Lifestyle Photos

Good afternoon! How is your Thursday going? Its another beautiful day here- we're above 10 degrees again this afternoon. The windows are cracked a bit again today, letting some of that wonderful fresh air into the house to freshen things up again. I love it!! We waited until nearly noon for Kyle to come home--he was gone for a good 16 hours last night! Yikes. He says there's a possibility he could be going out again tonight; if not, he's got a rig move going on tomorrow. In a way, I hope he doesn't have to work until tomorrow. He's going to need the rest. Switching from day to nights to days again is going to wreak havoc on his internal clock. I don't envy him at this time of year at all!

To keep myself busy last night, I created another layout, and the finished product came about by chance. Sort of. I desperately need a new blade for my paper trimmer, but Walmart doesn't carry the replacement blades (yet they carry the paper trimmer, itself. Go figure). Grrr. (On a tangent, its like training pants. They have potty training underwear for the littles, but don't carry the plastic liners that a toddler wears over top of them. S.M.R.T. If you ask me.)

Cutting regular weight patterned paper is taking chance into your own hands- the cut could be crisp and clean, but more likely, its going to be ripped and torn and plain messy looking. Which, it was. So, I decided to roll with it. I broke out a piece of sand paper (which I haven't used in a coons age), and distressed the edges of all the paper in this layout, including the pictures. I was going for a shabby chic sort of look. I don't think I mastered it at all, but I do like the distressed look. Actually, I love the distressed look. I need to do it a little more often. I love the personality and character it adds.

I began with a plain piece of white card stock, and used a tooth brush (of all things) to paint on the background. I like the dry brushing look it lends. I tried the splattering technique first, but haven't quite gotten the hang of it. I scrapped that idea and just painted the old fashioned way (except for the tooth brush part). I cut the squares of patterned paper to the same size as the pictures, which is 2x3--which I find works incredibly well for an 8.5x11 size layout, if you want multiple photos--then embellished them a bit using stickers, a photo corner and what was left of the patterned paper I used behind the white card stock.

Lastly, the numbers of the date didn't match my color scheme (which I pulled inspiration from Pinterest for), so I painted them up, too. I used a small paint brush to add color, then took a dry paint brush and dry stroked them to help some of the color pop through, but not too much. It also adds a bit more texture to the layout, too. IRL it almost looks like wood grain.

The inspiration for my layout came from Pinterest (it originally came from the JBS blog, I do believe), but there was no way I was going to be able to stretch my title work across the top of the page. I split it up- part of it along the top of the spread, and the last half along the bottom of my spread. It helps carry your eye right to the bottom of the layout. I think, though, if I were to tweak it a little more, I'd add some more deep brown accents to my layout, as another way to help draw a persons eye around the page. I can't help but feel the eye gets stuck on the date.

Meh, oh well. Work place hazard :) I'm still in love with my layout!!

I may or may not attempt scrapping again tonight. It all depends on what my husband wants to do and how he feels. If he needs more sleep, I'll be back in here crafting up a storm. But, if he feels lively enough, I'm going to chillax with him, instead. I've missed him these last two days!