had to head home.
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When we arrived in Washington we made a quick stop to visit our nephew Kurt at work. He is a diesel mechanic and was excited to show us some of the vehicles he was currently working on. I think he qualified to be featured on that show Dirtiest Jobs. But it was fun to see what he does and hear the passion in his voice as he described various projects and gave us a tour around his facility.
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Here is another one of the collage layouts available in this collection. It was a great way to showcase our sister in laws garden. And the chalkboard stamp was the perfect element to add to the page. We stayed at Keith’s brother’s place up in the mountains outside of Vancouver. They have a beautiful place and there is nothing like a Pacific Northwest summer garden. Vicki’s was just amazing. And the purple martins had just had babies, so there were babies in every birdhouse it seemed. They were fun to watch as they constantly flew back and forth feeding those hungry little babies inside.
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There was a lot of outdoor fun to be had while we were there, as you can see in this two page spread above. I used several layouts to get lots of photos in just two pages. It was super easy to just pop my photos in. I used a fun collage on the left with space for text and a grid on the right to include nine square photos showcasing almost everyone enjoying the zip line that Keith’s brother built on his property. That was a big hit with the kids and the adults!
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Here you can see Lilly and her dad Kurt testing it out before everyone arrives. Mike did a great job building this for his Grand Kids. And we all enjoyed it, even us big kids. And Lilly’s dog Billy had fun chasing everyone as they took their turn.
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Keith missed the seat on his first try. And us big kids didn’t seem to go as fast as the little kids went, but it still was a lot of fun.
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I had to show how you could ride with one hand and wave to my fans! You can see it was slowing down some, but after a little more tinkering with the pulley Mike got it back to the fast paced ride that all of the Grand Kids wanted to ride. You can see more videos here if you like.
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And as anyone that has ever lived in or visited the Pacific Northwest knows, you can always count on some rainy days. So that made a perfect excuse to bake cookies with Grandma and Great Grandma. There were also lots of card games (Garbage was the most popular) and even some indoor games like Air Hockey. Lilly had fun playing her Grandpa and even her Great Grandma took on a game with her.
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Watch to see who scores the most points!
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Another fun thing we did while we were there was visit Steigerwald Lake National Wildlife Refuge. This was another place that I took a lot of photos, so I chose to do multiple pages for this story and my opening page used this layout, allowing one of the pictures to take center stage with a full bleed of the main photo.
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This collection had all kinds of collage layouts, like I have already shown you. Even ones with Washi Tape accents, like this one that I used in this part of my scrapbook. There really were a lot of different layout options, which is something I really like when making my digital pages for my scrapbooks. I don’t like to constantly repeat the same thing over and over when it comes to the picture layouts. I like to use the same type of digital products to create a theme, with coordinated papers (backgrounds) and elements. I will also use the same fonts throughout to keep things cohesive.
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Another fun thing we like to do when we visit in Washington is go to the Vancouver Saturday Market. And this layout above allowed another partial page bleed of a feature photo and a strip of supporting photos below it. We love visiting because they always have wonderful flowers, fresh fruits and vegetables and lots of handmade crafts.
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And we lucked out that day that we visited. They were also having their Recycled Arts Festival and we brought home that wonderful little cat on a moon (upper left corner) to adorn our deck. We met and fell in love with the work of Tamara with Fountain Family Artists. She does excellent work and we highly recommend her if you are looking for fun and unique pieces for your garden or home.
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We also visited Mount St. Helens Johnston Ridge Observatory. If you ever have the chance to go, I highly recommend it. We really were moved at learning how the events unfolded that day in 1980. The National Park Service has really done an outstanding job preserving the stories of those that perished and those that witnessed this catastrophic event that forever changed the landscape of the mountain and community surrounding it. And, this photo warranted a full, two page spread, which Shutterfly does a great job. Now, this is a screenshot of the book on their site and that gray in the middle is only to give you the idea of how it will look when the book is open to a two page spread. The finished product is amazing and I love how the layout templates are easy to use for this type of photo style.
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Here I used another collage layout to showcase life returning to the land after such a devastating event. It really was a wonderful place to visit and the kids loved all of it.
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They really enjoyed the chipmunks that were so tame. They would come right up to you. I even had them crawl across my feet. Joey was so excited he got to pet the tail of one of them.
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And of course, we took some group pictures. Here is Grandma and her Grand Children. It took several takes and there were even silly ones that we put in the scrapbook.
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But this one is priceless. Great Grandma and her Great Grand Children. This is a great memory of a great trip. And it was easy to share my scrapbook with family because of how easy it was to create using the products available on Shutterfly.
Well, those are the highlights of our trip last year and a few of the many pages in my scrapbook. If you want to see the entire scrapbook that I created on Shutterfly, click on the links below. That’s another cool thing that you can do when you create a scrapbook on Shutterfly. You can share them electronically on social media, through email or on your blog like I am doing here.
Click here to view this photo book larger
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I hope you enjoyed this post. And if you visit Shutterfly’s site by clicking on the links in this post, you could get 101 Free Prints when you set up an account with them. And because this is a referral, when you order your free prints, I get $10 in return. I just want to be transparent with you on that.
But I have always been happy with everything I have ever ordered through them and I can highly recommend their services. And I really recommend trying one of their scrapbook options. They are super easy and the finished product is something that will always be a conversation piece when you share it with friends and family and is a perfect gift for sharing memories.
This post contains affiliate/referral links. By clicking on the Shutterfly link, you could receive 101 free prints with a new account and I will receive a $10 coupon.
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