2023: Saying Goodbye to the Family Home
This scrapbook spread captures a deeply emotional moment—the final farewell to my aunt’s home before we handed the keys to the real estate agent and drove away in the moving van. It was a bittersweet goodbye, filled with memories from the 53 years our family spent in this house. Though leaving was difficult, I wanted to create a layout that honored those decades of love, laughter, and history within its walls.
To add a personal touch, I chose background paper from my aunt’s craft collection, making it especially meaningful for this spread. On the left-hand side, I designed a custom matting in Cricut Design Space and cut it using my Cricut Maker. The title, “Hill Family Home 1970-2023,” is cut out so that the background shows through, giving it a subtle but powerful effect. The top photo features the house itself, while the bottom captures a poignant moment—my dad and I walking out the front door one last time.
On the right-hand page, I included a photo of a large tree in the front yard, a special part of the home’s history. My grandfather planted this tree, and over the decades, it has grown into a towering presence—a living testament to the time spent in this house. Wanting to incorporate this symbol into the layout, I found a tree design in Cricut Access and cut it out with my Cricut Maker. Instead of painstakingly gluing individual leaves, I used an outline cut technique, cutting the leaves out of the tree silhouette and layering green paper behind them so they show through. This method not only saved time but also created a clean, polished effect.
One of the challenges with this spread was figuring out how to include all the photos I took inside the house before we left. I had about 20 pictures documenting the home’s interior in its final state—not exactly scrapbook-worthy, but still important for preserving the moment. Instead of making multiple pages for them, I decided to place them in plastic photo page protectors and insert them between these two scrapbook pages in the album. This way, the scrapbook will function like a mini photo album, allowing the viewer to flip through the extra photos while keeping the main layout focused and uncluttered.
If you’d like to see how this page came together, the technique used for the tree leaves, and how the photo album pages fit between them, be sure to watch the video below for a full walkthrough of the design process!
Categories: 2023
MASCrapping 