My Dad was a keen photographer and we loved to see the photos he took.

But his format of choice was the slide, or colour transparency. Which meant that, instead of getting packets of photos to pore over, we had to wait until the special evenings when he would pin a white sheet up and pull out the slide projector and the boxes of slides.

In between, we could use the little 'pre-viewer' designed to allow you to check out a photo before you projected it onto the sheet. But, truth be told, peering through that was never an entirely satisfying viewing experience.

It sits on my shelves now:

And the boxes of slides sit in my drawers:

My Dad stopped using slides about 40 years ago. And, although at the time I was happy to have the glossy photos stuck in a photo album (although they all soon turned bright orange), I also missed the excitement of "slide nights" and never quite knowing what slide was going to appear, as he mixed up the latest photos with some old favourites.

Ones like this always got a laugh at my expense:

I have scanned a lot of the old slides, including ones inherited from my mother-in-law as well. I love the qualities of the transparencies, the look of real film and even the little scratches and dust spots that I don't try too hard to repair or remove.

But I also love all the paraphernalia that came along with it - the little cardboard or plastic boxes and paper wrappings and the boxes with numbered slots into which you loaded the slides in the order you wanted to show them.

You could even buy little boxes of slides when you visited a tourist attraction, and collections were issued to mark special events:

All of which inspired this week's element pack at The Lilypad - Retro Slide Frame templates (and png frames):

You can use them as simple png frames, but there's also a drag and drop template option with a clipping mask for your photos plus an optional colour overlay layer.

Here's how I used them:

I also used the Mariko Kit and Cards, which are also new to The Lilypad:

Along with Springboard 3 templates:

#familyhistory #photography #templates #photobooks #digitalscrapbooking #digiscrap #scrapbooklayout #TheLilypad #projectlife #pocketpages #journalcards