Strut Your Stuff Fast2Fab Album

So what's a Fast2Fab album? Simply put, they are just a cool, cool way to get your photos in an album without taking a whole lot of time to get it done. The pages are predesigned and ready to add your photos and stories just as they are. Or, if you like, you can add embellishments from our Slide In Packs. Or even paper from our Paper Packs. You can also "color outside the lines" or "think outside the box" and do what you like with your album. But, if you want to get it done really quick, all you need to complete a Fast2Fab album is a tape runner and a pen .... and, of course, your photos. CM offers a variety of  8 x 8 and 12 x 12 Fast2Fab albums but today I'm going to share the Strut Your Stuff Fast2Fab album I created last year.

My husband and I took my sister-in-law, Denise, on a cross country road trip in 2013. I came home ready to get my photos in an album and pulled out a Strut Your Stuff album for our vacation photos. Here are some of the layouts I created:

I'm not much of a "color outside the lines" person. When I do color outside the lines, my crayon marks still need to have some order. Such is the case with my title page. The original page had space for two horizontal photos but I wanted to add a vertical photo to the page. I made room for the vertical by cropping one 4x6 photo into a 4x4 and overlapping my vertical over the upper horizontal!! Walla!! Three pics on a page instead of two.

Again, I turned a two photo page into a four photo page by "thinking outside the box." I added a 4x4 photo to the empty space above the vertical photo box shown on the right page above. I cropped another horizontal photo to 4x4 and stuck it down in the vertical space ... which gave me some room under the photo for some journaling. Like most of us, I have more horizontal photos than verticals.I use this trick often in my Fast2Fab albums when I don't have enough vertical photos to fit the page as is.

Instead of adding two vertical photos to the above vertical spaces, I added an embellishment and a journaling box from the Strut Your Stuff Slide In Pack. These two pages were done in minutes! By the way, doesn't my sister-in-law look like her brother? The two of them could have been twins!

This is one of my favorite layouts from this album. Every time I look at it, I'm reminded of the beautiful drive through The Bighorn National Forest in the spring. Anyway ... I trimmed blue cardstock to 12 x 11 1/2 inches for the left page, leaving a border from the original page visible. I used paper from my leftover Creative Memories stash but you can also use paper from the Strut Your Stuff Paper Pack or Shades of Blue Designer Cardstock.

Finally, these pages were used as they were designed. I simply added some journaling where there was space to journal. Incidentally, I didn't get a picture of the Desert View Watchtower this time around so I simply borrowed one the I took in 2004. Shoot, you could even go online to borrow photos of attractions you visited but failed to get a photo of.

There you have it! Here are pictures and a flyer of the products in the Strut Your Stuff line just to give you an idea of what it looks like. It might be just what you need to create your own vacation album or to celebrate a special event.

Strut Your Stuff Paper Pack

Strut Your Stuff Slide In Pack

Strut Your Stuff Flyer

For more information, or to purchase CM products, visit my link at http://www.creativememories.com/user/dbrinsley

Hope this inspires you to create your own Fast2Fab Predesigned Album! And, as always, thanks so much for visiting my blog!

Catching Up

Hello everyone! In the two years since my previous post I have gone from being a Creative Memories Consultant to an Ahni & Zoe Consultant and, finally, to a CM Advisor. I also took an unofficial break from blogging. I didn't plan it that way... it just happened. I even deleted some of my old posts thinking that they were no longer relevant. The transition from Creative Memories took the wind out of my sails for awhile. In fact, I considered retiring when Creative Memories closed its doors. But, after praying about it, I felt that the Lord was leading me to stay the course. So here I am 2 years later blogging as a CM Advisor. The New CM includes both the Ahni & Zoe Fast 2 Fabulous Albums and the Creative Memories bookcloth albums as well as other Creative Memories products. We now have the best of both worlds and I love it! I'm so glad I stuck it out! You can check out everything CM has to offer by visiting my CM link here.

I've also spent the last two years catching up on my albums. I still had quite a few traditional prints and some digital images from way back that needed to go into albums. And, I also wanted to use up my personal stash of Creative Memories stuff. Since then I have created 10 albums which is a record for me! Woohoo!! So I have a lot of material to share with you.

My first goal was to get the rest of my 80s photos into albums. I think I had an Instamatic or something like that way back in the 80s. My pictures were small 3x5s and not really good photos. We use to tell people to get rid of their blurry pictures and only scrapbook their good ones. But, in some cases, I don't take my own advice. If a blurry or faded picture from the 70s or 80s is the only picture I have I'm going to scrapbook it regardless. Anyway ... since my goal was also to use up what I had, I decided to use two 8.5 x 11 albums that had been sitting on my shelves for years. I'll close this post by sharing a few of my favorite layouts from those albums with you. I hope it inspires you to get your old photos out of storage and into an album. Or, to use up your own left over Creative Memories stash.

Have a good day and thanks for visiting my blog!