try, try again

i'm THISCLOSE to finishing my 2009 digital scrapbook.  i typically don't hit snags until the beginning and ending pages.  i find that i work best when i think of a layout as both pages...but the beginning and end pages have to tell a story in and of themselves.  i leave both of those to the end, because i don't really know what the scrapbook will look like starting out.  i've done scrapbooks all sorts of ways......alternating page colors; a minimalist scrapbook with no use of mats or frames; heavy use of stamps, etc.  so, unless i have a theme picked out ahead of time, i leave the beginning and end pages for last.

i really like to look at gina miller's gallery for inspiration.  while i find that her pages are too busy for my style on a 2 page layout, i think that they work well for my beginning and end sheets.  this time, i looked at a gallery on the the lilypad website, a great place for digital scrapbooking.  i found a design that i wanted to emulate:

i really like this page because of how simple it is....just using pieces of ribbon to make the statement.  here's is what i came up with for my end sheet:

i didn't love the result, though.  i mean, it's fine....it's just not what i had in mind for the end of my scrapbook.  so i went to gina's own website for inspiration.  i found this while looking around in the gallery at her site, gina miller designs:

from there, i went to work.  i loved how simple the layout was, only utilizing a few papers and some extra embellishments.  also, there was plenty of writing.  and i wanted room to write, since it was the end of the scrapbook.  here is what i came up with for my end sheet:

i really like how it turned out.  while i typically do not use this color scheme, it suited my needs.  i really like the pink and the black with the green.  i was able to tell the story the way i wanted to and as you can see i changed a few things around....played with the sizing of the elements and used bigger pictures.  overall, i love the end result.

what did i learn?  that if i'm not satisfied with something, keep working at it until i am.  i think i knew this before, i but i guess there is a lesson to learn in every situation.