Layout of the Week - I Love Your SMILE!

I was so excited to see the challenge handed out by the ladies at the Ella Publishing blog. They were looking for layout submissions with the title, "I Love Your Smile." That was the only criteria, just use that title. I think karma brought me to this gleeful photo of Delaney. For the past couple weeks, I've been designing baby layouts for my next beginning scrapbooking class, so I had a pack of photos of Jake when he was first born right there on the table. When I saw this page call, I flipped through the photos to see if any of them fit the title. And boy, this one jumped right out at me. This is THE happiest I have ever seen Delaney in a picture. It was taken, probably by Dave, just after Jake was born. We gave her this great I'm the Big Sister t-shirt and she was so excited, she put it right on. She was over flowing with joy that her little brother, whom she had waited so long for, was finally here! It brings tears to my eyes to look at it, when I think of how happy she was.

Her reaction to the photo, while I was creating this page, cracks me up! She looked at it and asked if it was taken when Jake was born. I said yes and that she was so happy. Being 8 1/2 now and having her brother be almost 2, she said, "I love him, but I don't know if I'm that happy about him now....he did cry a lot and...you know, mom, he's Jake." So that makes this picture that much more special to me, what a beautiful innocent smile, so excited that her baby brother is finally here. Unbeknownst to this sweet little girl are all the things about babies that aren't so fun, the SCREAMING (you have to know Jake to know I'm NOT kidding), the wet & poopy diapers, the hitting, throwing & destroying, etc. Of course she is still the happiest big sister in the world, when her little guy says her name, "Dee Dee, Dee Dee" or when he walks up to her, tilts his head, puckers his lips, closes his eyes, and cranes his neck toward her just hoping for a kiss.

Those are all reasons that this photo makes me a very happy mom! I hope you all create layouts showing something that makes you happy!

As far as the layout, I used the Cricut to cut the circles, placing my matted photo inside the largest circle to draw attention to it. I placed the title around the circle, also in an effort to draw attention to the photo. I chose journal strips for this page because a journal box might draw attention away from my photo. Inside the strips is my jounaling, "a girl was never so happy to have a little brother." I think that all the elements of this page help draw attention to Delaney's photo. I think it's important for her to have some pages in her album commemorating her brother's birth that show her reaction. He will have tons of blue pages showing all the exciting happenings after he was born and big sister needs a little attention too!

Tips

Try mixing chipboard styles when creating your titles. The mix will give your layouts a whimsical look.

If you aren't happy with the color of your chipboard, so ahead & paint it. Here I painted chipboard with both paint and glitter glue.

Don't be afraid to add other embellishments to your chipboard. Here I added ribbon, rhinestones & stickers to my chipboard shapes.

Supply List

Basic Grey June Bug collection papers
Admiral: used the back side
Park Bench: used the back side
Picket Fence: used the back side

Prizm light & medium pink textured cardstock

Pink Metallic Ribbon

KaiserCraft Basics: Rhinestones - light & dark pink and Rhinestone strips - pink

Creative Cafe pink chipboard shapes

Circle shapes all cut with the Cricut

"I" - Tim Holtz Grungeboard harlequin alphas

"your" - American Crafts THICKERS hat box plain chipboard

"SMILE" - Die Cuts with a View foil chipchatter uppercase - pink

Mrs. Grossman's casual alphabet stickers

American Crafts Memory Marker pen - soft black

Paint
Scrapbook Shades by Li'l Davis Designs - marshmallow

Ranger Adirondack Brights Acrylic Paint Dabber - raspberry

Layout of the Week Bonus - Girlfriends

This week I have two layouts to share with you. Today I'm featuring one of my favorite layouts using the American Crafts Teen collection papers. I created this layout for Delaney, as a way to remember a fun day out with her girlfriends. Some moms & I got together and planned a little surprise for the girls. We took them out for lunch and to see the very first showing of the Hannah Montana movie. The girls were lucky enough to be out of school that Friday and they LOVED getting to see the movie before any of their other friends.

I chose to print this photo in black & white because lunch that day was at Red Robin and their restaurant colors didn't coordinate well with my paper choice. This is one of the reasons I love black & white photos...they go with EVERYTHING!

I love the bold papers of the Teen collection and it was fun to combine them with American Crafts' THICKERS vinyl letters and accents. I framed my photo with Prizm cardstock and added black & white floral papers from LUXE and black rhinestones from Kaisercraft.

I know that I have featured this layout before without the photo. I thought it might be fun to have an extra Layout of the Week this week so I could share the finished product with you.

Enjoy your week!

Layout of the Week - Fall Leaves

These pages commemorate one of Delaney's favorite Fall activities, jumping in the leaf piles. Every year, Dave heads out to blow & rake the leaves in our backyard. He piles them up & puts them into the yard debris bin so they can be hauled away and turned into mulch. And it never fails, Delaney runs out into the yard, yelling for him to wait to put them in the bin until she gets a chance to run & jump into the piles. Of course being a mom who is always thinking of the laundry & stains that will be created by her kids' adventures, I remind her to run upstairs & put on some old clothes so I won't have to spend hours getting the wet leaf & dirt stains out. Then I grab my camera & head outside with her. I sit behind the leaf pile shooting tons of photos, so that I'll be sure to get some great action shots.

For the layout, I had a couple things to take into consideration. First, I was given sample sheets of the Shades of Autumn collection from Reminisce to create a sample for the store and I wanted to use as many of the patterns in my layout as I could manage. Next, I wanted to include as many photos as I could and still have the layout look balanced. Since this was one of my first forays into using many mixed patterns on a layout, I chose a neutral background for them. And then chose to use strips of the patterned papers so everyone could see how they worked together. Strips of paper are one of my favorite simple layout techniques. You can adhere them in a jumble manner, like I did here or place them in horizontal or vertical stripes or perpendicular to each other in the corner of your layout. I placed mine in a jumbled way to echo the way leaves fall into piles with colors and shapes all jumbled together.

With so much going on in my layout, I chose to mat my photos in a mix of neutral fall colors pulled from the patterned Reminisce papers. I used stickers from the Shades of Autumn collection on both pages. For a some extra texture, I added ribbons from American Crafts. And for one last embellishment, I placed four square bronze brads on the floral ribbon on the right page and one under the column of stickers on the left page.

For me, this is a fun layout, with a lot going on! And that's just how I feel about Fall, so many fun things going on to enjoy & photograph! So grab that rain jacket & scarf (some of you probably need ski jackets & snow boots too...) and don't forget your camera!

Tips

When shooting photos of the kids jumping in the leaves, try sitting down & stabilizing your camera by leaning your arm on something steady, like a tree, rock or even just your leg. If your camera has a setting for action, use it, if not, just use your auto setting. Next, focus the camera on the pile of leaves & send the kids running toward you, pressing the shutter when they reach the leaves. Try this a few times and you should end up with some fun photos.

If you're new at mixing patterns on your layouts, choose a few patterns from one collection and find a neutral that is common among the patterns and use it as your background.

Using strips of the patterns on your layout allows you to showcase a few patterns without having them overwhelm the photos on your page.

For an added embellishment, place brads on your ribbons.

Supply List

Shades of Autumn paper collection from Reminisce
dark brown cardstock from Prizm
ribbons from American Crafts
bronze square brads from unknown source