Hi!
On our newsletter/ digi news site, Rachel and I have a new article focusing on the joy of creating with those less-than-perfect photos we all have.
I hope it might encourage you to scrap with the photos that you have. Because the most imperfect of snapshots can shine on a page made with love.
For example, many, many years ago I travelled through Europe for months on a shoestring. At the time I was no photographer. I had a very, very basic point and shoot camera. My travelling companion had a slightly better camera and skills, but still the photos we have of the trip are far from perfect.
This one is of me on the first night, when in our exhaustion from making it from London to France, we ended up in a room straight out of the 1940s above a Vietnamese restaurant.
I did what I could to improve it by upping the brightness and contrast in photoshop but there is something about the grainy-ness and lack of focus that actually makes it even more special to me.
I paired it with papers and elements that reflected the colours in it, and had fun creating with it anyway. To me at least, the result is more evocative (and magical and mysterious) than a crisp, perfect photo would have been.
Here are some other photos from the trip:
And many years later I was in London on a solo trip and a novice at selfies etc, so I was limited in the photos I could take. But this simple capture of the Sunday papers and fresh strawberries I enjoyed on the first afternoon in the sun will never not catapult me back to that moment and remind me of the pleasure and relief I felt. And remind me of how being alone can be the best thing.
All of these pages were created with the "Breathe" project kit, which was gifted to the premium subscribers to our newsletter in May, but is now available here in store at Oscraps

On our newsletter/ digi news site, Rachel and I have a new article focusing on the joy of creating with those less-than-perfect photos we all have.
I hope it might encourage you to scrap with the photos that you have. Because the most imperfect of snapshots can shine on a page made with love.
For example, many, many years ago I travelled through Europe for months on a shoestring. At the time I was no photographer. I had a very, very basic point and shoot camera. My travelling companion had a slightly better camera and skills, but still the photos we have of the trip are far from perfect.
This one is of me on the first night, when in our exhaustion from making it from London to France, we ended up in a room straight out of the 1940s above a Vietnamese restaurant.
We made it
First night of first long trip around Europe, in an unchanged-since-WWII hotel room in France.
I did what I could to improve it by upping the brightness and contrast in photoshop but there is something about the grainy-ness and lack of focus that actually makes it even more special to me.
I paired it with papers and elements that reflected the colours in it, and had fun creating with it anyway. To me at least, the result is more evocative (and magical and mysterious) than a crisp, perfect photo would have been.
Here are some other photos from the trip:
First days
First days (in France) of first long trip around Europe, many years ago
And many years later I was in London on a solo trip and a novice at selfies etc, so I was limited in the photos I could take. But this simple capture of the Sunday papers and fresh strawberries I enjoyed on the first afternoon in the sun will never not catapult me back to that moment and remind me of the pleasure and relief I felt. And remind me of how being alone can be the best thing.
In this moment
Strawberries and the Sunday papers in the sun, a perfect little moment at the start of my solo...
All of these pages were created with the "Breathe" project kit, which was gifted to the premium subscribers to our newsletter in May, but is now available here in store at Oscraps

