FAMILY.....

Hey everyone! Hope you are all having a great week! My creativity has been in overdrive these past few weeks that I am struggling to keep up with blogging, mostly because I have been spending every spare second I have scrapping!! I decided it would be a good idea to have a little break this afternoon and share a layout with you that I created yesterday. I recently came across a sketch challenge blog with a journaling theme, called Once Upon A Sketch. I was very inspired by this months challenge, not just the sketch and journaling theme, but also the design team work. It was truly amazing. I also really loved CSI Color Stories Inspiration case-file 113 so I decided to combine both challenges together. 

Here is the journaling theme and sketch, from Once upon A Sketch:

 

 

And here is case-file 113 from CSI:

 

 

 With the sketch I have rotated it once in an anti-clockwise direction. 

My journaling, or my Testimony, is based on the theme "You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough", from Once Upon A Sketch, which I have combined with all three inspiration words Love, Family (I have used this word for my title), and Memory (I used memories), and the Letter (mine is more of a note) of Appreciation prompts from CSI.

My journaling says: 

"I am so grateful to have you kids in my life, you have given me so many wonderful memories . I wish you kids nothing but a bright future filled with love, laughter, and happiness. Make the most of your lives, you only get one shot at it!! Xoxox"

I chose to use a photo of my cousins children for this layout and to journal about my hopes for their future. I have expressed these hopes for my own child so many times, and sometimes we forget about our hopes for all those other special children in  our life, and much of the time we never tell them. Even though they are my second cousins, our Family is all very close and they call me Aunty Jaki, and I view them as my nieces and nephew. I hope that when they are older, and see this layout, along with others I have scrapped of them, it will be a remind them just how much I loved them and cared for them, and how blessed I was to have them in my life.

For the evidence I have used:

 Camera, typewriter: I have used a camera paper clip on the right side of the photo.

Hearts, Stars: I have used a silver metal heart charm in the small cluster beneath the 'y' in 'Family'.

Birds, owls, butterflies: I have used chipboard butterflies around the page.

Doodling/pen work: Aside from my journaling being handwritten, I have used a black pen to doodle a border on the title.

Beads: The center of the beige flower, above the photo, is made up of lots of little beads glued into a ball shape.

Stripes: The bakers twine is striped as is the grey washi tape at the top and bottom of the layout. 

'Family'

I ran out of white card stock, so I have used the plain white side of some old patterned paper that I didn't particularly like anymore for the background. It has been so long since I used plain white as a starting point for my background, I have always used patterned paper or kraft card, though its been a while since I used that either.

I added color and texture to the background with my fave Prima netting stencil, gesso, modeling paste, and a combination of pink and blue watercolors. These have mixed in some sections to create hints of puple, so I have chosen to use this as an accent color, in the butterflies and title as well.

Some details:

 The title is chipboard from Scrap FX. I painted it white with gesso, then using watercolors I painted the top half blue and the bottom half pink, letting them blend in the middle, creating purple to tie in with the background. I doodled around the edges with a black pen, before randomly scraping gesso on the sides.

 As always lots of layers, below and above my photo. I love these little wood glasses from Bo Bunny, they are so cute!!

Lots of yummy prima goodies, along with some lace, Tim Holtz gears and a mini chipboard butterfly. I brushed some gesso over all my embellishments and papers to tie everything together and to soften in up a bit.

The camera paperclip is from American Crafts. I just love it. It is so much fun to use and a great finishing touch to my page! The chipboard butterflies are from dusty attic and were also treated to a coat of gesso and watercolors.

As you can see here there is lots of great dimension on this page. The arrow was made using some super soft feathers, twine, and a skewer, with a paper arrow on the end. Also finished off with gesso.

I tried to match my blues as closely as i could to the palette, however my background clearly did not turn out quite so vibrant. I really enjoyed these two challenges. It's the first time I have ever thought to do more than one for a single layout, and I couldn't be happier with the final result!! I hope you like this as much as I do!!

That's it from me today. I will be back during the week with more, but right now its time to put my boy to bed!! Hope you all had a wonderful weekend and enjoy the week to come. Thanks for stopping by!! Xoxox!!