Project 12 February in March

Well, February certainly swooped in and out like a flash, lol.  You wouldn't think 2-3 days off the end of the month would make such an impact but they certainly do.  

I was happy to have an opportunity to use Basic Grey's True Love paper pad for my layout this month. I adore any color palette that includes a shade of teal.  I'm not a huge red person, so this was a great mix for me.  

I had more photos than I thought I would to choose from this month.  Most were taken with my phone. I still made sure to get out my Canon to make sure I had higher quality digital photos in the record books as well.  On Valentines Day I took a photo of my girls holding a cardstock heart with both, to make sure I had images from both places.  

I got a very special note from a very special friend in my class at school this month.  I am so glad I have a great way to preserve it.  It was just a little heart on a folded piece of paper but my heart about split in two and doubled, it touched me so.  It's proof that I'm totally doing the right thing with school.  I get so much out of knowing I'm making a difference.

I had fun creating the printables for this month's layout too.  I used the color palette in the Bits & Pieces Add-on to influence the look of these two pieces.  

As you can see on my layout I always trim a big border around my cards.  I also like to add layers and attach embellishments and stitching to my cards as well.

The quote is a fun one.  As always, I shopped my "Words" board on Pinterest for just the right quote to use.  Of course I was looking for something love related this month, and found this quote by Jack Karouac to be a perfect choice.  

You can download both printables together or individually here:

Calendar and Quote

Calendar

Quote

I am excited to use the March Bits & Pieces Add-on for my next monthly spread.  I like the paper pads a lot.  For March it was Color Me Happy from Glitz Designs.  FUN.  You can check out my layout and Michiko's layout using the March kit on my blog post here.

My friends at SCT are playing along this month with a fun prize which includes Cards Map and a subscription to SCT.  Having these issues in your hands is always a fun treat so it's a good prize!

Thank you for playing along and supporting this challenge!  I am working on getting .png files for my calendar and quote cards, so let me know if that interests you and whether you have any trouble with these items.

Davinie

Project 12 January 2013

Hi!

I'm excited to share my January Project 12 layout with you.  You can also check it out on the Gossamer Blue blog here.

January flew by.  As I've mentioned before I'm currently in my final student teaching placement before I get my teaching and Master's degree.  That means school all day and homework at night and kids in between.  It has been a big undertaking but my family is a house of rock stars so with....  86 days until graduation, the end of the tunnel is near and we are all very excited about that!

I got a new iPhone for Christmas and have been taking a lot more photos now that I have a better camera.  I take all the event photos with my Canon, but the everyday stuff that tells a deeper story of us is usually captured with my phone.

In planning my layout for the month, I started by emailing myself all the photos I wanted to use from my camera roll.  I use a standard Earlybird wash for my photos, and anything I hadn't uploaded to IG was edited and sent.

Tip:  Put your phone on Airplane Mode, edit, and it'll save the photo to your camera roll without flooding the IG gallery.  IG says the upload failed but still saves the photo.  

I print all of my IG photos at 2.5 x 2.5.  I had 8 photos this month.  I laid out my page protectors and then organized my photos from there.  I wanted to be chronological without bunching the photos up.  One of the reasons it takes me so long to get my layouts done is because I'm actually really methodical about how I do things.  I wish I could be more spontaneous but it just isn't in me, lol.  

Once my camera photos were organized I went to my digital files for other photos that told our story.  Morgan's birthday monopolized our month so I had to pick between them.  I took a lot of portrait shots on her birthday so that made a photo easy to choose as I had to pick between the horizontal shots for a 4x6 slot.  I then chose two other photos of my girls that also told our story.  As you can see by their placement on the layout, I'm intentional about those two.  Two words:  visual triangle.  I'm all about having a visual triangle without it being obvious.  

I created a card for my layout "title".  I'm going to have it on the upper left of every layout.

I was then equally intentional about patterned paper placement.  I think I'm going to use this same layout in my page protectors all year.  I chose several prints from my Gossamer Blue January kit leftovers as well as bits from my stash.  I'm all about using up bits from my stash.  I like letting the prints be seen so that future generations will know what design was like "back in the day" and such.  In fact, in one 4x6 slot it's nothing but a piece of Pink Paislee patterned paper.  I love the color palette and the overall design and didn't see a reason to add to it.  Like I said, photos were scarce this month and I didn't want the whole layout to be about Morgan's birthday weekend.  I am planning layouts and mini albums with all of those photos.  

I also had to include kid art.  Payton draws the best dogs.  She told me this was the best dog profile she had ever done so of course I had to include it.

