Scrapbooking Infertility and/or IVF Journeys

Here's the thing about scrapbooking... most of it is about showcasing happiness and contentment. I've fallen victim to this too in the past - it's easier to put on your rose-tinted glasses and write/create about what makes life great.

But what about the aspects of life that aren't so great? In my personal case, I'm talking about loss, infertility and IVF. Back when we were trying to conceive Rowan, I didn't include our infertility journey in any of my scrapbooking. I kept this blog (private at the time) as a place to get out all of my feelings about the process, and in my eventual pregnancy album made a single page where I chronicled the path we took to where we ended up:

(click image to see more detail)

In reality, the journey to conceive a child could have very much been a separate album. It might not have been the most positive album in parts, and over time I've learnt

Our 2012 Family Album

Our family's 2012 photo album/scrapbook arrived in the mail today (cue fangirl excitement about seeing my scrapbooking layouts in print!)

 

Yep, 96 pages of scrapbooking layouts from our family's adventures during 2012.  I'm really happy with how it turned out, especially as I tried a couple of different things with this book.

I used the inside front cover pages to introduce the book. An inner title page, short bio on us as a family and our ages (something fun to look back on in years to come) and a summary of major events that happened to us during 2012. I printed on slightly thicker pages (and glossy) as I like the feel of both when looking at the book in person. It gives it a real 'coffee table' feel. :)

I didn't do a huge amount of double-page layouts for this album, but those I did complete look really nice (especially Rowan's party layout, which seemed a bit 'busy' when I finished it after his 1st birthday last year). Printed at 12x12", even the little details look fabulous and the font size is perfect. In fact, on layouts such as the Aqaurium one above, the font looks almost a bit TOO large when printed. This is something I'll make a note of for printing this year's book.

I like the way single layouts look too. Notice the white edging around each page? This was deliberate, as when I printed my pregnancy album, I had a bit cut off on each edge when it was printed, due to the guttering. The easy way around this was to make a template using the Blurb software that had the image slightly smaller than the page itself and applying it to each page before dragging and dropping each layout in.

The colours came up crisp and clear, and it inspires me to get even more of our pictures and stories off the computer. Growing up, I loved looking through our family albums, and I want to be able to do the same for our family too. 

The details: I design my layouts in Photoshop CS3, using a variety of digital scrapbooking kits and temples (I get most of mine here). I printed this book at Blurb.com in 12x12" (30x30cm) and used Premium Glossy paper. There were 96 pages and this book cost me $109 after applying a 20% off coupon. You can see the full book here.This entry isn't an advertisement, just wanted to answer the FAQ that I often get about my scrapbooking layouts and photobooks.

I have been a digital scrapbooker since 2009, but didn't get more heavily into projects until 2010 when pregnant with Rowan and wanted to teach myself a variety of techniques in order to create a pregnancy album.

My Pregnancy Scrapbook [in Full]

I've made this post public for two reasons: 

1. To share with my family and friends who have listened to me talk about this project for a long time now; and

2. To inspire anyone who happens to find this post through search engines that there are many ways to document a pregnancy, and digital scrapbooking is one of them. :)

Just after Christmas, I finished working on my pregnancy scrapbook which had been over two years in the making. I taught myself digital scrapbooking when I was pregnant with Rowan so that I could undertake this project, and when I look back over my earlier layouts to the more recent ones in the book, I can really tell the difference. I thought about remaking a few of them before printing, but resisted the urge because I have memories associated with these earlier pages. So instead I tweaked the shadows and fixed up any glaring mistakes, and sent it all off for printing.

I printed with an Australian company called 123Cheese, as I had a coupon I'd bought earlier during 2012 with this purpose in mind. Basically, I got a $100+ project printed for $30, including postage/shipping. I was impressed with that, and had printed with the company before (photobooks, not digital scrapbooking projects) so I could vouch for their printing quality. Blurb are another printing company that I recommend, their quality is phenomenal but they are more expensive (you can search out coupons online pretty easily though, there are generally 15% coupons floating around; even up to 25% off before Christmas).

