Everything in Bloom: Scrapbooking the Outdoors

It's late summer here in mid-Michigan and everything is once again in full bloom. From the start of spring through late fall, I'm just in love with the variety of colors that we get to experience throughout the warm months.

Today I'm here sharing a sneak peek inside the Awesome Ladies Project August Storytelling Workshop. Our theme for this month is Outdoors. The workshop starts August 1st at 9am EDT at theawesomeladiesproject.com. You can sign up for the ALP important updates email list right now and get an inbox update as soon as the workshop opens up.

I absolutely loved exploring this topic while I was putting together this month's workshop. I spend a lot of time outdoors in our yard. We have a decent sized front yard and a pretty big backyard where we grow a lot of fruits and vegetables. We're expanding our garden each and every year.

This month I'll be sharing a lot of those stories inside the workshop. Including the story of the layout shown below.

Everything in Bloom

This is a 6x8 double page spread inspired by one of the four prompts in the upcoming workshop. One of my favorite things about working with prompts is that it gives you space to explore both within your style, and move beyond your personal style into creative areas that you might feel a little uncomfortable.

With this page spread, I did a little bit of both. I started out with a base that I was comfortable with (two blank sheets of white cardstock).

I then grabbed some supplies that are a little bit outside of my style (light/pastel colors with a more whimsical feel), but matched my photographs, and really lent themselves to the style of my story.

First, were these amazing Laura K. Bray Tea in the Garden rubber stamps, that she sent over for me to use and share with you. As soon as I got them, I just knew I needed to use watercolors and create a floral-themed patterned paper with them. Read more about Laura's stamps and see additional projects with the Tea in the Garden set on her blog.

Second, was the wonky font in the vellum stickers and rubber embellishment from Freckled Fawn. For the most part, I'm more of a clean lines, black and white style kind of girl. But paired up with these stamps and the watercolored background; I thought that this font, especially with the softness of the colored vellum, really fit in well with the layout.

I added a bit of handwritten journaling across the left page about the first blooms of spring are always such a welcoming sign after a long Michigan winter. I love that I was able to capture such a simple story with just a few sentences, two photographs, and an incredibly fun-to-design page. All thanks to one of the prompts in this month's ALP workshop.

Each of the Awesome Ladies Project Monthly Storytelling Workshops (free for Awesome Ladies VIPs) explores a specific theme and has multiple prompts that encourage you to dive deep into your own stories and pull out the ones that mean the most to you. We're here to help you get your stories out of your head and down onto paper.

Join us for the Awesome Ladies Monthly Storytelling Workshop (there's a quick second left to join July's Home workshop) and let the ALP help you become the best version of your storytelling self.