Fatherhood Looks Good

This is my entry for this month's PageMaps blog contest. I love the PageMaps sketches and I've wanted to participate for months. But either I missed the deadline or I couldn't get the sketch to work for me. You can see the original here http://www.pagemaps.com/blog.php. I've changed this around a little bit and of course, I had to fill all of the empty white space. I wish I could leave it be, but it's just not my style and I have a hard time making it work.

The page is about my husband and how until he became a father, I had never been able to capture the true him on film. He waited a very long time for Nico and the gratitude and happiness shows in every picture I take of these two together. It makes my heart happy.

The journaling reads: I’ve just realized that although I have a mountain of photographs of you that I’ve shot over the past decade, not once did I ever capture the true “you”. You were always so guarded and stiff in pictures – it drove me nuts! Since Nicolas was born though, I can see “you” in the pictures. The shy smile, the kindness in your eyes, an aura of calm and happiness. You can see just how happy you are to have a son and fulfill that role of Papa. You waited a decade for him and your gratitude shines. Fatherhood truly looks good on you. xoxo

All of the paper, chipboard frame, title, heart and brown letter stickers are from Basic Grey (Max&Whiskers and Basics). The felt star is from Making Memories and the metal studs are Zva.

Thanks so much for taking a peek! Hope you like the new blog makeover. Many thanks to Kristina at http://blogdesignsbytwohappymama.blogspot.com/ for making my blog happy and colorful. She was wonderful to work with and I highly recommend her.

A Late Entry

This was the April Page Maps Blog sketch contest....

And this is my interpretation of the sketch...

This layout was a day late and a dollar short - actually a mere month late. It was my entry into the contest for April and I just finished it recently. Sometimes I have a hard time following a sketch that I like. Either my favorite photos are the wrong shape or my titles are too big.

This time I was having a really hard time with all of the "white" space that the sketch called for. Although I like the look, I think I'm a 'use the whole page' kinda scrapper at heart. I tweaked it, added more pictures, more patterned paper, more everything and I was finally happy with it. But now, it doesn't really look like the original sketch as much. Sigh. Maybe this is a sign that I can't follow directions - hee!

I drew this sun freehand and cut it out. Then I sewed and sewed and sewed on it and inked it all around with chocolate chip ink. It was the perfect place for my title and added a special little something to the top of the page. It was fun to make and I really want to try this technique out with a really huge shape in the future.

(Supply list: Paper: October Afternoon (brown) and Fancy Pants. Chipboard swirls and brad: Fancy Pants. Gems: Basic Grey. Letter stickers: Basic Grey (brown), Thickers (aqua).

Thanks so much for stopping by. Oh and thank you to Becky Fleck at Page Maps for the great sketch!

This Halloween Sketch

This is my entry to My Mind's Eye Blog Challenge #5. This was the first time I was actually able to use a sketch successfully! I love the idea of sketches, but it's rare that I find a design that works with the size pictures I have or the products I want to use. The only rules were that you had to use 80% My Mind's Eye products and stick somewhat close to the original sketch design. Using MME isn't a problem, since I love almost all of their lines. I added a row of extra small pictures, but I pretty much stuck to the original sketch. This page took me just under ONE HOUR to finish! I think that's the fastest I've ever churned out a page. So a great big thanks to MME for their great products and excellent sketch artist!