Anyway, back to the book... it was quite literally a labour of love and although I've shared pages here and there from it before, I've never posted it in its entirety before now. So without further ado, here are some pictures of the printed book itself and all week-by-week layouts. Lots of text (mainly for me to look back on, plenty of belly pictures and all the things I deemed important to tell at the time. I've had people ask me if I'd go to this much "effort" for subsequent pregnancies and I've said no, though I'd probably do a more abridged version if time allowed.

Some of the text/pictures might be difficult to make out, but that's due to the compression and resizing. In the printed book, everything looks crystal clear - even the thin journalling fonts. :)

The book itself; hardcover and linen-bound, printed in 12x12".
Hand for size comparision!

An example of layouts in the book (weeks 16-17)

The printing quality is exceptional, though a stitch-bound album would have been lovely,
glue-bound was only available from this company.

Following the week-by-week pages, I have his (lengthy) birth story, and a spread of 10 photographs of Rowan's first week in the world

ONTO THE ALBUM!

To view all pictures at a better size, click on one of them and it will take you to a full-windowed gallery (displaying bigger than in this post)

Inside front cover

This Month in Scrapbooking

I've been digiscrapping like a machine lately, working on Rowan's 1st year book (nearly done!), my pregnancy album (11 pages to go!) and miscellaneous pages in our 2012 family book. I've also recently been asked to be a part of Scrapping With Liz's summer CT (creative team), which I'm thrilled about (I've had a secret crush on Liz's template designs for over a year now, and hers were the first templates I started using when I was getting into digiscrapping more seriously).

Here is a selection of my recent work, clicking the images will take you to a larger one. My main galleries are at ScrapOrchard and Zig Zag Scrap, where you can see these layouts and more!



My Pregnancy Scrapbook

... has been a work in progress. But it's slowly coming together, I've been working on it alongside Rowan's baby book of his first year (which is currently over 100 pages and counting... oh dear!).
I chose to have a single layout to represent each week, and a few double layouts for key events (20 week ultrasound, baby shower etc). So really, we're talking at least 40 layouts and each probably takes a couple of hours because I'm fussy about my work. When I started this project at about 20 weeks pregnant, I was kind of new to digital scrapbooking and I've come a long way since then... so I can see myself redoing some of the earlier layouts (weeks 4-5 in particular) with my current style of scrapping.

Here's what I've done in the book so far:

click image to see bigger

And this is an example of a couple of the pages I've completed in larger form. Most of the journalling comes from the pages of this blog, part of the reason I kept so many notes while pregnant. :)

Note: All products used in the layouts below are available from ScrapOrchard except for 'Oh Happy Day', which was previously from ScrapMatters and doesn't seem to have a release anywhere at the moment.

Kit is 'Oh Happy Day', by Erica Zane & Jenn Barrette Designs
Template is by Scrapping with Liz

Kit is 'Scandinavian Summer', by Designs by Kat
Template is by Fiddle-Dee-Dee Designs

Kit is 'Captivating 2012: JAN', by Captivated Visions
Template is by Fiddle-Dee-Dee Designs

Hopefully this inspires anyone dropping in from the interwebs to create and preserve their own pregnancy memories too. :)



Day in the Life - March 3rd, 2012

Last week my best friend challenged me to a Day in the Life project, which is something we do a couple of times per year. The last two challenges I've completed on my iPhone using various apps, but this time I wanted something to print out and keep... so I shot all pictures on my Nikon D700, using the 50mm/1.4f lens. I was also inspired by the idea of Project Life (by Becky Higgins) and Ali Edwards' documentation of her Day in the Life projects, so if you're familiar with Ali Edwards, this style may look familiar.

I love the depth of field that lens offers and it has been one of my better investments (I actually scored it for free from our wedding photographer back in 2008, he had dropped it down a mountain and it needed recalibrating - if I paid for the repairs it was mine; it turned out to be less than half the price of buying it new so was an excellent decision).

