If I were another blog...

As part of Shimelle's BBFS class, she has encouraged us to look around at other blogs and find what we like and why we think it works etc.  One blog that I keep going back to is the wonderful Nancy Doren.  Nancy has, I think, just the right balance of craft and real life.  Her blog is laid out really well with a clean and simple design which is easy to navigate and it has a lovely photo of her in a prominent position.  I think this is a really bold but positive thing to do - it says this is me, welcome to my world.  Its a great introduction in this virtual world where we can know much about a person without ever knowing what they look like.  Its not important to know what a person looks like but is kinda nice, dontcha think?

The big thing that draws me back to her blog though, is the reason I read blogs in the first place - scrapbooking. I have yet to see one of Nancy's layouts that I didn't like, and I don't mean that I just like them all, I REALLY like them all.  Sometimes it's the colours she has used, sometimes it's the subject and sometimes it's the placement that cheers me, but they are all awesome.

At my most recent crop, I used a scraplift of one of her layouts.  I'm not going to link directly to her original because I want you to see her other layouts too, trust me you won't be sorry!   I took the photos last year as part of one of Shimelle's weekend cyber crop parties.  The challenge was "capturing movement" and I love the way the sun lights up L's blond hair!

I tried to step out of my comfort zone a bit and mix up lots of papers and colours.  Normally I would think, okay this photo has red and aqua and then ONLY use those colours.  Trust me, using the yellow on the stars did make me twitch a bit!

There were yellow stars in the original layout and I wanted to do something different so it wasn't such a copy-out but they just seemed so right and it gave me the courage to use another colour!  I'm not sure if I'm totally happy with the overrall look with all the different papers etc but I think it is growing on me!  I know I will definitely be going back to Nancy's blog for more inspiration.  Thank you Nancy!

Bye for now!