Labor of Love

“The difference between the forgettable and the enduring is the artistry.”
-Bill Bernbach

I voraciously devour all of the crafty and artistic inspiration on my favorite blogs and the links that they’ve posted each day. Taking stock of my own blog, I realized that right now it doesn’t nearly reflect the creativity and craftiness that makes me who I am. At first I just dismissed it because I’m just too darn busy to craft right now. But then I remembered… Jana, what about that gigantic project that you have recently undertaken? Remember, that project that you’ve vowed to finish before the Arizona trip (9 days away!!!).

So here it is in all of it’s glory. The digital scrapbook of our honeymoon. Below are some of my favorites of the 40 spreads that have been created so far. I have less than 10 spreads left, and Rob’s out of town next week, so hopefully [keep your fingers crossed], this project will indeed meet the deadline.
I got started paper scrapbooking in my early teenage years, when my mom began. I have several albums that chronicle my life through those years. 35mm cameras, fancy scissors, cutesy stickers galore! However, through college as I mastered digital editing tools, I began scrapbooking on the computer [before the digital scrapbooking movement even really began!]. That’s how I spent my summers: work 8 hours at my internship and return to my apartment to scrap. It’s a lot of work, and I had just decided that I was not a scrapbooker, when I learned of Blurb books and had the bright idea to print and publish my pages. So for Christmas “Santa Claus” gave Rob and I our first Blurb book, recounting our Spring Break trip to San Francisco in 2004.

With this project that I’m currently working on, I attempted to keep a similar style and theme running through the pages. So that it feels like a complete work of art. I use a white background on each page to give it a more graphic design feel and a similar treatment of photos to keep that consistency. The trip logo that I designed appears on each page, as well as a squiggly flourish from ArtiStrokes’ Angelhair series.

It is truly a labor of love that few people will appreciate as much as I will. But I do, and I will always enjoy taking the book down from the shelf to turn each page, reliving our adventure in North Carolina.