6" pads: a love story

Some love stories are the love-at-first-sight kind.  Some grow out of friendship.  But the ones that we love the most (at least when we're reading them or watching them on TV at least) are those that have some tension, some misunderstanding, some highs and lows, some will they or won't they make it . . . and that has been what my relationship with 6" pads has been like.
The first ones I bought (quite a few years ago now) thinking, what a great size for card making!  But they weren't the most successful purchase - aside from anything else, I probably already had quite a few scraps by then, and didn't really need to buy anything just for the size!  But looking back, I now understand that the biggest problem of all was that I had bought many of them on the internet, so hadn't actually seen all the papers I was buying.  And let me tell you, none of the papers that I didn't absolutely love 5 or more years ago have improved with age!  So last year, the 6" pads in my stash were somewhat of a thorn in my side.  But once I realised it was the individual patterns that were the problem rather than the size, things started to improve.
More and more, I'm discovering ways of using 6" sheets on my scrapbook pages.  Many of the older sheets have gone to paper purgatory, and I have purchased new pads without fear of them suffering the same fate.  of course, double-sided papers really help - even if I don't love the more themed "A" side, I tend to find the "B" side quite usable.
And now for 3 ways I've used 6" papers recently:

First up, just the starting point (really just a simplified version of one of Shimelle's)  I've done 2 pages like this using a pad from Basic Grey called Granola.  I'd classify this pad as old, but not ancient, and one that I've used, but not as quickly as I'd like!  So it's awesome to use 8 sheets as background, then a couple more for layering and titles through the Silhouette.  These pages will be more from the October long weekend camping trip last year.

Now, for a 2-pager I did based on last week's Lets Scrap sketch:

This page tells what I consider to be THE story of our lives right now.  The file tabs are not just decorative, but open up to be a "report card" on why each child is currently at the right school for them.  The file on the right is about me, and how the move affects me and my plans for the next 2 years.  The border strips and title are cut from left over Basic Grey "basics" papers and all the rest is from my latest 6" pad, Echo Park "this and that".  (BTW, my children are not wearing some strange, shapeless fluorescent clothes, I have erased their school uniforms rather than publish them in uniform on the internet)

Lastly,  after getting over my "starting point" block, I made this page based on Shimelle's latest starting point, here.

The creamy coloured 6" sheet is from one of my old pads, but the photos are even older, so that's OK!  That's Rohan, the skater boy up on the horse there!

Notice a bit of stamping on these pages?  More on why in another post soon, but in the meantime, I'll leave you with a couple of close-ups: