Inspiration: Simon Says Stamp Monday (Frame It)
I'm super pleased with this layout I just finished. I hadn't made a pictureless layout in a long time and I also hadn't made any page about the Coronavirus or quarantine yet. As with anything, when it's fresh, you usually don't have the necessary hindsight to journal properly. The idea of this page had been on the back of my mind for a while, and today, it finally fully came to life.
I had wanted to craft yesterday night and for all of my efforts, I could not find a single strand of inspiration to hold on to. In the end, I went through a pile of patterned papers sitting nearby and I pulled some collections that appealed to me, hoping to use them later, as clearly that night it just wasn't happening. One of the collections was #ThinkToRemember from Photoplay. This is not new. I believe it's a few years old already. It's travel-themed. I hadn't gone overboard with this one, I had only selected the three sheets I liked best (including a cut-apart one) and that was it. I was trying to decide whether to make a card or a page, but sending travel-themed cards this year seems unnecessarily cruel, so I went for the page and the whole idea for the full page came together quite easily.
The journaling recalls how 2020 came to a sudden and unexpected halt in March and that we have not been able to venture very far since. I keep thinking it was really lucky that we went to Florida for our Disney World trip when we did in January, otherwise there would not have been any trip this year. The choice of dates was actually motivated by the fact that we wanted to travel before the youngest turned two as we would not have to buy a plane or park ticket for her at that age. We also knew she would enjoy it more if she was a little older, but in the end, the January plans won. We couldn't have known then, but we lucked out. The Florida parks might be reopened now, but with very different parameters. Back in January, we got to enjoy the full original magical experience. (Speaking of which, layouts about the trip should start trickling in - I finally had my pictures printed during a recent promotion on prints.)
In a recent purchase from my local store, I found cool Bazzill polka dot cardstock, so I pulled a red sheet for my base. Because my papers were limited, I looked at the patterned page with all of the bears and was wondering if I could maybe fussy-cut them. Inspiration struck and I decided to frame them in polaroid frames instead so that they would have more weight on the page. I was starting to do all white and them realized it'd be more fun if I added colour as well. I threw in a few cut aparts in there as well and slipped a wide banner behind using the transportation pattern paper. I recycled the piece I had cut at the bottom, turned it around and glued it at top to add the polka dot pattern, topped with a red button. Speaking of recycling, I rummaged through my box of leftover bits and bobs and worked in the flower metal corner and the safety pin into my design. The polaroids were all embellished with a little something - stamps, die-cuts or handwritten messages. The top one reads, #PutTheMapAway and the last one is French for #hiya! I added a bit of doodling around some of the pieces.
Since the title was going to be mostly the date, the numbers needed to be big. I remembered a Grungeboard kit from Tim Holtz purchased over a decade ago. I've used this grungeboard on many projects over the years and it's nowhere near empty. It's a little Mary-Poppins like, I can't believe I can still find every number I'm looking for, including doubles of each here. The numbers were very simply colored using Blueprint Sketch Distress Oxide applied with a blender tool. The blended ink goes on very smoothly and quickly, but it also got everywhere on my fingers afterwards, even after I tried heat setting. The result was a little too even, so I went looking for marking stamps and used Extreme Elements, an old Stampin' Up! favorite from many years ago, in Whisper White Craft ink. One dry, the ink looked more like pale blue than white, but that worked out. I did my word Canceled on black tape with my Dymo labeler, adding one space between each letter, and I glued it at an angle over the numbers. I made sure to add a little cluster under the numbers to ground them, and I pulled a stamp from my fancy Doodlebug washi tape, which I had been dying to use. The colours are not a match, but since the washi is translucent, you can't tell once it's added to the red backdrop. I embellished a bit and I was done.
Supplies
Stamps: Together (Heidi Swapp); Extreme Elements (Stampin' Up!)
Cardstock: Fireball, Cotton Candy (Bazzill);
Cool Caribbean, Blueberry Bushel, Thick Whisper White (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers: #ThinkToRemember (Photoplay)
Ink: Cool Caribbean Classic Ink, Whisper White Craft Ink (Stampin' Up!);
Blueprint Sketch Distress Oxide (Ranger)
Accessories: Selfie Frames Dies (Lawn Fawn); Black Tape, Labeler (Dymo);
So Saffron Baker's Twine, Twinkle Adhesive-Backed Sequins, Faceted Dots,
Share What You Love Artisan Pearls, Designer Elements (Stampin' Up!);
Digits and Punctuation Grungeboard (Tim Holtz for Stampers Anonymous); Blue Sequins (Hero Arts);
Wish You Were Here Washi Tape (Doodlebug Design); Button (Foof-A-La);
Metal Corner (Making Memories)