I used Picasa (free program by Google, get onto it!) for the collages, and added text (font is WM_kamikaze) and elements using Photoshop CS3. The embellishments are from two digital scrapbooking kits, Scrap & Snap by Faith True Originals and The Bees Knees (released only to creative team members as a Christmas thank you in 2011).

Anyway, enough talk and onto our day in pictures! This is life with a 10.5 month old baby who is currently learning to walk. Click on the first picture to view the gallery of larger pictures (text will be much easier to read!)



This Week in Scrapbooking

More like a fortnight in scrapbooking! I've been madly digiscrapping lately, and thoroughly enjoying using recently-released products as well as new discoveries and older favourites. Here are some of my layouts, click the captions to see a list of full credits:



Kit: Online - by Captivated Visions & Jenn Barrette [RETIRED]

Kit: Baked with Love - by Faith True Originals

Kits: Silly Nilly - by Secret Stash / Made with Love - by Designs by Kat
(I've been wanting to scrap about our baby-led weaning journey for a while now, I'll be makign a separate post about it soon)

Kit: Animal Attraction - by Faith True Originals & mLE Card

Kits: Free Your Mind & Groovy Kinda Love - both by Designs by Kat

Kits: Colour Me Boyish and Girlish Bundle - by Lyndsay Riches / A Helping Hand - by Designs by Kat

Kit: Captivating 2012: JAN - by Captivated Visions
(yes, I'm still working on my pregnancy album!!)

And that's about it for the time being... there are many other pages in progress, that's just a taste of what I've been working on. My creative mojo is happening at the moment. ;)

This Week in Scrapbooking

Here are some of my recent layouts for 2012:

This was my portion of ScrapOrchard's 'Rumble in the Orchard' CT battle recently. I liked my part so much that I uploaded it as a separate layout. :)

Queen Bee - by Faith True Originals
The Sweet Life - by Faith True Originals
 Hippity Hoppity - by Faith True Originals

In January 2010 I made a resolution to start a Mission 101 list (setting 101 goals to complete in 1001 days). Now I am in the final nine months of thist project and I'm currently sitting at 42/101 goals complete. Can I make it to 60 before September 12th?!

Kit: All Geared Up - Designs by Kat
Alpha: All Geared Up Alpha - Designs by Kat
Template: Ianthine Templates - by Scrapping With Liz

My basic muffin recipe with a little fruit added in... all recommended by my little taste-tester. ;)

Kit & Alpha: Made with love - Designs by Kat

I've been playing with blends lately, and I really like how quickly and easily this layout came together. The papers in this kit are so pretty!!
Bathtub Adventures - by Faith True
Bathtub Adventures Wordart - by Faith True

Practicing his bear crawl to get over obstacles, LOL! :D

Funny Adventures - Designs by Kat
Lazy Days - Designs by Kat



January Currents

Created with Made Anew (by mLE Card & Faith True).

Here are my currents... so what are yours? :)

This Week in Scrapbooking

I've been working on more of the layouts in Rowan's Christmas album this week, Artscow (a printing website) have a 50% off sale on photobooks at the moment to be used before the 31st of December, so I'm attempting to get it all done. Besides, I don't want to be scrapping about Christmas in April, anyway! ;)

Here's a few of the layouts I've completed recently:

We Skyped on Christmas morning with my hubby's family so they could see their first grandchild open gifts. It was pretty cool connecting the laptop up to the TV so we could see their faces easily. :)

Credits
Merry & Bright Bundle - by Designs by Kat https://scraporchard.com/market/Merry-and-Bright-Digital-Scrapbook-Bundle.html
Fonts: Eight Fifteen [titlework] and Courier New [journalling]

Rowan (8 months old) has his first-ever picture with Santa. We'll ignore the fact that he cried immediately following the photo though. ;)

Credits
Kit: Christmas Blessings - by Captivated Visions & Litabells Designs https://scraporchard.com/market/Christmas-Blessings-Digital-Scrapbook-Kit.html
Template: Ianthine Templates - by Scrapping with Liz https://scraporchard.com/market/Ianthine-Digital-Scrapbook-Template.html
Scribbles Alpha - by Chelle's Creations https://scraporchard.com/market/Scribbles-Digital-Scrapbook-Alpha.html
Fonts: Howser [title] and The Great Escape [journalling]

Journalling reads: "When you started teething again during December, the race was on... what would come first: Christmas or your two top front teeth? Tooth #3 came down during early December and tooth #4 finally came in with 3 days to spare - phew!! You were so miserable cutting that fourth tooth, and are happy to see you back to your happy, smiling self!"