I also have to make a quick note about grief.  We lost our pup Cooper this summer as you know.  The kids seemed to recover quickly unlike their parents.  As time has gone on, however, Cooper has started to come up more and more often.  Grief works in mysterious ways.  They really miss him.  We all do.  I still think I hear him outside sometimes and things happen all the time that remind us of a story with him in it.  That stinker.  

I also included a quote on my layout.  One of my favorite Pinterest boards is my "Words" board, and I want to start including some of the fun quotes I come across.





I know I've used my little chevron arrows a lot but I'm not tired of them yet, lol.  As you can see, they were intentionally placed too.  You can also tell by the colors used in the design that most things were placed with a purpose.

Bonus:

I'm going to be creating digital files every month for my Project 12 layouts, and thought I'd share my work with you!  Each month there will be a month card sized to fit in those 4x6 slots, as well as a quote card.  Right now my plan is for those to fit in a 3x4 space every month.  I always size my digital elements a little smaller, becuase I'm a girl who likes a border as well as a good fit, so I wanted to share that too.  You can download a copy of the printables here.

Have a great day!  Davinie

reCreate - Beachcombing

As promised, I have a tutorial today to reCreate my Beachcombing layout from the Summer of 69 main kit from Studio Calico.

I really loved the color and prints in the main kit so wanted to make a juicy layout about a visit to the beach with my family last summer.

I was inspired by Pinterest, but for the life of me, I can't find the image that inspired this design.  I'm pretty sure it was a pillow or quilt.  I guess I didn't pin it and no amount of searching has pulled it up.  The main idea I wanted to reCreate, though, was the chevron design broken up in sections.

I created a cut file with my Cameo for this layout.  Is it perfect?  nope.  The spacing isn't perfect.  But the effect is exactly as I hoped and I love how the layout turned out.

You can down the chevron background template for free here:

Chevron cut file download

Don't have a Silhouette?  Simply trim squares, cut them on the diagonal to create triangles, and layer them that way.

To reCreate this layout:

1. Choose your layout base, keeping in mind it will allow for an @2 inch border around your layout.  I chose a neutral kraft.

2. Trim the background cut file.  I chose one of the SC prints because I wanted a mix of different colors on this background.

3.  Next choose three different prints for the zig zag/chevron design.  Trim each piece of paper at 3.5 x 9.75 inches wide and determine which sections you want each for each print.

4.  Using the background as a stencil, layer it over each print, and using a pencil, mark on the outside of the pattern.  Once marked, trim this out and you can then layer the patterned paper behind the background image to create the chevron design.

5.  Repeat for each of the other two patterns.  I placed two of the three patterns at the bottom of the background to add weight to the bottom of the layout as my intention was to put a majority of the embellishments at the top.

6.  After completing the background, adhere it to your layout base.  I then used my sewing machine to stitch the sections down.

7.  It is now time to adhere the photo(s) and embellishments.  My photo is adhered with pop dots, as are some of the die cuts.  My title was also attached with pop dots.  I used my Cameo for this as well, utilizing the Pacifico font.

8.  I struggled with placement for my journaling, so traced a CD, trimmed it out, and cut it in half.

9.  A water layout needs to be finished with droplets of somewhere, and that's where the Prima dots came into play.  A note about design:  at least for me, the visual triangle is always something in the back of my mind when it comes to embellishments, design, and balance.  To be used effectively, it is important that the embellishments are used to draw your eye through the design.  In this layout, a bulk of my embellishments are at the top of the layout, and the photo and die cuts on the right side make that side a little heavier than the left.  To balance the layout and also lead the eye through the title, photo, and journaling, my dots were placed strategically.  I drew a visual triangle on the finished layout to show you how I made it work:

You'll notice I also used more than 3 dots, and some of them were a little off.  This was on purpose.  Nothing bugs me more than an "intentional" visual triangle, where exactly three things are placed on the layout, making it obvious.  I think a subtle triangle, perhaps using two of one element and one of something else, or a cluster of one element balanced with two other elements elsewhere, is much more effective.  You'll notice that with my visual triangle, it isn't obvious, but the finished product is pleasing to the eye.  That's why it's a pretty layout, if I do say so myself.  The layout is easy on the eye because of the intentional placement of products that make it more artistically cohesive.  I placed one dot outside my photo to make sure your eye eventually travels through the layout, and I included three dots at the bottom to help add some weight.

I may be full of baloney too, lol.  But I thought to give an insight to my process when designing a layout so you could see why I chose to do what I did with this one.  A layout takes me a long time to create because the process is also important to me and for the most part, everything I do is intentional.  I wish I was someone who could slap together an amazing creation in 1/2 hour but that just isn't me.  :)

And there you have it!

Please let me know if this tutorial was valuable.  I'd love to do more reCreate tutorials but I want to make sure it is something you'd be interested in reading.  :)

Have a great day!  Davinie