October Layout by Shimelle

 Hello crafty friends! Shimelle here today and I'm excited to share a chapter divider page with you, featuring both a Pumpkin and month of the year cut file from Paige's shop! I love using chapter divider pages in my travel albums - they are a page that holds either one larger photo or a collection of small, varied images and instead of lengthy journaling, they introduce a place or activity. Then the pages that follow that divider in my album break that story down into all the elements I want to document. But 2020 has not left me with travel stories, that's for sure! Instead, I'm using divider pages to separate the months, and Paige recently added all the Months of the Year title cut files, so this is a perfect match.

Let's start with the Pumpkin! I cut the simple Pumpkin (there are several fancier ones too, but for this page I wanted to keep that iconic pumpkin shape!) from white cardstock and backed it with the gorgeous orange Paper 7 from Go the Scenic Route plus a scrap of green from an earlier collection for the stem. The leftovers from the orange and green came in handy later to add a border to the background, simply adhering strips around the edge of the pages and turning it over to trim off the excess.

The October title was also cut from white cardstock (I cut them from the same sheet and there was plenty of room on the 12x12) but instead of backing each letter with a paper, I filled the spaces with photos from October. Some of these are pictures I had printed but then didn't use on another layout and some are photos I happened to snap in October but probably won't scrap on their own 12x12 page. I don't mind if photos repeat from a chapter divider page, because you can see they get quite chopped up. (Yes, there's an entire face missing in that letter O! I can happily report that photo does appear on another page, face included.)

Then I backed the October piece with pop dots and layered it over the Pumpkin and onto the peach polka dot background (paper 6 from Paige's Pick-Me-Up collection). Cardstock Stickers and Enamel Dots from Go the Scenic Route add just the right embellishment to keep everything colourful and happy, even when October photos are noticeably greyer than my summer snaps. To finish, I added the year from the Foam Thickers and the 'Play a Little Every Day' sentiment from the Puffy Phrase Stickers.

Do you create any sort of dividing pages in your albums? Or a highlight page to showcase lots of photos from various activities in the month? You could even create your own calendar with a cut file spelling out each Month of the Year. We'd love to see what you make!

SUPPLIES: Patterned papers, stickers, Thickers, die cuts, enamel dots: GO THE SCENIC ROUTE; white cardstock; Die cut machine: Silhouette Cameo; Cut files: Pumpkin and Months of the Year by Paige Evans

Location: London / Blog: Shimelle / Instagram: @shimelle / Facebook: Shimelle / YouTube: Shimelle Laine / Pinterest: glittershim