Credits
Kit + Alpha: Be Merry - by Secret Stash https://scraporchard.com/market/Be-Merry.html
Be Merry Overlays - by Secret Stash https://scraporchard.com/market/Be-Merry-Overlays-Digital-Scrapbook.html
Template: Chopped Paper Temps - by Scrapping with Liz https://scraporchard.com/market/Chopped-Paper-Template-Digital-Scrapbook.html
Font: CK Ali's Hand

Christmas Day itself was quite eventful, will be back shortly with a proper recap of what turned out to be a day to remember!



Wordless Wednesday

Our Christmas card for this year. Merry Christmas from Matt, Rowan and I from me to you. :)

This Week in Scrapbooking

Here are three of the pages I made this week, all credit linking is below each image (the Christmas pages are for Rowan's Getting Ready for Christmas book and the layout of the three of us is for our 2011 book.

Journalling reads: "It’s rare for the three of us to get into a photo together these days, as one of us always seems to be in front of the camera! Fortunately Auntie Marisa was over before your first Christmas Party and took a few photos of us as a family. I really like how this shot of us turned out, and how grown up you look in your “big boy” outfit!" (Dec 12th, 2011)

Credits
Kit: Crazy Little Thing - by Faith True & mLE Card [ link ]
Font: Nothing You Could Say

Journalling reads: "Growing up, the thing that got me excited about Christmas was the food - particularly mince pies and shortbreads. Every year, my Mum would make both treats and they weren’t allowed to be eaten before Christmas Eve. Somehow, waiting until then made them that much more special. Now, as an adult, I don’t wait until Christmas Eve to eat my favourite treats anymore... and neither does my Mum. In fact, it was late NOVEMBER when we were over at my Mum’s house for afternoon tea and she pulled out some mince pies from the bakery. I planned on eating mine myself, but with Rowan around there was very little chance of that happening! Mince pies in November... I guess that means that Christmas is definitely on the way!"

Kit & Alpha: Holiday Traditions - by Designs by Kat [ link ]
Fonts: Eight Fifteen [titlework] and Courier New [journalling]

Journalling reads: "Since Matt’s family lives in Hobart and mine in Melbourne, it’s difficult to get all of us in one place at any one time. On Matt’s 30th birthday, his family came to visit and although we were missing my brother & Matt’s sister Jess, this was as close to a full family portrait as we were going to get. THREE generations in one picture!"

Credits
Kit & Alpha: A Christmas Village - Designs by Kat & Ziggle Designs [ link ]
Template: Fuss Free Holiday Memories - Fiddle Dee Dee Designs [ link ]
Fonts: Guess What. [titlework], CK Jot [journalling]



Our Christmas Tree

Despite having a mobile baby in the house, we decided to put up our Christmas tree this year. It feels great to have such an outwardly sign of Christmas in the house, and is filling me with relaxation in the evening when the lights are on (mainly after Rowan's gone to bed, as to not be too tempting for him!).

The first day he tried everything in his power to get to the tree, since then he's been looking at it but not too focused (thankfully). That all might change soon when there's a few presents underneath, but we'll see!

Journalling reads: "Rowan has been so very interested in the changes to the loungeroom for Christmas, from helping Daddy with the lights to touching the decorations. Since he is getting so mobile now, we have had to put the coffee table in front of the tree as to form a barrier. Hopefully by another couple of years we’ll be able to move it away again!..."

Credits:
Kit & Alpha: Glad Tidings
Template: Photo Blends Templates - Scrapping with Liz
Font: Segoe Print

I'm loving the idea of celebrating Christmas with a baby for the first time. <3