Leaves, twigs, berries aka 'what's real anyway?'

Playing with autumn-themed dimensional elements

DOES IT MATTER?

“Fun” fact (not really fun): I started making traditional scrapbooks for my girls many, many years ago after I was told my health meant it was unlikely I’d see them to adulthood. Making books with all the photos I took of them felt like an act of love and meant I could tell them the stories behind the photos, as well as being a creative release.

I wasn’t a fan of the bulkiness of the albums I created, and increasingly found myself drawn to the more graphic magazine style layouts, such as those made by the super-talented Cathy Zieske (she’s switched to making and selling card kits now but her striking simple pages with the focus well and truly on the photos were very inspirational back in the scrapbooking heyday).

My attempts to recreate that style of pages with scissors and glue did not satisfy the perfectionist in me, so when we moved countries and I was stuck in a serviced apartment with a napping toddler and no craft supplies, I taught myself how to ‘digiscrap’.

At the time I very confidently said “I won’t use ‘fake’ buttons and ribbons and shadowed things like that, because they’re not REAL”.

Fast forward many years and let’s see how that’s going, shall we? ….

My mother, my sister and I at a Butlins Holiday camp in Scotland

The thing is, while I still love making largely ‘flat’ and photo-heavy magazine-inspired layouts for our travel or event photobooks, I also love the fun and flow of playing with all sorts of elements on my digital ‘just for the joy of it’ creations.

And to me, it is part of a long tradition stretching back hundreds and hundreds of years of ‘trompe l’oeil’ (“deceiving the eye”) in art.

I particularly love layering leaves, twigs and berries on my pages:

But maybe you are wedded to the fun of traditional scrapbooking, sticky glue fingers and all. Or maybe you want to experiment with junk journaling or other so-called ‘hybrid’ creating.

In that case, you can do what I did here, and print out digital elements such as these leaves (in this case I printed onto brown butcher’s paper).

Speaking of trompe l’oeil, the long tradition of double exposure photography surprisingly dates back as far as the 1860s and was popular with makers of postcards, such as this one I found in a French market.

You can also make and print out your own unique background papers by adding the mixed media ‘paint’ and blending in things like the twigs of berries:

All of these use the ‘Deciduus’ collection ¹

Here are some more of my purely digital creations, which will go into my printed photobooks and also a couple will be in the calendar I make for my mum every year:

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THE NEW NORMAL

A little side note if you are an ‘Oscrapper’: my new ColorPlay collection is called “The New Normal” and here’s a sneak peek at how I played with it:

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Thanks for reading my Substack blog and showing an interest in what I create. If you are enjoying ‘Life in Pictures’, I’d love to hear from you - like or leave a comment and let’s connect. (If you haven’t already, you can subscribe for free to receive new posts and some welcome gifts in your email. You might also like to download the Substack app to see extra notes and find other great creative inspiration from around the Substack world). Thanks again :-)

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1. No, that’s not a typo! It’s the Latin word used for leaves falling, and is the source of ‘Deciduous’. I love Latin (wish it was an option at my school) but I may regret trying to be too clever …