Love

Inspiration: Lasting Memory Layout challenge #585

I really liked this week's Lasting Memory Layout challenge, with the paper patchwork and stitched frame around the page, so I went looking for two vertical pictures that could work. I found some older pictures of my dad holding his first granddaughter. You can see how pleased he is to be spending time with her, so those are nice pictures to add to the scrapbook album.

In retrospect, I wish those pictures had been changed to black and white before I printed them because I found the purple pyjama to clash with a lot of paper collections I would have liked to use. I went digging and the Dreamer collection from Mintay caught my eye. I love the crackled paint background, so I used it as my base and then I did some maths with a rule of three to figure out how big each paper square was supposed to be to keep similar proportions. For the bottom row, I was able to use some of the cut-apart images and make them a little narrower. I used a few different patterned papers for the other blocks. They were getting a little lost against the busy background, so I inked the edges of each paper with grey ink to make it stand out more, which really helped.

I loved the stitched border with the little heart sprinkled in there. I used two small heart punches and silver glitter paper, then I used my t-ruler to pierce all around the page, and then I looked through my needlepoint floss to find something to match. I have a full DMC collection since I'm a cross stitcher, but I keep leftover floss from kits in my craft room and try to use those colours first when I can so that it gets used up. Here, I tried THREE times with various shades of blue and I was disliking the result enough to go back and undo the stitching and start over. After the third try, I gave up and went to my DMC collection to handpick something that matched better. I'm glad I did, as the blue now stands out enough to show without overpowering the soft colours of the page. It really adds a nice touch to the page.

For embellishing, I remembered I had the Watercolor Floral collection from Prima, which has really close colours, so I pulled out the ephemera and puffy stickers and added a few of those elements to the page. I used the Lacy Hearts Stackables dies and the Outside In Stitched Hearts dies from Lawn Fawn to create a cute heart to layer over the picture, and I added a bird fussy cut out of the patterned paper.

I matted my right picture with plain collage paper to make it stand out and I added the date with stickers over the banner at the top. (Truth be told, I used a date stamp to add the date initially and stamped upside down, so this became a fix to hide my boo-boo.)

For the title, I wanted something simple, so I looked at the title stickers I had and found the word Love in the Happy Hearts foam stickers. I added a little heart epoxy sticker on it for colour. I added pearls, Doo Dadz and epoxy hearts around the page to finish embellishing and added some handwritten journaling on the right bottom cut-apart.

 

 

 

Supplies
Patterned Papers: Dreamer (Mintay)
Cardstock: Silver Glimmer Paper (Stampin' Up!)
Puffy Stickers, Ephemera Pack: Watercolor Floral (Prima Marketing)
Dies: Outside In Stitched Hearts Stackables, Lacy Hearts Stackables (Lawn Fawn)
Accessories: Plain Collage Paper (Tim Holtz for idea-ology); 
Happy Hearts Foam Stickers (Simple Stories); Princess Sparkle Doo Dadz (Buttons Galore & More);
Satin Silver, San Marino, Amethyst and Bluebell Pearls (Studio Katia);
Pale Pink Sequins (Simon Says Stamp); Stampin' Dimensionals, Small Heart Punches (Stampin' Up!);
Puffy Alphabet Banners Stickers (Elle's Studio); Glacier Caves, Cherry Blossom and 
Essentials Black & White Enamel Dots (Altenew); Mini Heart Stickers (Doodlebug Design)

 

Comments

[Deanna]

aawww...this is so precious! I love that distressed woodgrain background paper along with your stitching and embellishments! Thanks so much for your entry at Lasting Memories! :)

[Sandy Ross]

Oh my goodness, this is just lovely! I love everything from the colour scheme, to embellishments, to the adorable photos! Well done! Thanks for playing along with us at Lasting Memories Layout Challenges!

[Maureen Wood]

Cindy adore your layout the background paper is just perfect as is your stitching and that piece of journaling . Love everything about this precious layout. Thanks for joining us at Lasting Memories challenge group